#oh to be 16 again following them on tour when tickets were $30

[thefreakandthehair]

saw fob for the (I’ve lost count of how many times)th time tonight and god, they are just the fucking best.

#i love them sm #oh to be 16 again following them on tour when tickets were $30 #🤘🏻🖤 #lore and more

[kyber-crystal]

Set Up

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader

Words: ~3.3k

Summary: In which the Avengers are relentless in their attempts to get you and Steve together. If this means going great lengths such as sending you off on a mission-disguised romantic getaway to make you realize your feelings for one another, they’ll seize the chance at the very moment it’s presented to them.

Warnings: None. Just tooth-rotting fluff bc I’ve really been needing it ahaha

A/N: Set in an AU 2017 timeline in which they reunite a year after the whole Accords situation so that everyone’s happy :)

"Rogers. Parasite. Stop watching Brooklyn Nine-Nine and get up, you need to get to the meeting room ASAP," Tony stated.

"Says the one who leeches off my granola bar supply," you grumbled as you shot him a death glare. "You've been doing this to me since I was a toddler. A helpless, two-year old against a 16 year-old demon always hungry for everyone's food but his own."

"Still holding the Full House cereal incident against me? Geez, woman, do you ever release your grudges against anyone," he sighed, rolling his eyes. "Now come on, let's go."

Exchanging a confused look with Steve, you stood up and followed Tony down the hallway to the meeting room, where Fury was with the rest of the team, waiting.

"Captain Rogers, Agent Y/N," Fury nodded curtly. "I presume you know what's going on?"

"No, sir."

"I need you two to track down a group of mercenaries in downtown Tokyo. You'll be flown out commercially so you can maintain a low profile. The whole process should take no longer than ten days," he explained as Natasha handed him the printed out flight details. "Further information will be given to you upon arrival."

"If it's just the two of us, then why is everyone here?" you pointed out.

"Barton and Maximoff will be checking in with you regularly; and if backup is necessary, I will fly one of them out to meet you. If you don't have any more questions, this meeting is now dismissed. You'll be departing late tonight so if I were you, I'd get to packing right about now."

...

Soon enough you were all packed and ready to go. Because you were too lazy to reach back into your suitcase and grab a sweatshirt, you took Steve's Dodgers hoodie and slipped it on, along with a pair of your favorite sweatpants.

"See you in ten days, okay?" Natasha pulled you in for a tight hug. "Make sure to keep Rogers company, it's a long flight. This is also the perfect opportunity to grow closer...literally."

"Oh shut up, Nat," you scoffed. "We're not...you know."

"Sure you aren't."

"Tony, why don't you get some good rest for once," you turned to your brother, "alright?"

"As long as you admit you're in love with Capsicle," he whispered into your ear.

"I can't admit what's not true."

"Yeah yeah, I can't understand bullshit."

"Tony."

"Y/N," he mocked. "Anyway. Have a safe trip, don't die, yada yada yada."

"Yeah yeah, got it."

A few more rounds of goodbyes later, you and Steve were in the elevator with your luggage, heading down to where Phil was waiting to drive you to the airport.

Your flight was scheduled to take off at 1:45 in the morning, and it was close to 11 p.m when you arrived.

"Your tickets, please," the lady asked as you were about to board the plane. You took them out from your purse and handed them over to her. "Thank you."

"How long's the flight again?"

"Uh...about 14 hours. Pretty long," you replied, as you walked down the aisles, looking at the overhead letters for your seat. "24A, 24B...there we go. Wait, have you been to Japan before?"

"No, I haven't."

"You're gonna love it. They have the best, I tell you, best ramen, and curry, hands down. When Nat, Wanda, and I went on our girls' vacation last spring we wouldn't stop eating for two days straight. I know we're tracking down cold-blooded killers and all, but, it won't hurt to let loose a little, you know?"

"Yeah, definitely," Steve couldn't help but smile at how happy you looked while speaking. "You gotta be our tour guide. I'm trusting you'll lead us to the best ramen hotspots?"

"Oh yeah, I will."

After putting your things into the overhead bins, you settled into your seats. The armrest between you could be lifted convert the seats into a double bed, you quickly found out.

Shortly after taking off you felt yourself grow rather tired. Noticing your sleepiness, Steve raised the armrest and pressed the button to make the seats recline backwards, your head immediately falling against his broad chest. He smiled again, brushing stray hairs away from your forehead before pulling the blanket over your bodies and falling asleep as well.

Little did either one of you know, you were being sent off to Japan for a completely different reason that had absolutely nothing to deal with tracking down mercenaries.

...

The smell of food wakes you up several hours later. You stretched your arms up and ran a hand through your hair as you sat up, adjusting your neck pillow.

"Hey uh, how long were we out for?" you asked, voice still thick with sleep. Steve was already awake, in the middle of watching a movie on his TV.

"4 hours. You knocked out for 5. It's time for lunch...or dinner?"

You tapped your screen a few times to pull up the map of your flight's route. "Right now it's 7:30 p.m. in Tokyo. We're arriving at 4:45 in the morning, so I'd say dinner."

"You sleep okay?"

"Hm? Yeah," you yawned, rubbing your eyes and adjusting the sleeves of Steve's hoodie. "You make a good pillow."

"No problem," he chuckled. You then turned to the flight attendant, who handed you your meals.

"Fancy," you nodded in approval as you passed Steve's tray over to him. "First class sure has its perks...oh yes, miso soup."

You binged your way through several episodes of Pretty Little Liars, I Love Lucy, and Star Wars: A New Hope together. Afterwards, you purchased Wi-Fi so you could update the team on your status.

CHATROOM - AVENGERS ASSEMBLE

Natasha: Morning, lovebirds. You guys in the air already?

You: Yeah, we're eating dinner right now. What time is it back home?

Tony: 6:45 a.m. Pulled an all-nighter binge-watching The Office.

Bucky: Totally worth losing an entire night's worth of good sleep.

Y/N: But I still don't get why we couldn't take the Quinjet?

Steve: ^

Rhodey: Do we tell them now, or wait until they land in Haneda?

Wanda: I'd say now.

Pietro: NO NO NO MAKE IT A SURPRISE

Steve: ...What's going on?

Tony: There's no mission.

Y/N: Wait, what? Then what are we going to Tokyo for?

Tony: I purchased a romantic ten-day vacation package so that you two will hopefully realize your feelings for each other along the way. Thank me later.

Y/N: SCREW YOU

Tony: Enjoy eating all the ramen you want!

Natasha: We're so good at matchmaking.

Thor: May I suggest a virtual high-five?

Peter: VIRTUAL HIGH-FIVE :))

Thor: :))

Y/N has left the chat.

Steve has left the chat.

Tony: They're gonna thank me when they see the penthouse I bought.

Tony has left the chat.

"Well, guess we're going on vacation. At least there's more opportunities to eating good food," Steve shrugged.

"Yup." You felt your heartbeat pick up speed at the thought of being alone with him, for ten days, in a country that was considered both futuristic and romantic at the same time. "Plenty of time to eat ramen and sushi."

Deep down, he was glad that there wasn't any mission. And so were you.

You took an hour-long catnap before waking up again and playing a few rounds of Uno with him, then stayed up for the rest of the flight. You both knew you'd regret doing so because of the 13-hour time difference between NYC and Tokyo, but you were too excited to care at that moment.

You were dazed and still slightly tired when you disembarked the aircraft, so you didn't have any energy to question how you and Steve ended up with your fingers intertwined. Besides, you liked the way it felt.

At close to 5 in the morning, Haneda International was relatively quiet and not too busy, so immigration didn't take long. You didn't have to worry about being bombarded by fans, aside from the occasional foreign fan recognizing you two and asking for a quick autograph or picture.

Since you wanted to explore the airport a bit before taking the train downtown, you looked around at the various shops.

Being a former spy alongside Natasha before joining the Avengers, you were fluent in multiple languages, including Japanese, Russian, French, Spanish, and German. And despite having developed the habit of always preparing for what was to come, you were completely shocked hearing a perfect Japanese sentence roll out of Steve's mouth as he spoke to the cashier.

You practically swooned at how smooth his voice sounded.

"Kore wa ikuradesu ka?" He gestured to one of the kokeshi dolls on display dressed in a sapphire colored kimono with cherry blossom embroidery. (How much is this?)

"3500 yen," the lady replied, "Hatsubai-chū, 3000. Kōnyū shimasu ka?" (On sale, 3000. Would you like to buy it?)

"Hai, kōnyū shimasu." (Yes, I'd like to buy it.)

"Kanojo no tame ni?" (For her?)

"Hai." (Yes.)

She nodded, and Steve handed over several folded bills from his wallet after she finished bagging the item.

"Arigato, gokigen'yō," he thanked her. (Thank you, have a nice day)

"Anata modesu," she smiled warmly. (You too)

"Holy crap, you didn't tell me you were fluent in Japanese, Rogers," you gaped as you walked out of the store together. "When did you have the time to learn it?"

"Back during the Pearl Harbor bombing, Buck and I were sent off with the 107th to Hawaii. Figured it'd be useful if we learned a few phrases."

"Few?" you raised an eyebrow at him. "What you just did back there, that was not just a few phrases! That was fluency!"

"What can I say, I pick up on language quickly," he grinned, rubbing the back of his neck. He then handed you the bag with the doll inside. "Here, for you."

"You didn't have to—"

"Consider it my thank-you in advance for taking me to a good eatery," Steve explained.

After grabbing a quick breakfast of coffee and pastries, you took the elevator down to the train station.

You let out a sigh as you sat down, the cool air inside the train loosening the tension in your shoulders a bit. A short fifteen minutes later and you were back in one of your favorite cities in the world.

Steve took a picture of you as you were distracted from looking all around at the skyscrapers and people milling around, face lit up by all the bright and colorful signs, sending it to the chat.

Steve: Just arrived downtown. Got out of the airport half an hour ago.

Tony: Honeymooning Avengers, how cute

Sam: That's hot.

Steve: What time is it over there?

Wanda: We just finished eating lunch. You?

Steve: 7. Going to check into the penthouse. Talk to you guys later.

Wanda: Alright.

Sam: Have fun, lovebirdssssss

Steve has left the chat.

"So," he breathed out as he slipped his hand back into yours and you exited the station, "you ready to go check out where we're staying?"

"Yeah, definitely. You wanna take the subway again, or a taxi?"

"Subway. Actually..taxi. You sound nice when you speak in a foreign language."

"That's the only reason why you want to take a taxi?"

"Yeah, obviously," you scoffed. "I mean, why else?"

"Alright, if you insist," the super-soldier laughed.

A few minutes later, you'd called a taxi over and climbed into the backseat, strapping your seatbelts on.

"Ohayögozaimasu," (Good morning) the man greeted. "Ogenkidesuka?" (How are you) "Īdesu, anata wa?" Steve replied. (Good, and you?)

"Watashi mo jōzudesu. Doko ni ikitai?" (I am good, too. Where would you like to go?)

You looked at your phone, reading out the address of Tony's penthouse to the driver.

A few minutes passed in silence before he spoke up again. "Watashia wa anata-tachi o shitte imasu. Anata wa abenjãzudesu," the driver smiled, glancing at you two from the rearview mirror. (I know you two. You're the Avengers)

"Watashitachidesu," he returned his friendly grin. (We are!)

"Tōkyō ni kuru kikkake wa nanidesu ka?" (What made you come to Tokyo?)

"Chōdo kyūka no tame." (Just for vacation.)

"Nokori no taizai o o tanoshimi kudasai," he said as you were getting out of the car after paying. "Sayonara."

"Sayonara," you and Steve responded before closing the car door behind you.

"Wow," your jaw dropped as you took the elevator up, arriving at the top floor. "Tony actually bought...this...place?"

"Apparently," Steve shrugged, "we could come back and forth between here and the compound as often as we wanted."

The penthouse had a nice, dark aesthetic feel to it, with giant panoramic views of the entirety of Tokyo and modern furniture and spots of dimmed white lights in the ceiling to give off a relaxed vibe.

After unloading your things, you sat down at the giant couch together and decided to plan out the rest of your day.

"When CoCo Curry opens at 11, we can go eat there," you explained as you typed up the plan in a new note. "Tony also snagged us tickets to Tokyo Tower at 3 p.m, so we have a few hours to spare after lunch."

"We can explore the gardens,"  he suggested. "I know you love doing that. There's a botanical garden in Shinjuku we can go to."

"Oh, that one! I didn't have the chance to go last time, so that's perfect," you added 'Shinjuku Gardens' to your list.

Soon enough you had your entire day planned out, and were ready to head out once again.

CoCo Curry was a quaint, little restaurant that hit you with a wave of tantalizing scents as soon as you walked through the doors and sat down at the bar-style seating area where you could watch the chefs cook your food.

"Gonichiwa," you greeted the chef standing behind the counter.

"Gonichiwa," he smiled back. He asked for your orders, and since Steve wasn't sure what to get you had two orders of your favorite dish.

Besides another couple sitting a few seats away, the restaurant was empty so you got your food in under ten minutes. The steaming hot plates of curry rice were set in front of you, and you felt your mouth water as you inhaled the rich aroma.

"This is so good," Steve spoke in between bites. "I'm literally in love."

"Told you I knew my stuff."

You eventually finished eating, and after getting into a small argument with Steve over who would pay (He ended up winning). "It's payback for ordering me good eats," he explained.

"You said that when you bought me the kokeshi doll," you pointed out.

"Still."

This time you decided to go by foot instead of taking the taxi, as the gardens were only a half-hour or so walk from where you were.

"Right in the middle of cherry blossom season," you sighed as the sweet smell of cherries drifted through the air. "Perfect timing."

You walked around the entire place, stopping every so often to admire the various colorful plants or look up at the pastel pink cherry blossom trees, gravel crunching underfoot with each step you took.

The mid-April breeze lightly fanned your hair around your shoulders. Birds chirped out a delightful melody, flying around the cornflower-blue sky. It wasn't too hot or too cold, and that was one of the many things you loved about visiting Asia during the springtime; the weather was bearable, compared to New York City's below-freezing temperatures in winter. You vividly remembered visiting the botanical gardens in upstate New York on a school trip once, and from then on you'd grown attached.

In the centre of the garden was a large lake with flowering lily pads and on the other side of the bank stood a quaint little temple, with a wooden bridge across the middle so visitors could cross over and look at the koi below.

"It's beautiful here," Steve commented as you made your way down the sidewalk, "I wish they had places like this back home."

"Yeah it is, isn't it," you breathed out, unable to tear your eyes away from the lovely sights. "I could do this all day."

"Hey, that's my line," he joked. You chuckled quietly, slipping your hand into his. He laced your fingers together in response, and you felt the butterflies flutter around in your stomach again the longer he held on, and those butterflies turned into hummingbirds as you looked up to meet his piercing gaze.

You're not sure how long you stay like that, gazing into each others' eyes, but it's only when a little girl stops and asks to take a picture that you pull away.

"Captain America and Agent Y/N!" Judging by her looks, she seemed like she came from the US as well. "Can I get a picture with you guys?"

"Of course, sweetie," you smiled. You brushed off the weird feeling you got when your skin made contact with Steve's, and gestured for her to come closer.

Steve scooped the girl up into his arms as she held your hand, and the mother snapped a few quick pictures before he let her back down.

"Thank you!" she exclaimed before skipping away.

At 2:20 you decided to leave and head out to the Tokyo Tower early so you would be avoiding any possible long lines. You were up at the observation deck within twenty minutes.

"This is just....wow," you breathed out, in awe of the breathtaking view you got as you stared out the panoramic windows, the reflective walls casting thin rays of light onto your faces.

If you thought the view from your penthouse was nice, this was a hundred times better. You had almost nothing preventing you from being able to see the entire city in all directions. The sun was hanging high in the sky, the skyscrapers piercing the horizon like pins and needles.

Steve couldn't help but let his gaze linger on you, the way your face brightened up at the sight of Tokyo's stunning view, the way you laughed and smiled more than you ever did back home. It was a rare sight, and he wished he could see you in this state more often. Oh, the things he'd do to keep hearing your musical laugh and million-dollar smile.

...

The next day was jam-packed with activities. You took a two hour train ride down south to Osaka, exploring the cup noodles museum, shopping downtown in Dotonbori, and stuffing yourself with delicious pastries along the way. Before you headed back, you decided to stock up on groceries at the local market. 

You fell asleep almost as soon as your head hit the pillow that night, waking up to somehow finding yourself in Steve’s arms. You both woke up at the same time, confused as to how you had gotten yourselves into this position, but were too embarrassed and tired to ask. 

This time, you decided to stay within Tokyo, immersing yourselves in going to as many districts as you could and doing as much as possible. 

After a long day exploring the city, you were rather exhausted. With a cup of freshly brewed matcha in hand, you stayed quiet for a while as you soaked in the scenery, watching the city come alive late at night.

When Steve woke up from his nap a few hours later, he found you standing by the window. Smiling to himself, he got up, approaching you and wrapping his arms around your waist from behind, resting his chin atop your head.

"Hi," you greeted, setting your mug down on the coffee table besides you.

"Hey," he murmured into your ear. You closed your eyes and hummed quietly in response, letting your bodies rock back and forth to the rhythm of your steady heartbeats together.

"Watashi wa, anata o aishiteimasu," (I love you.)

A small smile tugged at the corners of your lips. "Watashi mo anata o aishitemasu, Cap." (I love you too, Cap.)

You stepped away so you could turn around to face him, and he pulled you back towards him and pressed his lips to yours.

He couldn't help but smile into the kiss, pulling you closer against him.

#avengers imagines #steve rogers x reader #avengers x reader #captain america imagine #captain america x reader #avengers fanfiction #steve rogers one shot #captain america one shot #captain america fanfiction #steve rogers fanfiction

[raybansandcoffee]

Adventure of a Lifetime: Chapter Eight

If you haven’t read the first seven chapters you can find them HERE.

*****

A piece of my hair fell from my messy bun into my face. As I reached for it Jeremy’s hand reached up and brushed it out of my face. His hand stopped and his thumb brushed against my cheek. Our eyes connected as I looked up. I could feel the blush creeping into my cheek. It was that intense kind of eye contact that could make you feel like your stomach had temporarily relocated into your throat.

“I love you,” Jeremy said before bending down to kiss me. Our lips connected and a jolt of electricity shot through my body. The kiss ended and I backed away to look up into his eyes again.

“I love you too.” As he pulled me back in for another kiss and started to unbutton my shirt Michael Giacchino's theme from JJ Abram’s Star Trek filled the air at an almost deafening volume. “Where is that coming from?” Jeremy started to get blurry in my vision when the same 30 seconds of the song started to play again at that same unbearably loud volume. I shot straight up in bed. It was my phone ringing and waking me up from a dream.

“Hello,” I answered without looking at my phone to see who was calling.

“Hey Charlie, it’s Jeremy.”

“Hi.” Fuck. He was in my dream. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. “What’s up?”

“I was calling to check and see that you were awake before I headed over.”

“Yeah, I’m up. Come on over.”

“Alright. I’ll be there in a little bit.” With that, I hung up the phone and fell back onto the bed. I pulled my pillow over my head and screamed into it. This was NOT supposed to happen. I was not supposed to be having dreams about my daughter’s best friend’s Dad. I was not supposed to be having sex dreams about Jeremy. I mean I know it wasn’t a sex dream yet but it was totally headed that way if I hadn’t been woken up. One more scream into the pillow and I crawled out of bed. I wandered into the bathroom before mindlessly making my way into the closet. I definitely should not have stayed up as late as I had and should never have drank as much tequila as I did. I pulled on the shorts I wore yesterday, a red lace bralet, and a faded black Pink Floyd t-shirt. The sleeves had been cut off of the shirt and showed a little bit of the lace on the sides and at the neckline. I put my feet in my slip-on red and black checkered Vans then I hurried back into the bathroom and put a little bit of makeup on before going downstairs.

“Good morning,” Savannah said. “How are you feeling?”

“Tired. I sort of feel like I was run over by a truck.”

“Same,” Tony groaned.

“How are you alive and in here already this morning?” I asked.

“I woke up because there is SO much light in my bedroom and I couldn’t fall back asleep. Then I got bored so I came in here to hang out. I thought about waking you up but didn’t want to get my head taken off.”

“If you had you would not be getting Nonna DeLuca’s meatballs.”

“Meatball!” Axel yelled.

“Yup dude. Mama’s makin’ meatballs today. She might need to make coffee first.”

“Did someone say coffee?” I turned to see Jeremy walking in the door. He had a drink caddy from a coffee shop in his hands.

“You are like an angel.” He came over to me and handed me a cup that had my name on it.

“Good morning, Charlie.” He hugged me and I felt him leave a kiss on my cheek.

“Good morning to you, my coffee-delivering hero.”

“Good morning Tony and Savy. Hey Axe-Man.” He proceeded to give a coffee to Savannah and Tony and high-fived Axel. He took the coffee that was meant for him and threw the caddy into the trash in the kitchen. “Where are the girls?” he asked after taking a sip of his coffee.

“They wanted to play with the Barbie Dream House this morning so they are still upstairs. I just checked on them about 10 minutes ago,” Savannah answered.

“Nice. So weren’t you supposed to be cooking?” Jeremy asked as he looked at me.

“I was maybe asleep when you called. The fact that I was capable of making myself look human before you got here should leave you impressed.”

“Oh, it does.” He raised his eyebrows at me before taking another drink of his coffee.

“Okay, you two are in charge of the tiny humans today, I am in charge of the meatballs. Jeremy do you want to be in charge of going with me to the grocery store to buy what I need?”

“Sounds great.”

“We will be right back,” I said before I walked through the first floor towards the garage. Jeremy followed. I grabbed my purse from where I’d dropped it in the butler’s pantry yesterday and opened the door to the garage.

“What’s up there?” I hadn’t taken Jeremy on the tour of the garage half of the house.

“The room my sister usually stays in. There’s a small room off of it that she can use to work when she’s here. Though she’ll probably be evicted from it when my Dad and Mandi come out.”

“Damn, you’ve got toys.”

“These aren’t even the toys. The garage under Tony’s place has some ATVs and stuff. Michael bought every single toy you could imagine wanting out here. There’s even a thing that’s big enough to plow the driveway which is ridiculous because the driveway is heated.”

“Seriously?” I nodded. “So what are these if not toys?”

“Well, the Wrangler is my baby. Most girls in Beverly Hills ask for a cute, zippy little sports car. I asked for something I could go off-roading and into the desert with.” Jeremy started to laugh. “I was still driving it when I turned 35. My Dad convinced me to sell it to him and I bought a new one.”

“Why did your Dad want an almost 20-year-old Jeep?”

“Umm, for me to not be driving it, mainly. It’s still at his house. I think he drives it for fun on occasion. It was also only a 2-door. I would’ve been fucked if I still had it.” I pointed to the Ford F150 Raptor in the other garage stall. “The Raptor was Michael’s toy here. He bought it when they bought the house.”

“So what is that flashy ass Benz I’ve seen you drive in the school pick up all year?”

“That was Sam’s. It was her push present for Axel. She’d really wanted a G Wagon but Michael made her get one with a third row because he wanted to have more babies.” I giggled a little. “When they died everything was left to me. Everything was paid off for the truck and the GLS because Michael refused to have car payments, so I kept both of them. The idea of taking the babies around in a Wrangler had me terrified. I also maybe love having the doors off of it WAY too much to let kids in the back. It’s really, really difficult to get them in and out of the Raptor. I have to do it for both of them, the GLS Ellery can climb in and out of now that she’s in a booster seat.” The doors were currently off of the Wrangler, along with the roof. Something I’d done over the weekend. I walked over to the Wrangler and climbed in. I plugged my iPhone in, picked some music and put my sunglasses on. “Wait? Did you just say all year? You’ve seen me in the school pick up all year? I met you two freaking days ago.”

“Of course I did. My daughter’s best friend had a hot mom who either showed up in a flashy ass Benz or a giant truck. It’s hard to miss you in one of those.”

“Every damn Mom in that parking lot drives some luxury vehicle. Most of them have more than one.”

“Also, you are one of the few parents who didn’t sit in the drive and honk their horn at their kid while they stare at their cell phone. You seem like the kind of Mom that gets involved and cares.”

“I definitely try to be. Deep down I’m the girl that wants to pull the doors and roof off of my Jeep and pick the kid up with classic rock blaring to scare the Moms but alas, I don’t.”

“You probably had way too much fun in a Wrangler when you were younger.” I backed out of the garage, turned and started to head down the driveway.

“Are you fucking kidding me? I still have too much fun in a Wrangler. My friends all got speeding tickets in their Audis and BMWs. I usually got stuck or tried to see how far I could take it before we thought the Jeep would flip. Frankie did the typical thing and got a cute little convertible. She and Mandi tried to convince me I wanted an M3 like they both had. Which of course makes it sound like we were spoiled brats that I could’ve picked a BMW M3 as a 16-year-old. But honestly, that was the life I grew up in. I didn’t know anything other than that life and I didn’t want any of it. Frankie embraced it. She was super popular, cheerleader, varsity athlete. I either had my head in the books or my hands on an instrument. I worked my ass off to get a full-ride scholarship to college so that I didn’t have to accept money from my parents and could do what I wanted and never worry that I wasn’t living up to their expectations with their money over my head.”

“So sexy and smart. You’re the whole fuckin’ package.” I started nervously laughing again.

“I am far from it. I am awkward, a bit neurotic at times, and have been known to talk to myself, like a lot. I am just really good at hiding all of that in this package.” I waived my hands around me while I laughed. “Which by the way is not sexy, just a bit crazy.”

“Oh, it is. Also, a little bit crazy can be fucking sexy.”

“Stop, the flirting isn’t necessary. I’m cooking you dinner tonight without it.”

“Flirting is fun. You just seem a little out of practice. Which is cute. You nervous laugh every time I flirt with you. That’s adorable. You just need to get back into practice.”

“Being out of practice is an understatement. I was in a relationship for 5 and a half years. I haven’t had to actually flirt in so long I don’t even remember what flirting is.”

“You should re-learn how to flirt. It’s fun. You’d like it. I certainly enjoy it.” I glanced over at him and started to laugh.

“You might be the crazy one. I mean you invited me to your house without knowing me. I could’ve been a fucking stalker.”

“If you were a stalker you would’ve been at Ava’s birthday party and not sent your teenage nanny.”

“Probably true.”

“Definitely true. There are Moms that showed up at her birthday party and stayed, even though they didn’t have to and instead of watching their kids tried to flirt with me or just stare at me while I was trying to play with all of the kids.”

“There are some weird Moms. I learned quickly that I did not fit in with the PTA Moms at school.” We continued to talk about the weirdness of parenting by ourselves in this environment on the drive to the grocery store. I pulled into a spot near the door and parked. When we walked inside Jeremy grabbed the cart as I pulled up the list I’d made on my phone while Tony and I were drinking last night. “So do you or Ava have any food allergies? Is there anything she doesn’t like or that you both don’t eat?”

“Nope. We will both eat anything and are really damn lucky to be getting a home-cooked meal like the one you are preparing.”

“You’re both just lucky that I love my brother because this is something he makes me cook often despite it being a pain in the ass. Frankie and I are the only ones other than our Grandma and one of our aunts who can make it. I keep trying to convince Tony that men who can cook are attractive and that he needs to learn.”

“I’ve heard that. I’ve maybe even impressed a woman or two in my life with my skills in the kitchen. You should come over for dinner soon. Ava is obsessed with tacos so it’s always Taco Tuesday at our house.”

“I love a good taco. I miss living in LA. There were so many awesome restaurants or trucks. There was a truck that was always outside of our studio and I think I ate at it every single day.”

“Maybe you’ll have to show me where your studio is some time.”

“I miss it, it doesn’t exist anymore though. When I sold it so I could move here the company that bought it gutted everything and it became a doctor’s office. I’ve got a friend with studio space in Santa Monica that I know I can just show up and he’ll let me have space to work.”

“A fellow composer?”

“Yes and no. He does some composing for film and TV but he’s also in a couple of bands, he’s done some producing of stuff. He grew up around music and honestly some of the world’s greatest musicians so he does a little bit of everything. And his space is amazing and close to my Dad’s place so I’ve been known to just wander in, find one of his guitars and start goofing around.”

“That’s nice to still have there. I have a studio in my house in LA and here. Not nearly as nice as yours but it’s a new project. I’m working on making it better. Your expert help might be needed.”

“I just might be able to provide some help and contacts for you. I work with a lot of great companies that gave me some great shit when I set mine up.”

“That would be awesome. I’ll have to let you check the stuff out and tell me what you think I need.”

“I sort of geek out about the tech stuff so I’m just warning you now.” I grabbed several bags of lemons from the produce section.

“Lemons for spaghetti and meatballs?” He raised an eyebrow because the idea of lemons being used in spaghetti and meatballs would be unconventional.

“Dessert.”

“Oh. You’re baking too?”

“I am. Lemon pie. Tony didn’t ask for it but he’ll be really excited to have it. I also am almost out of the batch of homemade limoncello that I always have around. So I need to make more since it takes what feels like forever to be ready.”

“You make homemade limoncello?”

“I do. I’m Italian. This is a thing we do, at least in my family. I learned how to make it when I was a teenager. And with my family being here soon I need to have more than what I have in the house right now because I’m down to my last bottle. I’ve baked with it recently so I ran through the last batch faster than I normally do.”

“That’s sort of awesome. I’m going to have to watch you make this too. I’m intrigued by everything that you are doing today. It’s like the adorable little Italian housewife. Only this one is in a Pink Floyd t-shirt.”

“Oh, I can pull out the stops and become the little Italian housewife. I spent several summers perfecting it when I was younger and still question why I ever came home. It’s even better when I have dark hair because I fit the stereotype.”

“You lived in Italy?”

“My family has a villa on the Amalfi Coast. I spent at least a month of every summer growing up there with my Dad. Then I lived there the entire summer before I started college. My ex was a writer so traveling was easy for us. We stayed there for a month and a half several years ago while he worked on a novel. I haven’t been in way too long, my last trip was like 18 months ago. I miss it. It’s my favorite place in the world. Lounging in the pool. Wandering through town on a Vespa. Waking up with views of the sea out my window. Afternoon naps in a hammock with the breeze and smells and now I miss Italy. The obsession with lemons is because I’d get to pick fresh lemons from our little lemon orchard. I baked. I made limoncello. Homemade lemonade. Lemon everything. We are planning a trip as a family at the end of the summer so the kids can go for their first time.”

“That will be nice. Really, every summer as a kid? So do you speak Italian?”

“I do. I don’t speak it often enough because basically, only my family speaks it. I tried to teach Savannah when she was a kid. She’s been with me several times since she was little. Eventually, I’ll try to teach the kids. I considered only speaking to Axel in Italian when he was a baby hoping he’d grow up bilingual but it weirded out Elle so I stopped doing it. Someday I’ll teach them both, growing up bilingual was fun. Frankie and I essentially spoke in code around friends, women that Dad dated before Mandi, and some of our cousins who never learned.”

“That would be fun.”

“Oh it is, we still do it because Ryan has no idea what we are saying and neither do any of the kids.” He laughed at that. It was really funny to watch Ryan’s face contort as we started to speak in Italian. We could talk about him and he had no idea what we said. We wandered through the grocery store and I watched as he threw junk food in the cart. The last stop was the wine aisle before we headed to check out. I used my expert blocking skills when he tried to pay for the groceries.

“You know you could’ve let me pay. You are doing all the hard work,” he said as we walked to the car.

“I could have. But I also didn’t have to. I find it hilarious that you doubted my skills when it came to blocking in there. I am the middle child. I grew up playing defense.” He helped me load the groceries into the back of my Wrangler and we climbed in to head back to my house.

“So when does your family get here?”

“Two weeks and they will be here for four or five days. By the time it’s over I’m going to need a vacation from the vacation of them being here.” Jeremy laughed. “Frankie wanted to plan every moment of it so that I didn’t have time to think about the horrible thing we are together to memorialize but I tried to convince her we didn’t need to do that. I just want everyone here. I’m sure that with the number of kids that will be here that not having a pool will become a pain in the ass. These are California kids. There’s only so much they are willing to do that doesn’t involve water in the summer.”

“You can borrow my pool.”

“I’ll figure something out. There are some resorts around here.”

“Seriously, you can borrow my pool,” he said again. We stopped at a stoplight and I turned to look at him and smiled. “I like you. It’s going to be a rough weekend for you. If I can help make it easier by giving the kids something to do that keeps them busy and gives you a chance to breathe, then I want to help. Plus I love kids. The more my house is filled with the better.”

“You are way too kind. For real. You’re the nicest person I’ve met since I moved here.”

“I could probably say the same about you. I mean I’ve lived here longer but you’re still the best person I’ve met here. While the circumstances that brought you here suck and while I am so sorry that you had to go through that, I’m glad I met you. Extremely glad.” I felt the blush creep into my cheeks. I turned my eyes away from him and to the lights just as they turned green. The rest of the drive home was fairly quiet, I didn’t really know how to reply to that. I mean, I felt the same way but knowing someone for two days and admitting that they are the best thing the last year has brought you seemed psychotic. It didn’t seem possible. It didn’t seem logical or practical or anything. It seemed crazy. Which I guess fit the theme. The last year of my life had been completely crazy and unpredictable and unstable. It had been an adventure that while I would give everything to have Sam back, I was doing my best to start enjoying it. To embrace this role and life I’d had thrust upon me in an instant. To do everything I could to live the way Sam would want me to and not just sit and cry about her not being here anymore. She’d be absolutely irate with me that I stopped living when she died.

I pulled the Jeep into the driveway and parked in the garage before Jeremy and I started to unload the groceries. He sat at the island talking to Tony, who was making more coffee, while I put the groceries away. I started to pull together the ingredients and spices I would need for the sauce and meatballs and put them on a tray before taking them out of the pantry taking them into the main part of the kitchen. I grabbed the biggest pot I had.

“You bought a grove’s worth of lemons today,” Tony said.

“I did. I’m down to one full bottle and one partial bottle of limoncello. I need to make a batch before the family gets here.”

“There’s enough for at least two batches here.”

“I’m baking you a pie too.” Tony walked over to me and engulfed me in a hug. He stood there squeezing me as tightly as possible.

“You are the best sister ever. Just don’t tell Frankie I said that.”

“Never. She also would totally agree with you if I baked her a pie.”

“She would,” Tony replied laughing. “You are the best of us, I’ll easily admit that.”

“You’re such a good ego boost to have around here.” I hugged him tightly again before bumping him away with my hip so I could get started. “Alexa,” I said and watched the device that sat on the counter light up at the sound of my voice. “Turn on my cooking playlist.”

“Now playing Charlie’s Cooking Playlist on Amazon Music,” the device replied as music started to fill the kitchen. I grabbed myself another coffee and got started on the food. Eventually, Savannah went upstairs to put Axel down for a nap and play with the girls. Once the meatballs were in the pot, the lemon pie was out of the oven and in the refrigerator to cool, and the batch of limoncello was in the pantry to start its long process, Tony and Jeremy followed me downstairs to the studio. Savannah had promised to stir the sauce so I could have grown up adult time for a while.

“Okay, I need to know the guitar hiding spots,” Jeremy said. Tony’s eyes lit up. Even he didn’t know all of them so having a partner-in-crime when trying to locate the hiding spots made him happy.

“I did find my favorite guitars of hers last night. She even let me play Lucy,” Tony said.

“I need to meet this Lucy,” Jeremy replied. I walked over to a set of doors that had a keypad on them to lock the doors. I entered the code and opened the door. Inside were several guitar cases placed like books. My hand gripped the handle of the familiar case and I took it out, making sure that I did so carefully and that none of the other guitars inside tipped over. Tony and Jeremy were sitting on the couch I had in the studio, I placed the case on the table and turned it to face Jeremy. He slowly opened the case revealing, Lucy. “She’s beautiful.”

“She plays like a fucking dream,” Tony said.

“Clapton’s review was basically that he couldn’t tell the difference between this and the original. If I had to pick a favorite guitar that I own, it would be this.”

“Despite the fact that if you listen to anything she records she uses her Strats on basically everything.” Tony loved to pick on me explaining it like my Fender was my steady relationship, the loving husband that would go nowhere. The Gibson was the person I cheated on and made sweet love to but kept that hidden. It maybe helped that Fender had always been extremely good to me working to build guitars just the way I wanted them to be and continued to let me fiddle and change things until I had a perfect guitar. I’d only ever bought Gibson in a guitar shop or online. I’d never worked closely with anyone at Gibson the way I had with Fender since I was fairly new in the game.

“A Strat is my workhorse. That guitar has honestly never done much then get shown to people and played a handful of times so that I can feel like I’m Eric Clapton being taken into Abbey Road to record with The Beatles. You know, when I’m living out my little fantasy in my mind.” Jeremy strummed the strings lightly as sound quietly rang from them. “Here let me show you how great she sounds.” He handed the guitar to me and I walked over to my amp set up and plugged it in before turning the amp on. Tony smiled knowing what I was doing. He stood from the couch clearing the coffee table and hurrying to the piano. He expertly played McCartney’s opening piano part before I came in on guitar.

We’d learned to play together when we were young and at one point he’d tried to convince me we were starting a band together. I almost considered it but instead convinced him that getting into Stanford was a good thing and he didn’t need to run away from all responsibility. I’d tried the same thing. I nearly didn’t get on the plane in Italy to come back to the states to start my freshman year. By that time I’d already met Sam who threatened me within an inch of my life if I didn’t get on that plane to be her roommate. Tony and I were kindred spirits, which I think terrified our parents just a little. We could read each others mind, finish each others sentences, and in a moment like this with a guitar in my hands and my brother’s hands on the piano keys I could zone out and forget everything going on in the world. I easily played through the lead guitar part of ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ as if it was the thing I did best in the world and in this moment, it almost was.

“That was fucking beautiful. Is that your favorite song?” Jeremy asked.

“I can’t pick a favorite song. It’s a fun solo to play. I mean essentially anything from Clapton is fun to play. One of my main work horses is based off of his guitar, Blackie. I’ve made very few adjustments to it. The other is based off of David Gilmour’s Black Strat.” I watched Tony walk over to the glass door and open it, letting in my two tuxedo cats, both black and white, one slightly chubbier than the other.

“Hi boys.” I bent down to pet each of them as they meowed their greeting at me.

“I didn’t realize animals lived here,” Jeremy said as the larger of the two jumped onto the couch beside where Tony had sat with one of my guitars that he’d grabbed from a rack as I packed up Lucy. I placed her back into the special closet before grabbing one of my main Strats and plugging it in.

“She has two cats. This is Harrison and that,” Tony gestured to the skinnier cat who was now sitting in the chair that was at my computer. “That is Clapton.”

“What not Lennon and McCartney?” Jeremy asked. “I mean they are after all the dream duo right?”

“Nah,” I answered. “Clapton and Harrison for sure. They made beautiful music together and hell what more of a dream duo can you have. They even shared a wife. Ellie had two fish named Lennon and McCartney. It wasn’t pretty. Her Dad didn’t realize that beta fish should be alone.” Laughter filled the room. “So that’s a traumatic experience for her. I adopted Clapton and Harrison 8 years ago from a rescue that I volunteered for.”

“Trust me, when she named them one of her friends told her she was crazy.”

“Only because he suddenly didn’t know if I was talking to him or the cat.” Jeremy’s face looked confused. “My friend with the studio in Santa Barbara.” Jeremy nodded recalling our prior conversation. “It’s Dhani Harrison, George Harrison’s son. So my cat is sort of named after him which he found weird at first and then it became this ongoing joke that every time he was at my condo he took selfies with the cat. He actually asks to talk to the cat when we FaceTime when I’m on the struggle bus with a song. I do still need to round out the crew. I want a Hendrix, Petty, Dylan, and Gilmour.”

“Gilmour needs to be a dog. Dogs of war and men of hate. With no cause, we don’t discriminate. Discovery is to be disowned. Our currency is flesh and bone,” Tony sang the Pink Floyd lyrics that rounded out his theory.

“Your niece wants a dog so that might happen. Though she’s not so sure how she feels about Gilmour as a name. She keeps trying to call Harrison, Harry which I sort of let slide. She tried calling him Dhani and then George which has kind of won. Poor dude is confused. Clap on the other hand is a no, so she calls him Eric. Which is almost too hilarious to listen to a kid as small as her have conversations with cats who have such basic human names.”

“She’s my favorite human.” Tony really did love her. Him being here was going to be a good thing.

“She is pretty much the best. She’s young and already has her mother’s sense of humor. Teenage Ellery will be the death of me.” Jeremy started to search through the cabinets and drawers looking at my guitars. I kicked Clapton out of my chair and sat down at my computer. “T, I need you to hear what I’ve been writing this week. I feel like I’m stuck on something that you can help me figure out.”

“What is the score for?” he asked as he stood up and walked towards me. He knew that I was often going the extra step when working of splicing the video and the music together so I could watch the scene with the music in the places I thought the production team would use it.

“That Netflix series. I sent it to Dhani the other night but I’m fairly certain he spent yesterday on planes to get home to spend some time back in England. So he’s been useless at helping me.” Tony, being the weirdo that he is, sat down on my lap to see the screen. I watched him hit play and take in the way I’d put it together. “I feel like the piano needs to be….more sweeping or something.”

“You’re too critical of yourself. It sounds phenomenal together. I get what you’re saying but I think the more subtle sound works well with the scene. I mean I don’t know what’s happening in it completely but it works.”

“I didn’t catch the scene but the music sounds great,” Jeremy said. I watched as he sat back down on the couch with one of my acoustic guitars and started to strum it. “So what else is in with Lucy? I mean I assume it’s your favorites because it’s locked and fireproof, right?”

“It is. How did you guess?”

“Most people aren’t going to leave a $15,000 guitar just laying around the house,” he replied.

“Umm, a couple of special ones from friends. One that my Dad gave me when I got my masters degree. It’s signed by my professors, family, and close friends. It was the guest book at the party he threw for my graduation. I have a couple of other special edition guitars in there too. All of the ones that are are essentially irreplaceable. I also have Sam’s favorite guitars in there so they are safe for the kids.”

“Did you keep all of her instruments?” Jeremy asked.

“I did. There’s a fireproof safe not in here that has most of them. I won’t use them for daily use type stuff but the kids might want them some day. Michael’s drum kit is in there as well. The only instrument of their’s not in the safe is the baby grand upstairs.”

“That’s good of you to keep that stuff for them. They will cherish it someday.”

“I hope so. Piano lessons with Ellery are tough.”

“She’s not you or your kid,” Tony said. “You at 5 loved it.” He glanced to Jeremy. “I’m well aware that I wasn’t alive when she was 5 but you should hear our father go on and on and on about her. The prodigy. The savant. The child star. One of us runs an incredible non-profit that is helping women achieve equality around the world all while getting her law degree and having three kids because she’s a fucking overachiever, the other of us got a full-ride scholarship to multiple Ivy League schools, including both Harvard and Yale, as well as Stanford and then proceeded to graduate with honors and two degrees. You wouldn’t even have a clue about that. The only one he brags about is her.”

“I am 100% Dad’s favorite,” I admitted. “There’s no question about it. It’s basically because I let him come with me to premieres and award shows. Plus I will tolerate his desire to play music with me. You won’t and Frankie can’t.”

“He likes to sit around and pretend he’s Bob Dylan, not like just play the song but impersonate him. Raybans, weird hats, and all. He’s a strange dude sometimes. He used to do that when I had my friends over thinking it made him the ‘cool dad’ instead of the suit wearing, lawyer Dad. It was just weird.” Tony was laughing as he spoke. He had the exact same laugh that I did which was also our Dad’s laugh.

“These days when he does that he’ll even sit on the deck by the pool and smoke some pot too. Unlike me, Dad didn’t have the benefit to choose whatever he wanted to be when he grew up. He had to be a lawyer. If you ask him now, he still says he wants to be Bob Dylan when he grows up.”

“That’s great. It’s also awesome that your family gets along that well. That you can all sit around and play together.”

“Most of us can,” Tony said.

“Frankie is helpless when it comes to music. Could never learn to read music, couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. I tried really, really hard to teach her stuff and she’s just helpless. Which is funny because her husband can play guitar and piano, it’s part of what won her over.”

“Is your mother also a musician?” Jeremy asked.

“Not really. I mean she can sing but she never really cared to do it. Her art was photography. Everything from music photography, which is probably her biggest love, to photojournalism that took her to warzones, developing nations, major national and world events. She’s an incredible photographer and I’m glad that she was able to pursue it the way she wanted to.” I truly was. Despite the occasional abandonment issues that still crept up in my life from being barely a teenager and having my mother pack up our house, drop us off at my Dad’s and hop a flight to London because she was hired to be a UK based photojournalist for the Associated Press. These days she no longer worked full-time. She’d ended up back in the US for a while, decided she needed a home base and picked one so close to my sister that the distance between them wasn’t even as big as the property my house was on. She wanted to be close to us again, which was great. She’d embraced the role of grandma or Nonni as she preferred to be called. She was still traveling, still taking photos but these days they were seen more in fancy art galleries than on the cover of a newspaper. She loved love in a way few people I knew did. She was always either in a relationship or waiting for the next great love of her life. I envied the way she so openly gave her heart to people, an ability that I didn’t have because of how often my heart had been stuck in a blender by the people I’d chosen to give it to.

“Is that her work?” Jeremy gestured to the walls of the studio where there were several photos that were fairly large and framed around the room. Most were artsy shots, all of me or a few of Sam that I had put up on the walls, all with an instrument or something music related like a record or sheet music. Some of my favorites were of me in the midst of playing without even noticing she’d taken the photo. My signature checkered Vans on my pedal board with an electric guitar in my hand. My hands on the keys of a piano. The silhouette of me and my guitar in front of a sunset. Sam goofing around on Michael’s drum kit. Sam in a record store hiding behind a Fleetwood Mac record. The two of us sitting on the beach playing ukuleles on this old blanket my Mom had that she always kept in the back of her car when I was a kid, just in case we needed a picnic. There were so many more, it just felt weird to surround myself with photos of me. I put them up because for some reason it made me feel a little different about my relationship with my Mom. She showed her love through her art. Over the years she’d taught me what she could. I was a decent photographer, basically meant I had a really artsy instagram and some great photos of my friends and kids.

“They are beautiful photos. Personal favorite is the black and white of you in the leather jacket. ‘The Rebel Girl Within Me Will Never Die’ I love it.”

“Thanks. That’s from my last visit trip with my Mom to London. We were walking through the city at night after she’d taken me to some club she loved hanging out at when she lived there. That trip was only a couple of weeks before Axel was born. The rebel girl is still in me somewhere but she doesn’t do much anymore.” Both Tony and Jeremy laugh at that.

We continued to goof off on guitars, pianos, drums, and everything else we could get our hands on in my studio which was a lot. Hell, I had enough kazoos in the studio that we could have an entire kazoo orchestra if we wanted to. Within a few hours, we sounded like we could play a local dive bar on a Friday night and not sound horribly. It was nice to play music again and not alone. To have an excuse to go nuts on a guitar and relax into a solo instead of focusing on music for a scene. It made me miss being in college and being surrounded by other music students who were always down for a jam session. Or living in LA when I could wander into Dhani’s studio on a Tuesday and play. A guitar in my hands was a form of therapy for me and the project I was working on was very heavily piano. I felt the best I had in weeks.

We eventually emerged from the dungeon that was my studio to cook some pasta and have dinner. It was the perfect end to a great day. We had three kids covered in marinara sauce and four adults full enough that multiple asked to be wheeled to bed. Tony volunteered to clean Axel up and get him changed into his pajamas while Savannah went to Ellery’s room with the girls to get everything of Ava’s packed up. I went outside onto the front porch with Jeremy. Within a few seconds, he lit a cigarette and started to walk down the stairs, over the bridge that ran over the creek that went through the property and towards the driveway.

“Today was great. You are almost as great of a cook as you are a guitar player.” I laughed. “Okay you’re probably tied in both but honestly, you’re an incredible musician. I guess I imagined a composer for film and television scores to be different.”

“Different how?” I asked as I reached for the cigarette in his hand, stole it and took a drag.

“I didn’t imagine that a composer could play a guitar and sound like they’d been sprinkled with magic fairy dust by the greatest guitar gods.”

“I wish I was sprinkled by magic fairy dust. Wait, I was. Last week. Ellie threw glitter at me and told me to think happy thoughts and I’d be able to fly.” I took another drag of the cigarette before handing it back to Jeremy.

“I didn’t realize you smoked,” he said.

“I don’t and I didn’t realize you did either.” He laughed at me. “I quit smoking a really long time ago. Okay, I quit smoking cigarettes a long time ago. I’ve snuck a few cigarettes over the last year and there’s maybe been a time or two when I shut off the ‘Mom Brain’ I’ve developed let Savannah take care of the babies and sat in my bathtub and smoked some pot. Stress is a bitch.”

“Yeah, it is. You truly are amazing,” he said. He handed the cigarette back to me, his fingers brushing lightly against mine. It was like an electric shock went through my body. I looked up and into his eyes as I took a drag off of the cigarette. When he smiled it showed in his eyes, which were already beautiful enough that I had lost track of what was happening looking at them a few times today. “Today was great. Thank you for having Ava here last night, letting me play with all of your instruments today, and making the most amazing dinner. I’m going to dream of meatballs tonight.”

Well, at least it’s not like last night when I dreamt about you.

I’d never been so glad that I resisted the third glass of wine so that I could retain that thought inside my head instead of blurting it out loud. A strand of my hair fell from my messy bun and into my face. He reached up and tucked it behind my ear before his thumb brushed against my cheek. I was fairly certain every single millimeter of my skin was instantly covered in goosebumps. And almost exactly like the dream I had last night, my stomach had made its way to my throat.

“I’m glad you liked it. And thank you for today, too.”

“No need to thank me. All I did was play your guitars, eat your food, and drink your wine.”

“I haven’t had this much life in this house in a long time. There’s often people here but the energy today was so happy and full of everything I’ve missed for the last year. I haven’t been able to play with other musicians in nearly a year. I haven’t clicked with another musician like this since Sam. You helped me feel alive today and not like the walls were closing in. There’s honestly not enough thanks in the world for allowing me to feel that way. To get lost in a guitar riff and just have fun rather than feeling like there’s a gun pointed at my head to write music. Today was the best day I’ve had in a long time.”

“I’m glad I could help with that. Honestly, I’m happy to hang out and play music with you whenever. In fact, I’m happy to just hang out with you whenever.” I felt the blush creep into my cheeks and was so glad it was dark outside. “We should do dinner this week.”

“That would be nice. I’m sure I could whip something up for all of us again.”

“No, not everyone. Just us for dinner. You and me. Like I pick you up and take you out for dinner and a couple of drinks one night this week.”

“That might be nice.” My brain was arguing with itself at that answer. Going to dinner with just him. Possibly having an adult I could spend time with. A chance to be the 36-year-old single woman that I truly am and not the Makeshift Mother I became a year ago in an instant. The idea of maybe at some point going on a date and hopefully, it was before Axel turned 18 and abandoned me for college. The other side of my brain was reminding me that I was a Makeshift Mother. I needed to put these kids first. I needed to not worry about my love life, or more accurately my lack of a love life. I didn’t need to think about the way his laugh sounded and his smile looked. More than anything in this world I needed a friend who understood what I was going through that was physically here, not just someone to call in when they could.

In truth, I deserved a night out and if the only thing that came of it was another friend I was all for it. If at some point in the future of my life there was someone of importance that fulfilled a romantic need in my life that would be great. But I needed to have a life to get there. I needed to let myself move on and allow myself to feel and live. I had essentially allowed myself to stop living when I lost Sam and Michael. It was the worst thing I could’ve done. The thing she would’ve been angriest at me for. I was doing absolutely everything I could for her kids but not for myself and it would’ve made her incredibly disappointing. It was time to live again, for her, for the babies, and most importantly for me.

“Actually, I would really like that.”

****** AUTHOR'S NOTE *****

First things first, I am so sorry this update took so long. I have a few chronic health conditions that flared up recently. After a 10 day course of antibiotics and a lot of rest, I am back on the mend and was able to finish this.

It's my longest chapter to date for this book coming in at 8,002 words. The last thing I wrote my chapters somehow all ended up at 12,000 words which is really difficult to keep up with and made updates have longer gaps between them, so I hope I figure out how to not be so long-winded in chapters.

Now about the chapter. Reading back through it there is a lot that happens even though it's only in the span of a day. Charlie's subconscious is starting to tell her that there is something special about Jeremy. That dream *WOO* what could have happened if that phone call didn't happen.

I want to make Charlie seem relatable even though she's probably the furthest thing from me ever. I base my characters in reality and often have a few things in common with them. One of the things we have in common is that we are Italian, though she's full-blooded and Ancestry's DNA test crushed my soul reminding me I'm only 24% Italian. Her parents are divorced, Dad's remarried and Mom is an artist. My parents divorced when I was 7, Dad remarried when I was 10, I have a brother named Tony but he's older and not a half brother (it's a common Italian name so I ran with it - it's also my grandfather's name). Oh and my mother is an artist, though she prefers acrylic paints at this stage of life, when she was an art student she studied photography and has a brilliant eye, she just hasn't figured out how to work my DSLR. I also have a cat named George who is named after George Harrison, my house has 3 cats and a dog, all rescues because rescued is my favorite breed. I have a red Squire Stratocaster (Fender is out of my price range) but I haven't been able to play it since I was 21 when I took lessons in college), I have my grandma's old out of tune piano, and a keyboard that the only song I can play on it is the theme from The Godfather. I sing along with every song on the radio because my brain uselessly stores song lyrics but I haven't attempted to sing in any formal way in almost 20 years when I was done with high school choir.

Charlie, however, grew up with a privileged life I didn't know. My Dad was a teacher at a community college and my mother worked in the events industry in everything from a massive arena to higher education in the years of my life that she worked. Until I started school she worked from home so I was lucky to never experience daycare or nannies because I had my Mom around. My first car was a Pontiac Grand Am, not a Jeep though I tried really hard to convince my Dad I NEEDED a Jeep, he didn't buy it. But he did eventually buy one or two for himself and refuse to let me drive them.

While Charlie grew up with everything that money could buy her life was far from perfect and she worked hard to earn her piece of the pie. She didn't want a handout though I'm sure somewhere there is a nice trust fund in case she ever did try to run away to Italy. She struggled to embrace the status in a way that the rest of her family didn't. She wanted to have a say in her life so she didn't live like her Dad always dreaming of being Bob Dylan, she gets to be whatever she wants. I also realize that making her friends with a Beatles' kid is a bit weird but Dhani Harrison is actually an incredible musician who is also a composer. I wanted her to have a contemporary that she could still rely on for advice in her career that also allowed her to have fun and act like a kid. I love Dhani almost as much as I love his Dad so he seemed like a fun fit for me though perhaps random for the story context.

I don't have kids and will not be having them, there are multiple reasons that play into that most being health-related and also the fact that being an aunt is the only title I want for a kid. I am actually SUPER open about it so if you're curious, ask. I don't hide it even though society judges me a lot for it. So I can understand a bit of Charlie's internal struggle that she's a Makeshift Mom and doesn't feel like a real Mom especially when you add that children were never in her plan for life. She had struggles with her own Mom when she was younger that would honestly make anyone leery about taking on that role themselves. And then she was thrown this curveball and she's stopped allowing herself to be herself really. She thinks she needs to fit the mold of Mom and she is starting to rediscover herself as the year anniversary of Sam and Michael's death approaches. Being willing to open herself up to people and maybe *hopefully* open her heart to someone at some point.

I really hope you enjoyed this chapter. I'd LOVE to hear from you. Feel free to comment, message me, whatever. I'm an open book, love feedback, and just meeting new people. Thank you so much for reading this. It means the world to me.

Now it's time to turn on some music (currently it's Eric Clapton Essentials on Apple Music because the chapter inspired me), wind down for the day (I was up at 7 AM to pre-order my new iPhone - I work for myself so 7 AM is not a time I see often), and probably start working on the idea for the next chapter. I have two ideas I can't decide between. Hmmmm, Wonderful Tonight just came on. That might help lead me a direction. ;)

xx. Annie

#jeremy renner #jeremy renner fanfic #jeremy renner fan fic #jeremy renner fanfiction #jeremy renner fan fiction #fanfiction #fan fiction #fanfic #fan fic #oc fanfic #oc fanfiction #oc fanfic writer #oc fan fiction #oc fan fic #marvel #mcu

[bythewoodsitgrows]

would u do the whole "unique" questions ask game 👀👀 if not just 1-6 :)

i Love answering questions, so ofc i will answer all of them ghfjshdjkgd. i think you mean these? i couldn’t find asks that said “unique” on them that i’ve reblogged recently so... idk! but thank you

(hopefully these are the right ones, if not pls yell at me which ones to answer and i’ll take myself out behind the shed)

1: Do you sleep with your closet doors open or closed? / closed oh my god, if there’s a murderer i don’t wanna know

2: Do you take the shampoos and conditioner bottles from hotel? / nah, they usually aren’t good for my hair and i’m very particular

3: Do you sleep with your sheets tucked in or out? / tucked up under my feet!

4: Have you ever stolen a street sign before? / no but i’ve absolutely thought about it

5: Do you like to use post-it notes? / yessss

6: Do you cut out coupons but then never use them? / i def use them if i cut them out

7: Would you rather be attacked by a big bear or a swarm of a bees? / i would rather be attack by a bear bc it’s one thing versus like 500 things

8: Do you have freckles? / yes! i love them

9: Do you always smile for pictures? / yah pretty much! that or a funny face

10: What is your biggest pet peeve? / people who i dont know just... touching me. or people who don’t follow store rules

11: Do you ever count your steps when you walk? / noppeeee 

12: Have you ever peed in the woods? / god no

13: What about pooped in the woods? / no 

14: Do you ever dance even if theres no music playing? / i am Always Wiggling

15: Do you chew your pens and pencils? / nah, i chew my mouth

16: How many people have you slept with this week? / none

17: What size is your bed? / right now its a queen

18: What is your Song of the week? / how do you sleep by sam smith, i love them so so so much

19: Is it okay for guys to wear pink? / yes its just a color

20: Do you still watch cartoons? / i dont watch much of anything tbh

21: Whats your least favorite movie? / chucky. any chucky movie.

22: Where would you bury hidden treasure if you had some? / the bottom of the sea

23: If you’re a girl, bra size? If you’re a guy, pants size? / i’m neither. my hat size is large

24: What do you dip a chicken nugget in? / ketchup or sweet n sour sauce!

25: What is your favorite food? / mustard and pickles, gag

26: What movies could you watch over and over and still love? / i have seen resident evil: apocalypse and ocean’s 8 about a million times each. also ponyo and spirited away

27: Last person you kissed/kissed you? / the last person to kiss me on the lips shall not be named

28: Were you ever a boy/girl scout? / nopeee

29: Would you ever strip or pose nude in a magazine? / uhh, nah, i don’t think i would

30: When was the last time you wrote a letter to someone on paper? / it’s been a while. i want to do that again

31: Can you change the oil on a car? / i don’t even know where to begin

32: Ever gotten a speeding ticket? / no, i got a parking ticket once though

33: Ever ran out of gas? / not that i can remember

34: Favorite kind of sandwich? / philly cheesesteak beechhh

35: Best thing to eat for breakfast? / biscuits and gravy, with bacon and orange juice

36: What is your usual bedtime? / around 1 am, best case scenario

37: Are you lazy? / no i have executive dysfunction issues

38: When you were a kid, what did you dress up as for Halloween? / i just loved any reason to wear my cape lol

39: What is your Chinese astrological sign? / i am an earth rabbit!

40: Are you horny? / dhjalhgfjg wild question. sometimes?

41: Do you have any magazine subscriptions? / nope. i used to be subscribed to gameinformer tho

42: Which are better legos or lincoln logs? / legos! but the big ones, not the little ones

43: Are you stubborn? / yes.

44: Who is better…Leno or Letterman? / gag me

45: Ever watch soap operas? / yesyesyes i used to LOVE watching k-dramas

46: Are you afraid of heights? / not especially

47: Do you sing in the car? / yes 

48: Do you sing in the shower? / yes yes

49: Do you dance in the car? / yes yes yes

50: Ever used a gun? / nope, and i don’t want to 

51: Last time you got a portrait taken by a photographer? / when i was graduating high school

52: Do you think musicals are cheesy? / i want to BE in a musical, i love them. yes they are cheesy

53: Is Christmas stressful? / yeahhh

54: Ever eat a pierogi? / a wot

55: Favorite type of fruit pie? / apple or cherry

56: Occupations you wanted to be when you were a kid? / i wanted to be a pediatrician for the longest time

57: Do you believe in ghosts? / yes.

58: Ever have a Deja-vu feeling? / constantly, all the time

59: Take a vitamin daily? / yep!

60: Wear slippers? / oh yeah

61: Wear a bath robe? / nope, they’re not comfy

62: What do you wear to bed? / either a hoodie and shorts, or just shorts

63: First concert? / green day, revolution radio tour in 2016 or 2017!

64: Wal-Mart, Target or Kmart? / target! i love kmarts though

65: Nike or Adidas? / adidassss

66: Cheetos Or Fritos? / cheetos!

67: Peanuts or Sunflower seeds? / peanuts but only boiled, otherwise sunflowers

68: Ever hear of the group Tres Bien? / i don’t know her

69: Ever take dance lessons? / in elementary school!

70: Is there a profession you picture your future spouse doing? / not really? probably something similar to whatever i end up doing i guess?

71: Can you curl your tongue? / yes ;)

72: Ever won a spelling bee? / nope, always close but no cigar

73: Have you ever cried because you were so happy? / yah all the time

74: Own any record albums? / nope

75: Own a record player? / nope

76: Regularly burn incense? / yes! i love it

77: Ever been in love? / yes. it’s a really lovely feeling.

78: Who would you like to see in concert? / lana del rey or allie x currently

79: What was the last concert you saw? / some tribute band to some other band, i can’t remember right now. but the guitarist threw his guitar pick in my shirt, so that was fun

80: Hot tea or cold tea? / both!

81: Tea or coffee? / both!

82: Sugar or snickerdoodles? / sugar!

83: Can you swim well? / not that well, but i probably won’t drown

84: Can you hold your breath without holding your nose? / yep! for a while, about 2-3 minutes

85: Are you patient? / depends

86: DJ or band, at a wedding? / a band sounds so nice

87: Ever won a contest? / yeah! a writing one, forever ago

88: Ever have plastic surgery? / oof no

89: Which are better black or green olives? / olives are a sin

90: Can you knit or crochet? / i can do both! but i prefer crochet

91: Best room for a fireplace? / the livingroom? would it be anywhere else?

92: Do you want to get married? / yes, someday.

93: If married, how long have you been married? / i’m not

94: Who was your HS crush? / i was too busy breaking and getting my heart broken to have crushes that mattered

95: Do you cry and throw a fit until you get your own way? / no, ofc not

96: Do you have kids? / nope!

97: Do you want kids? / idk! i don’t think i want to have them myself, if i ever do

98: Whats your favorite color? / green and purple

99: Do you miss anyone right now? / god, i miss so many people. i just moved, so i miss basically everyone in my life.

#anonsanonsanons #asks #question meme #thank you lovely

[sambart93]

2018.09.15 KAT-TUN CAST in Yokohama Arena [Report]

SET LIST

01. New Genesis 02. FIRE STORM 03. ONE DROP 04. UNLOCK 05. 喜びの歌 06. 願い 07. READY FOR THIS! 08. DIRTY, SEXY, NIGHT 09. Ask Yourself 10. Don’t wait 11. Sweet Birthday 12. GREATEST JOURNEY MC Segment 13. vivid LOVE 14. UNIVERSE (宇宙Six) 15. Marionation (中丸雄一) 16. World’s End. (上田竜也) 17. One way love (亀梨和也) 18. Real Face #2 19. ツイテオイデ 20. BIRTH 21. Love yourself ～君が嫌いな君が好き～ 22. DON’T U EVER STOP 23  KISS KISS KISS 24. Will Be All Right 25. アイノオカゲ 26. 薫 27. Unstoppable

-アンコール- 28. Peacefuldays 29. ノーマター・マター 30. FUNtastic

*

REPORT UNDER THE CUT

Can we talk about how much I fucking LOVE these boys? I love them with ALL my heart!!! 

At YokoAri there really isn’t a bad seat. But I was super happy with me! I got the first row in the stands (2nd floor) and it was amazing!! And we got the best surprise ever when we were allowed and able to stand up! Usually the first row of stands are NOT allowed to stand and must stay sat for the entire performance but not for KAT-TUN because KT were of course like ‘fuck that rule! Our fans won’t stand for that’ <<< AHAHA GET MY JOKE?! So we stood the entire time! I think it was just over 2 and a half hours which is GREAT!!

I’ll try and split up the songs and such into their sections and costume changes -- but I could be VERY wrong:

New Genesis FIRE STORM ONE DROP UNLOCK 喜びの歌

願い READY FOR THIS! DIRTY, SEXY, NIGHT Ask Yourself Don’t wait Sweet Birthday GREATEST JOURNEY

MC vivid LOVE UNIVERSE (宇宙Six)

Marionation (中丸雄一) World’s End. (上田竜也) One way love (亀梨和也)

Real Face #2 ツイテオイデ BIRTH Love yourself ～君が嫌いな君が好き～ DON’T U EVER STOP KISS KISS KISS Will Be All Right アイノオカゲ

薫 Unstoppable

-アンコール- Peacefuldays ノーマター・マター FUNtastic

*

The opening is great! They enter and come down from a massive hanging chandelier thing in the air! It is amazing!! An amazing opening! When I watch it the second time, I’ll keep and eye on that big hanger and try and see them slip into place just before the show starts xD

READY FOR THIS and Dirty, Sexy Night was so great! I loved this coupling of songs! The first one get everyone hyped up and I love the individual dances the boys having during the instrumental/dance part in RFT! And DSN is just a great song all around where Kame can be a little shit xD

Ueda ripped his shirt open and kept it like that after ONE DROP xD everyone went mental and he kept it undone ALL the way until after the MC when he got changed xD

I died laughing when UchuuSix were first introduced because, I had already spoiled myself for the SetList so knew which Juniors were going to be there, but my friend didn’t. So when the boys came on stage and the ‘SIX’ showed first, my friend was like ‘AH HELLA NAH! NOT SIXTONES!!!!!’ but then went to UchuuSix and she was like “OH THANK GODDD’, and I was on the floor laughing because her react was so comical. No offence to SixTones fans >.<

UchuuSix were actually very good! I really enjoyed their song! I was bopping along and it was so interesting to see who stayed standing during their solo song because then you could see who the Junior fans were and their uchiwas, whereas all the KT fans just sat down and took it as a short break xD

*

The MC was THE BEST! So they had their usual talk which was just ridiculous of course because Maru was like ‘so..... what did you do recently?’ and everyone commented that they hate that phrases and question but then Maru paused ‘....so what did you do recently?’ and we all died laughing. And so Kame replied ‘well I went to the beach (Ueda/Maru: and you didn’t get discovered (by fans/press)?!), it was really nice and relaxing’, but then he was like ‘I’m always the one that talks the most and I have NO IDEA what you two do on your days off! WHAT DO YOU DO?! I know you box and you draw but... WHAT DO YOU DO?!’ so Ueda replied that recently he’d been going to smaller shops and there was one specific one in Ginza (Maru and Kame: IN GINZA?!) where an old man gave him some on the house tempura and how delicious it was. Kame asked ‘why didn’t you say no to his offer?’ and Ueda responded something like ‘what am I supposed to say? ‘*in a really rude way* I don’t need it old man! (Iranee yo Jiji!)’’ and everyone was dying. Then Ueda started saying ‘y’know if this audience was all guys--’ and Kame and Maru jumped in like ‘he’s spoken about this several times during this tour!’ and Ueda said ‘but it’s true! If this was all guys, I wouldn’t work as hard as I am! Are you telling me you’d work just as hard if our audience was all guys?!’ and neither of them specifically answered but everyone understood that they agreed with Ueda who’s all like ‘the audience is so full of women and they’re all so beautiful so I must do my best!’ xD whatta idiot. Adorable but oh god he’s funny. Towards the end of the MC, Kame picked up the towel basket and as he was leaving with Ueda he said ‘when we get backstage, tell me the name of that tempura place’ xD and then Maru stayed on stage and did his DJ Maru part on the top stage!

They also talked about the TachiMi/Standing part of the audience and Ueda was saying they should make those tickets cheaper ‘they should sell for 6500 yen!’. And then Maru was telling joking ‘even though it’s the MC... STAND!’ we’re allowed to sit during the MC, except for TachiMi.

They announced during this MC (I’m not sure about previous ones) that their TV show (Tame ni Naru Tabi +) was going to be a weekly show (thanks to hyphens’ support) from October! So naturally we all got super excited!

Just after the MC (which is shorter than we’re used to, but for good reason; coming up now!), Kame and Ueda go backstage while Nakamaru goes to the top stage, and there is his beautiful DJ set. So he does his Nakamaru DJ section with making sounds with his voice, recording them and pressing them in a certain order to make a song. 

At the end of this segment, Nakamaru addresses the boys and gives them a request. At this show we had:

Nakamaru: Could you two do an impersonation from the game, Metal Gear Solid? Ueda: *Comes on stage* Snake! SNAKE!!!! Nakamaru: That was the best! Then Kame came on stage and he was like ‘I don’t know any other lines from the game!’ so then they suggested he do something from ‘King of Fighters’ and Kame replied ‘King of Fighters? ........ KING OF FIGHTERS?!?!?!’ and everyone died laughing. Kame: What’s King of Fighters? Ueda: It was a one-on-one fighting game. Maru: Ahhh so nostalgic... Kame: I dunno. Maybe because we’re from different generations. Ueda: THAT’S IRRELEVANT! Everyone laughed again xD

*

We got our usual Nakamaru TV Shopping skit but we had Ueda’s new character Yankee-kun join in! So we had the three of them being ridiculous about the bath products xD At the end of the Nakamaru TV Shopping skit, Kame walked off screen saying ‘say chuuka.... say renga...’ and I absolutely died. Because (BACKSTORY TIME!) a long time ago when they did their first Yokohama concert as KAT-TUN in 2005, Kame asked the crowd to do a call and response of ‘Say Chuuka! Say Renga!’, but at the time KT fans had no fucking clue what he was doing (Chuuka = Chinese Food and Renga = Red Brick Warehouse which are two super famous things in Yokohama), so he got super embarrassed (he talked about the embarrassment on Cartoon KAT-TUN and another Variety show MANY years ago). I spent most of this show waiting and hoping for him to do this C&R again, so I freaked and got SO HAPPY when it appeared in this segment instead xD I felt like something on my Check List had been ticked off at that moment hehe

*

I love, love, love the screen visuals for Vivid Love and Marionation! They are so gorgeous! And I love the props and the dance for Marionation too! And lets talk about how epic World’s End is! So we have an opening VTR of a snake and I just guessed ‘ooh he’s gunna cut it with a sword’ and there is a slash motion across the snake who dies as he’s cut in half and then Uepi came out on stage with a sword in his hand and I freaked! I was like ‘I WAS RIGHT! I WAS RIGHT!!’. It’s such a good performance and the visuals of the ticking timer on the screen too is great! My friend said she was disappointed in the ‘One Way Love’ performance and concept and to an extent I am BUT I totally understand why he did his performance this way. We had a prerecorded VTR of him singing the song, and then in the white or black parts of that VTR, the camera that’s following Kame on stage is shown in those parts. It is visually pleasing and great concept and looks good but I, like my friend, wanted him to do something really sexy for this song or just him actually singing it -- he did sing it a little but you could tell there was no point of him having a mic during it because he was putting his all into the modern dance he did.

Kame messed up for his line for Kun and said ‘MY DREAM’ instead of ‘My Friend’, and when he realised, he stopped singing and just smiled like a child at the camera and we all squealed obviously. It was the cutest reaction!

For the encore they came around in the trolley stand things and Ueda definitely saw us! We were only a few feet away from him so makes sense xD also the woman behind us was hilarious when Kame came along xD He pretty much pushed her small son out of the way so she could get Kame’s attention instead of her son. Me and my friend were cracking up laughing.

During the final greeting from them, we started getting really loud and clapping and woo-ing when Maru was trying to speak and he was like ‘be quiet! it’s late and other’s will hear you!’, but we did it again and got even louder and he just lipsynced ‘quit it! you’re loud!’, but you could tell him and all 3 of them loved how we just got louder and louder for them! xD During Ueda’s greeting he commented that there are some children in the audience and he was like ‘please don’t copy me! (his bad language and attitude)’.

*

Reports came out later that Massu had gone to watch this show too! My friend who came with me is a huge NEWS fan so was super happy to know Massu went the same time she did ^_^

*

And that’s all! Hopefully my second report will be up pretty quickly after this one!

#kat-tun #report #kamenashi kazuya #Ueda Tatsuya #Nakamaru Yuichi #concert #concert report

[heyitskylie13]

My Journey to Try to Meet Tay

So, I put together this thread on Twitter not long before my first Rep Tour date (Columbus, OH 7.7.18) and it got quite a bit of attention in the Swiftie fandom (as of right now, I believe the original thread is up to 113 retweets and 242 likes, which is A LOT for little old me). I am trying to get @taylorswift & @taylornation to see it, and maybe...just maybe....this story can finally get its happy ending before I am finished with my rep tour dates. I figured in order to increase my chances of getting it seen, I’d write it all out here on tumblr as well, and maybe some of you very sweet fellow swifties will reblog, tag Tay, etc. I’d truly appreciate it. My next show is Atlanta Night 2, and then I will be in Nashville as well.  Here we go, an overview of all of the times I have gone out hoping to meet @taylorswift: 

1) 2007 - Country Concert Festival Fort Loramie, OH - I was 15 years old, and Taylor was the earliest act of the day and only had like a 30 minute set. I begged my parents to let me go with my boyfriend at the time just to see her play. There were only like 3 people in the crowd who knew her songs! I’d been following her Myspace (LOL) so I knew already that she loved interacting with her fans, and I waited by her tour bus opposite side of a gate for over an hour before a security guard eventually told me that she was not going to be coming over, that I was pathetic for waiting so long, and that I need to leave. I started crying, and my boyfriend made us go. 

2) 2008 - Country Concert Festival Fort Loramie, OH - Taylor got invited back! A slightly later slot, but it was on Sunday which a lot of people don’t stick around for (the festival actually has since cut the day entirely). My high school bestie and I were there though with a poster baring Tay’s lyrics and screaming every word to the songs she played. I don’t have photos of our posters because some drunk girl stepped on it after we had accidentally dropped it and ended up ripping it pretty bad. We waited by the buses after her set for quite awhile before we were eventually told by security that she had to catch a flight to NY or something and wouldn’t be coming out.

3) 2009 - Defying Gravity Tour - Taylor was opening for Keith Urban and a group of my friends and I got tickets to just to see her! I got to meet Mama Swift for the first time, but didn’t meet Tay. I wasn’t really surprised because there were so many of us in our group, and this was before her headlining days so we didn’t even really know if there’d be a chance or not.

4) 2009 - CMT Awards Nashville, TN - I bought tickets when it was announced that Taylor would be performing, and drove to Nashville from Ohio (with my older sisters accompanying me because I was only 17 haha). I got to meet a lot of celebrities actually outside of the venue beforehand, but not Taylor, and my phone also died before the show so I didn’t get any photos. 

5) 2009 - Fearless Tour Columbus, OH - Nothing crazy happened this day, really, but it marked the beginning of Natalie and my’s ongoing Taylor concert bond! Taylor also came this close to us during “Hey Stephen” and touched my hand as she was walking back to the stage! 

6) 2009 - Fearless Tour Indianapolis, IN - A random guy-friend of mine ended up with an extra floor ticket to the show and invited me so of course I said yes! I saw Mama Swift again, and she actually remembered me and “all my jean skirt, cowboy hat friends” from Cincinnati (the keith urban show!) -- I was shocked, and she is so sweet that she upgraded us from our back-of-floor seats to the pit! 

7) 2010 - Fearless Tour Cincinnati, OH - My friend and I arrived to the venue at like 10 A.M. the day of the show, and we brought a scrapbook we had made for Taylor. It ended up raining and still we stood outside (trying to protect our book lol) for nearly five hours across from the tour buses/loading area. Eventually someone from Tay’s team came out and gave us pit passes and took the book promising to get it to Taylor. I still have no idea if she ever saw it. 

8) 2013 - The 13 Hour Meet & Greet Nashville, TN - This is the hardest day to talk about of them all...We came from Ohio and walked around the event ALL DAY (totaled about 10 hours) trying to be picked by Taylor’s team members and we watched fans meet Taylor all day from this close to us. We never were picked, and eventually we left/gave up once they announced the last meet & greet wristbands had been handed out. It was honestly heartbreaking because this event had our hopes up so high, but Taylor is truly an angel for meeting SO many people that day, and I don’t fault her at all. Plus, we did get to enjoy a free acoustic set!! 

9) 2011 - CMA Fest Nashville, TN - At an event this big, we truly didn’t expect to meet Taylor, but we still had an incredible time supporting her as a CLOSING act of the festival!! 

10) 2011 - Speak Now Tour Indianapolis, IN - We had SOOO many glowsticks haha but it worked somewhat! Taylor’s team came up to us in our literal nosebleed seats and gave us pit passes! It was an amazing experience, but we still didn’t get to meet Taylor. 

11) 2011 - Speak Now Tour Cleveland, OH - This concert was the VERY NEXT NIGHT from the previous entry in this story! Two out of three of us (Natalie and I of course) made a back-to-back trip from Indianapolis to our hometown (2 hours each way) and then to Cleveland immediately (4 hours each way) to see Taylor again in our same get-up from the night before. We had floor seats this time, and there were these two precious little girls in front of us who kept standing on the chairs in order to see and getting scolded by security. It was breaking my heart that them (or their parents who kept trying to hold them but they were heavy as like seven year olds) couldn’t truly enjoy the concert. Since we knew what the setlist would do, we told the family about Taylor’s “b-stage” songs she’d sing later closer to us. I saw Andrea and told her what was going on, and she said I looked familiar haha I gave her a brief overview of shows I’d been to and when we’d met and she said, “so of course, you’ve met Taylor” or something along those lines and I truthfully said “no I haven’t.” She had me go get the family and brought all of us into the sound-stage/b-stage private area for Taylor’s set there and for the rest of the show. The family was so excited and when Taylor came down from the stage, she hugged those little girls on her way out to the crowd and when she was hugging these other girls in front of us, she extended her arm to half-hug us at the same time. I CRIED A LOT.

12) 2013 - Red Tour Columbus, OH - At this point, we tried to up our costume game lol we went for the “22″ music video look. We were pretty happy with it! We didn’t get noticed by anyone for anything at this show, though. Nothing crazy happened, but as always any night at a Taylor Swift show is magical and memorable <3 

13) 2015 - 1989 Tour Louisville, KY - OOOO Lucky #13 ;) This really was a lucky show. We went to the @taylornation booth and they were impressed by how many shows we’d each gone to, and when I told them all about my Master’s Degree Thesis (I wrote it entirely on Taylor just a few months prior, and had just earned my graduate degree about a month before this show!). They were really intrigued by this and kept asking for all sorts of details lol when we left the booth, we barely made it far away before one of the girls from TN was chasing us down. My heart was beating SO FAST. She asked if we’d like to enjoy Taylor from the pit that night instead of our ticketed upper-level seats. OF COURSE! We didn’t get offered Loft ‘89 that night, unfortunately, which once we’d been upgraded we didn’t expect. Although, some girls nearby us did get upgraded and then later given Loft as well. Props to them! This was still one of my favorite show experiences and memories, especially because I heard the “Clean” speech for the first time and I REALLY needed it at this time in my life. A lot of tears were shed. 

14) 2015 - 1989 Tour Gillette Stadium, MA - We won tickets to this!! Couldn’t believe it. Four of us got to go, and we drove TWELVE HOURS (it actually ended up being like 14 after traffic and stops etc haha) to go to this. This was one of the costume get-ups I am the most proud of. When we got to the TN booth, there weren’t any of Taylor’s team working it (I guess it was stadium employees taking pics idk). We did our best to stand out during the show, but we didn’t get to meet Taylor. I actually heard that there may not have even been a Loft that night, but there had been at the previous night Gillette show.

15) 2015 - 1989 Tour Columbus, OH - We loved our outfits for this, we were BAD BLOOD AF!! We didn’t get noticed in any way this night, though. Taylor was still amazing as per usual and it was my last time seeing the 1989 Tour. We did, however, cry on the drive home feeling defeated yet again....

16) 2018 - Reputation Stadium Tour Columbus, OH - Just recently added this one because I’m one show into the Rep Tour and have still not met Tay. My first show of the rep tour required me to drive 6 hours from Nashville (I moved here in 2016), but I was so excited that the drive there flew by! I’ve really been working hard to get noticed on social media this era (as you’ve seen everything above wasn’t working for me). I thought maybe this twitter thread was finally enough to get attention from Taylor/TN, so I honestly got my hopes up more than I should’ve about getting a DM for pre-show. I’m still not totally sure what was going on, but it seemed that there wasn’t as many pre-show DM’s as usual and maybe the process is changing (or the holiday impacted it idk still really). Not that I thought I was a shoe-in or anything for a pre-show M&G, but the situation did make me feel like my shot of meeting Taylor now was definitely low. We were absolutely in AWE of every aspect of this show, though, let me tell you. I wasn’t disappointed in any way by Taylor’s production. Wow. Just wow. We also were unexpectedly right next to one of the B-stages so Taylor was so close during that part of the show! I cried my eyes out to the “Long Live” & “New Year’s Day” mash-up because of my new long live tattoo and because NYD has significance to me and my relationship. Unfortunately, I ended up feeling AWFUL like a majority of the show though (like sick) and it got worse about halfway through.I spent a lot of time trying not to throw up or miss any of Taylor performing, and I toughed it out, but it wasn’t the way I wanted to experience the show. I ended up having to sprint past everyone with Natalie’s help to make it to a bathroom and throw up and I felt awful our whole hour drive back to Natalie’s house. It’s honestly probably good I didn’t get picked for post-show rep room because of how bad I felt! ANYWAY I’m still sad it didn’t happen for me, but I am hopeful that it wasn’t the right time and my time with Taylor is still coming.

CONCLUSION: I am not in anyway ungrateful for the @taylorswift experiences I have had thus far. I know I have gotten more from Andrea and @taylornation than many have. Some people haven’t even gotten to see Taylor live! I know that, BUT my DREAM since before section #1 here has been to meet Taylor and thank her in person for everything she’s helped me get through. So if it’s possible in anyway to make this happen so I can tell her that, show her my tattoos she’s inspired, tell her about my thesis, etc....it’d mean the world to me.

#taylor swift #taylor nation #reputation #rep room #taylurking #reputation stadium tour

[jafreitag]

Grateful Dead Monthly: Brendan Byrne Arena – East Rutherford, NJ 10/16/89

On Monday, October 16, 1989, the Grateful Dead played a concert at Brendan Byrne Arena in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

Brendan Byrne Arena, aka Meadowlands Arena, was built to accommodate the NBA’s New Jersey Nets, who were moving from the Rutgers University Athletic Center. The arena opened in 1981 across a highway from the old Giants Stadium, and eventually served as home for the Nets, the NHL’s New Jersey Devils, and the Seton Hall University men’s basketball team. The arena was also an event and concert venue that hosted local favorites Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi, as well as a variety of other big-name acts. It ultimately closed to the public in 2015. According to the Wiki, “the vacant arena is [currently] used as a rehearsal venue for large-scale touring concert productions as well as a sound stage for video and television productions.”

The Dead played Brendan Byrne sixteen times from 1983-89. 10/16/89 was their last show there. LN Deaditor ECM was in attendance and offers this reflection:

This was a special show because it was my first Dark Star, but the band sure did make me sweat it out by waiting until the final night of a five-show run to play it – on a Monday night, too! But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s back up just a bit.

The previous week, the Grateful Dead opened the 1989 Fall East Coast tour with two shows at Hampton Coliseum. Those shows were billed as “Formerly the Warlocks” (a nod to the band’s original name) because there had been some trouble at the Dead’s Hampton shows in the past with ticketless people, gate crashing, and drug arrests. As I recall, these shows were not announced on the Dead’s hotline and were not available via mail order like the rest of the tour was. Instead, tickets were made available at only a few select Virginia locations, making them very difficult to get, if you lived out of state, as I did. Somehow, my friend Scott and his wife, Noelle, scored tickets, but I didn’t know it at the time. So imagine my surprise when Scott called me at around 12:30 a.m. on Tuesday October 10th to tell me what had just gone down in Hampton. I was a year out of college and had a real job so I was sound asleep. The ringing of the phone jolted me out of bed. I fumbled to find the phone in the darkness and clumsily answered it on the sixth or seventh ring. At first, I didn’t recognize the voice on the other end of the line because the caller was hysterically screaming with excitement. Eventually, I recognized the voice as Scott’s. He was calling from his car phone (very rare at the time), and he was talking so fast that I could barely understand him. There were broken words here and there that I recognized like “Hampton…Warlocks…Oh my God…best fuckin’ show I’ve ever seen….oh shit, I’d better pull over before I get in an accident!” After he pulled over, Scott told me all about the bust-outs: Help/Slip, Death Don’t Have No Mercy (neither of us knew it had been busted out the previous week at Shoreline, no internet), Dark Star, and Attics!!! I thought he was joking at first. Help/Slip and Dark Star, while both rare, were somewhat believable since they had both been played in the 80s with Brent. Attics and Death, on the other hand, were a horse of a different color. Both hadn’t been played since 1970, and most fans considered them retired for good. I must confess that it was a little difficult to be “happy” for Scott. I had missed “the show,” or so I thought. 

The band rolled into lovely East Rutherford, New Jersey on October 11th for a five-show run at the Brendan Byrne Arena. I had secured mail order tickets for every show. There was definitely a buzz in the parking lot about what had gone down in Hampton. Everybody was hoping, praying, and wishing that the band would play some of the bust-outs again. Nobody dared to say the words “Dark Star” for fear of jinxing our chances of seeing it. The new album, Built To Last, was about to be released on Halloween, so there was great anticipation about that as well. Promo materials like the album artwork and the iconic deck of cards were floating around the parking lot. There was a sense that the band was on another creative peak which created an overall vibe of happiness and excitement among fans. 

On a more somber note, this was also the run when the body of Adam Katz, a 19-year-old fan, was found by a motorist lying on a roadway outside the complex on October 14th. He died the next day from a single blow to the head with a ”blunt instrument.” His death was later ruled a homicide, but nobody was ever charged. 

As I recall, the four shows leading up to October 16th were nothing to write home about. I am sure that there were highlights but the only memorable thing about those shows is what the band didn’t play – Dark Star.

On the afternoon of October 16th, Garcia made an appearance on WNEW-FM, New York’s big classic-rock radio station and when asked when Deadhead’s might get to enjoy the band play Dark Star again, he replied, “Sooner than you think.” Whoa! Did Jerry just signal Dark Star? If that wasn’t enough, October 16th happens to be Bob Weir’s birthday. There have been some memorable shows on October 16th – most notably Amsterdam in 1981, but also Winterland in 1974 and LSU in 1977. The planets seemed to be aligned for the makings of a great show. 

The crowd roar was deafening with great anticipation when the house lights finally went down. The birthday boy opened the show with Picasso Moon. It was a curious choice because the band only played it three times since its debut on April 28th, and it hadn’t been played since May 7th (which coincidentally happened to be another band member’s birthday – Billy K). All three of those versions were very rough (to put it charitably), and many fans assumed that the song was DOA. The band must have spent time working on it in the studio because this performance is delivered with oodles of confidence and sounds the way it would on the album and all future performances. I was never a big fan of the song because it sounded like a pimped-out version of Hell In A Bucket, but boy does this version rock! 

Next up is an upbeat Half-Step. Garcia is in fine form, and Brent’s piano is twinkling. In a surprising move, the band plays the instrumental part of the Rio Grande-O section, but skips the vocal part, making this a shorter version than usual. I’m not sure whether this was intentional or not. Garcia switches to his Mu-Tron effect, and the song kind of washes out with a brief pause of uncertainty. Maybe he realized that he forgot the vocal outro of Half-Step. Anyway, the band quickly recovers and forges right into Feel Like a Stranger, which makes for a nice transition since both songs are in the same key  It’s a great choice that keeps the energy high and perhaps signals that things will indeed “get stranger” later as Brent growls, “It’s gonna be a long, long crazy, crazy night.” Garcia gets nice and funky in the jam to create a full-on dance party in the Meadowlands.

In another rare move, Bobby gives the “blues slot” to Brent this evening who leads the band through Good Times Blues (aka Never Trust A Woman). It’s an unrecorded song that debuted on 8/28/81 and was played less than 50 times ever. It was refreshing to hear something other than Rooster, Minglewood, Walkin’ Blues, and CC Rider. The change must have invigorated the band because they completely nail this version. Brent never wasted an opportunity to shine on his own songs and his vocals and B-3 organ solo are amazing. This is a stand-out performance of a song that would be played only 4 more times!

Jerry follows with Built To Last – another new song on the upcoming album. This is a great version, however, the song would be played only two times more before being retired forever. It makes one question the wisdom of choosing to name an album after a song that would not remain in their repertoire.

Another surprise awaits as the band breaks the usual song rotation between Jerry and Bob. Tonight the birthday boy gets to sing lead vocals on the next two songs. Memphis Blues Again fills the “Dylan slot” nicely. Bobby is all over this version with lots of exaggerated vocals. I love how versatile Brent is with his solo on Memphis Blues. Sometimes he uses his electric keyboard, sometimes he selects a MIDI sound, and other times, like this evening, he plays his B-3 organ. As soon as the band plays the last note, Bobby begins strumming the chords to Let It Grow. This is an exquisite performance. The “rise and fall” section is particularly gnarly with Garcia effortlessly switching his sounds and getting some nice guitar runs in. 

“Let it Grow” was typically a first-set closer during this era, but the band gives us a bonus song with Deal. 1989 was a very good year for Deal, as exemplified by the versions on 6/21 (Shoreline), 7/19 (Alpine) and 7/4 (Buffalo), all of which fall within the top 10 rankings on the website, headyversion.com with the latter ranking #1 and #2 respectively. Tonight’s version doesn’t quite reach those amazing heights but still holds a respectable #12 rank, which is to say that it is quite the barn burner. With their jam chops sufficiently warmed-up, Bobby announces a break. What a great first set filled with jams, uptempo songs, and rarities.

The air was thick with anticipation when the band returned for the second set as everybody held their collective breath hoping…wishing…praying…for “IT.” Things got eerily quiet and then Jery played the first signature notes of Dark Star. The New York audience explodes with joy. Smiles, high-fives and hugs abounded everywhere. Euphoria. This starts out as a very melodic Star that doesn’t really stray from the usual pre-first verse theme. The first verse comes after about six minutes. Jerry’s voice sounds a little rough but the spirit is clearly there. The post-lyrics jam continues with the melodic theme but starts to show signs of weirdness at around the 9 1/2 minute mark. If you listen carefully you can hear Jerry switch the key signature from A to D to set up the transition into Playing In The Band. He blasts off some rapid, spacey runs at around the 11 minute mark, which land on the introduction of Playing. Now it becomes clear that the band is treating us to a set that is similar to Hampton, except in a different sequence. 

At 8 minutes, this is a relatively short Playing, but the band flexes its spacey muscles very concisely. Here, Jerry explores his MIDI library more than he did in Dark Star. I especially love his use of the pan flute at the 3:40 minute mark. So trippy!! The jam becomes melodic again as Jerry leads the way into a super-kind Uncle John’s Band. This is a very upbeat version with strong vocals by everybody. The D-minor jams in the middle and end of the song are spectacular – more cerebral than rocking. Garcia briefly re-states the Playing theme, and then goes off into the cosmos of deeper and deeper space until finally there is nowhere else to go except surrender the stage to the dummers, where we were treated to the Beam.

I must admit that hearing the opening strains of I Will Take You Home was disappointing because it did not seem to fit with the spacey theme the band created. But, once again, Brent puts on a stellar performance, which is accompanied by the lovely accents of Jerry’s MIDI french horn.  Brent holds the last line, “I willllllllllllll….take you home.” This is followed by a swell of feedback out of which Bobby slams into I Need A Miracle. The loud, thrashing music is jarring and at odds with the overall vibe of the set thus far. It is perhaps the only possible misstep of the entire evening, but thankfully it is short and leads back into a reprise of Dark Star, which at this point feels like “home base.” All is quickly forgiven. Jerry stays on the melodic theme for almost four minutes of blissful serenity before delivering the second verse. A few descending notes later Jerry starts Attics of My Life. These two magical songs were combined only once before – the famous Capitol Theater show on 6/24/70!!! What a treat! This was the first time most of us had heard a live performance of Attics, and the audience stood in almost complete silence hanging on every lyric. This was church!!! The band delivers the lyrics tenderly like a fragile prayer, and the all-important harmonies are gorgeously sung. 

The show could have ended right there as far as I was concerned but the band cleverly segues into Playing to complete the reprise the same way they did with Dark Star. First there was chaos in the universe, and now there is symmetry. Damn, this band is good. 

Jerry, Bob, Phil and Brent returned without instruments to end this epically throw-back show the only way possible – with a gospel-infused version of And We Bid You Goodnight. It remains one of the most memorable shows I have ever seen.

10/16/89 was memorialized as the live album Nightfall of Diamonds. Here’s the Spotify widget.

More soon.

JF

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[packernet]

New Post has been published on https://www.packernet.com/blog/2020/01/16/packernet-podcast-keep-the-hate-coming-were-loving-it/

Packernet Podcast: Keep the Hate Coming - We're Loving It

Transcript:

8s – 1m 8s

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome, once again to the back of that podcast. I am your host and residence analyst that’s always Ryan slip check it out online packernet.com. Find me on Twitter Pack underscore that is so today. I’ve got quite a bit of things that I want to touch on some news and notes some rumors. Probably going to get a little bit Ranchi. There’s a couple different things to different people at you know, I was just talking yesterday about how you know, if I’m being honest I liked the days when the media was gushing over the Packers a lot more than I like today. I really did like that. It kind of it was it was somewhat undeserved kind of like what the Chiefs get with Mahomes and now Lamar, you know that the Golden Boy treatment that Aaron Rodgers somehow had for felt like basically his entire career up until what 2015 maybe even late cuz I think I think even as you started to decline the video

1m 8s – 1m 45s

Because you know, that’s just how they work. Nobody wants to be the first to say it and then as soon as somebody says it is like this just Avalanche. I don’t like them either. It’s just you know who can dislike him the most so, you know, that’s that’s how you get to be edgy you without actually being edgy because you didn’t want to say it for 5-10 years. Anyways, I don’t like this so much. However, I got to admit there’s something kind of nice and extra motivating about these games. You’ve already got the aspect if I really really really really really want to win and see this team in the Super Bowl is sort of like

1m 46s – 2m 46s

It hasn’t even sunk in that it’s a possibility and it’s not because I’m sure I believe thoroughly that we’re going to lose. It’s just it’s just like that that just doesn’t happen Packers don’t go to the Superbowl this certainly don’t win the Superbowl and it’s super rare and probably nod and I forget who it was and I apologize but somebody gave the visual in the Facebook group. Make sure you join the Facebook group that he could Envision Aaron Rodgers and Aries and Aries next to each other hosting the trophy and it was like one of those things that visual just made it very real and it’s like, oh my goodness this could really happen. I mean this could really actually happen but then you take the excitement of winning and the desire to win and add to it how much distain I’m developing for everybody because everybody dislikes the Packers and some of it is fine, right? You got the sports books and everything else. They’re saying the Packers have the lowest chance depending on where you look of winning a Super Bowl get it. You’ve got some stew.

2m 46s – 3m 46s

Mystic people just kind of laying out some facts, but for the most part you have very biased people that have never liked the Packers and love the fact that Aaron Rodgers is not the favorite anymore and take every opportunity. They can to remind everybody which largely is wrongly but because this is what the statistic Community now believes remind everybody that Aaron Rodgers is no longer the goat. He’s no longer even any good. He’s averaged this team is a fraud. They just can’t stop and every opportunity they get to say it they say it so that’s starting to make me angry to the point that I want them to be wrong almost as bad as I just want the Packers to win because the level of distain I have for them. Although I get it because that’s what being a fan of a different team is about. It’s still a little bit annoying. So I want to address some of that and again just some other little bit of this little bit of that. But anyways I said,

3m 46s – 4m 46s

Make sure you jump in the pack and a podcast Facebook group. That’s where the party’s at all day everyday we party and we talked about the Packers. That’s just what we do also apparently get into very serious discussions about needles in San Francisco, you know, some people tend to rant kind of like I tend to reims I can’t hate him for it. It’s it’s my life to also make sure you jump in the back of my podcast Facebook page. Thank you to all of you have sent messages. Obviously. You’ve not been getting hardly any responses. I have to go in and start working on all those responses and develop or develope responses to all the stuff you been saying to build the ultimate supercomputer. I don’t think that’s possible but it’s you know, I got all year figure this thing out. I don’t care. What else do I have to do? I pick one thing that I want to really work on this year on top of all the stuff that I’m doing and that’s one of the things I want to build. So leave me alone. What’s your New Year’s resolution push-ups get on my face. I’m building a supercomputer man Skynet Sun before the T-1000 was

4m 46s – 5m 46s

Schwarzenegger guy before the Schwarzenegger guy was the Packer. Chad Bock. You didn’t catch that and Terminator. Did you wait till Terminator 8, they’ll tell you how it all begins. If you would like to support the fact that podcast I would strongly encourage you to check out patreon.com pack underscore daddy. There is a link in the description somewhere in the link of links. You can support the show for as little as a dollar a month. It means a lot more to me than it does to you is in terms of you know, it’s more positive for me than its negative for you. I understand podcast for free, but I’m hoping that you like the value that I bring enough that you think it would be worth it to you to offer up at least a buck a month. Please consider it. I’ve had a very very good response up over $50. Which is awesome. As long as you don’t consider the fact that there are literally thousands of people that listen every day that it’s slightly less. Awesome. But still it’s good. It’s a good start and don’t forget there will be a giveaway ever.

5m 46s – 6m 29s

Single month, all you have to do is make a small donation. $1 is one entry 5 dollars is 5 entries etcetera etcetera. If you just want to win the thing straight out Super Bowl tickets are to do it. I think that’ll increase your odds substantially. So there you go something about otherwise a five-star iTunes review Stitcher review and make sure you are listening to the Packers iPod cat because the podcast broadcast on another podcast that has not called the Packers at podcast. If you don’t want to switch over that’s fine. I still get all the accounts for it. I just would like iTunes in the rest to realize that people actually do listen to my podcast. So if you wouldn’t mind subscribing to mine as well that be greatly appreciated, why don’t we take a break cuz I got a lot to talk about not a lot of time to talk about it.

6m 30s – 7m 30s

Living with chronic pain is kind of a nightmare. It’s more than just discomfort. It can affect your whole life. I know there are a lot of people listening to this podcast. I probably have some type of pain that has prevented them from relaxing sleeping stopping them from exercising perhaps been ongoing for weeks. And now it has an improved with any of the treatments. They’ve tried enter omax Health. If you’re looking to get rid of nagging muscle and joint pain immediately while providing long lasting recovery, then you need to try the natural breakthrough pain relief solution. Cryofreeze CBD roll-on developed Biomax Health. This non-prescription triple-action pain relief roll on is specifically formulated to block pain receptors reduce inflammation and provide muscle and joint flexibility. The best part is this 100% natural CBD powered remedy works his magic within 10 minutes of application and relief lasts up to eight hours much longer than over-the-counter products as a bonus to you. All Max health is

7m 30s – 7m 53s

Offering my listeners 20% off a full bottle of cryo freeze CBD pain relief roll-on plus free shipping this discount also applies for any product site wine. Just go to omax health.com today enter promo code over time. That’s o m a x health.com and enter promo code overtime to get 20% off cryofreeze and site-wide.

7m 54s – 8m 53s

And once you’re feeling better, you don’t want to just feel better sitting on the couch. You especially don’t want to just feel better out shoveling your driveway making the pain come right on back. How about instead? We spend our February and March following our favorite baseball teams to Arizona for the Cactus League spring training. I can’t imagine a better way to spend February then out in 75 degree weather watching some baseball eating a couple hot dog hanging out with your significant other your body’s your kids and after the game getting some autographs and then buzzing over to one of the great craft breweries some great outdoor scenery and Adventures like hiking biking Jeep tours hot air balloon skydiving jet ski horseback riding and then after you’re completely famished go out and get some great Arizona cuisine cuisine as Gordon Ramsay kind of says, you know the British don’t speak too good scene. They try, you know,

8m 54s – 9m 54s

Make sure you plan your spring training get away at visit arizona.com spring training. Alright so much to do so little time. What are we talkin about? How about the fact that Luke Kuechly just retired yesterday. Can you imagine being a Carolina Panthers fan? You had a good team then it all kind of went sideways. We know what that’s like, it happened last couple years, right? Suddenly things just aren’t good anymore. We were Super Bowl Contender and then we were trash quarterbacks banged up but we’re starting over now. We get this guy rule in and it’s like he’s going to take over and he���s going to transform everything and then you find out the LSU who just won the National Championship the passing game coordinator. The guy that’s worked with Joe burrow land in the rest of that LSU crew to help them to win. The national championship is going to join Rule and help us rule the NFC South took me a second there and it you just feeling good and you know it you’re probably going to get a new quarterback. Maybe you like it. Maybe you don’t but

9m 54s – 10m 54s

It’s just it’s a new era, right? Cuz it this is a good team. We just got some work to do. We got to fix up this defense a little bit. But may we got the best running back in football? We’re going to get an electrifying quarterback in here. Take a guy like Herbert would be great somebody that doesn’t really need to be benched. But as long as he has a good Supporting Cast which which the Panthers kind of do right, they’ve got wide receivers kind of for the first time that got a great running back decent enough offensive line, like you can plug him in and just make some stuff happen and it will just focus on the defense and just hammer away at it. We’re going to be good man. We got Kuechly hang a hammer in this thing ain’t turn it down in the day that you get the news. You got a new offensive coordinator. The guy that has been like the guy on your team. One of the better linebackers of all time decides that at 28 years old with two years left on his contract. He’s going to hang it up. That’s wild by the way. This is not insignificant news to the Green Bay Packers because the Green Bay Packers are playing the Carolina Panthers at home in 2020 the Panthers

10m 54s – 11m 54s

Who had a abysmally horrible defense this past year are now without Luke Kuechly now. Who knows what’s going to happen to you know, after Gronk left, obviously, there was a total speculation that he’s going to come back. Maybe this is just stay a moment, you know as far as lacking Clarity, maybe it’s it’s injury-related and he’s he’s just really worried who knows but things change Stihl 28. He still healthy maybe is not the same Luke Kuechly was last year. He said in his goodbye message. He’s just not that same guy and he doesn’t want to play if you can’t play up to that level anymore, but maybe I mean Jared Veldheer retired now, he’s back helping us win a Superbowl but as it stands the Packers now are planning to go up against the Carolina Panthers at home without Luke Kuechly. I think the sooner we get that team the bed because the new coach and all that stuff that’s going to take some time to kind of develop that team build that locker room build up the new scheme in the new system. And I you you get those teams early enough before they really

11m 54s – 12m 54s

Get into the groove if they ever do but you catch them before they get into a Groove and that’s that’s going to work to our benefit. I also wanted to comment on something in just a little bit old news, but it’s interesting apparently and this is reported via Tony Pauline. I actually was I found this while I was doing some draft homework trying to get caught up on all the latest news and rumors and things for the draft and came across some news that apparently prior to the Vikings beat in the New Orleans Saints and then understand Tony Pauline is legit. He called stefanski to the Browns like in the same article prior to in Minnesota and the Saints game. She called it but decided the Browns number one candidate was stefanski. Anyways, he had said based on an inside source. The Minnesota Vikings are kind of tired of of Zimmer now, I’m shocked by this because the outside perspective by everybody not in Minnesota is that Zimmer’s a phenomenal code? He’s done a great job obviously is Zimmer defense is a very tough defense in the defense is what makes that team great, obviously.

12m 54s – 13m 54s

Cousins did a good job and all this other stuff, but the Zimmer defense is what makes the Minnesota Vikings in Minnesota Vikings, but in Pauline’s words Zimmer has worn out his welcome in Minnesota. Here’s the interesting thing. The report was if they lose to the New Orleans Saints Zimmer’s done and stefanski will get hired as the head coach so bad because I believe the source I do think that the ownership wants to move on from Zimmer. However, they did beat New Orleans. I can’t imagine one game like that is really going to make that big of a difference. Although I mean, of course it’s a big win but to be that good of a team to get in the playoffs and to still say if you lose to a basically the number one team arguably in the NFL then you’re no good. And it’s that’s kind of a ridiculous statement. It sounds to me like something you’d say when you kind of just want him to go but the other kind of unfortunate thing is for the Vikings. Anyway, you also lost your intended replace.

13m 54s – 14m 54s

So now what are you do you you not only beat the Saints but the guy that you were going to replace dimmer with supposedly is gone. So you don’t have a replacement. No, forget that forget. The fact that I think this whole thing is a ridiculous conversation. I don’t know what’s going on inside the organization. Maybe Zimmer has become an insufferable jerk. He feels like he runs things, you know, whatever. I don’t know. I’m just telling you what the standpoint of ownership is and in for the Vikings fans listening. I want to clarify something. I understand that. The owner has said we 100% are bringing back our GM and our head coach. We have no intention of moving up. Please understand the eagle said the same thing about two of their coaches and fired them both the same day within 24 hours. I think it was like the quarterback coach something else. I don’t know but there was a question. Are you bringing it back? You should absolutely they’re coming back within 24 hours. They were both fired. So when you get put on the spot, you know, you don’t waver on a Zimmer coming back of course is come.

14m 54s – 15m 47s

Oh, yes, definitely. You tell the media. Yes, and then you go do your job or you try to throw out some it mean that there’s really just two ways to handle it. You don’t care what the media thinks and you just say yes because it’s better for your your franchise because you don’t want to waiver on it and then keep Zimmer was Zimmer, you know in the back of his mind taking these guys are trying to get rid of me. So you just say, of course, that’s our guy or the other way to handle it is just kind of, you know, not answer the question in which case everybody fully understands. You are answering the question. So you think you’re being cute but you’re answering the question and say yes, we’re trying to get rid of them by wavering on it don’t hurt her. I should have asked you to come Sizzla Floor coming back next year. What do you think the answer you think is going to be? Well, you know we go to the media asks you I think the right thing to do is say yes, of course dumb question and then if you want to fire me fire if the media wants to call you on it just to cares.

15m 47s – 16m 47s

He made you look dumb not the other way around cuz guess what you’re going to keep asking me questions as though I’m an authority and I want to keep telling me the answers that I want to give you whether they’re true or not. Cuz I could not care any less about you and your little articles. I’ve got a team to run a multi-billion-dollar franchise to run in a little Minnesota blog doesn’t mean anything to me and I’m not going to hurt my franchise answering your ridiculously dumb questions. I don’t care about you. So again, this is just to say I fully understand he said they’re they’re intending to keep them at this point. That might be their only option i d d, you know, I don’t know maybe they like some of the other candidates that are out there be enemy McDaniels. The Ravens offensive coordinator is getting a ton of love and could be a very good option. You also have to figure that. You might be looking to get a new quarterback in the near future. So maybe you want to get it off. I think that I think this is all ridiculous. I I think this is a defensive team of talk about identity in the past and the weird thing but certain teams

16m 47s – 17m 47s

This is just have identities that last through the decades the Vikings trying to go off at doesn’t work. They win when there are defensive team same is true for the Chicago Bears. They have tried over and over and over and over with guys like Trestman and everything else trying to get an elite offense and it just never works in. The one time that they’re legitimate team is when despite the fact that they’re still trying to go off ends Vic fangio building Elite defense and there you have it this Minnesota Vikings team lives and dies with their defense the purple people eaters on through the line This is a defensive franchise. They are a smash you in the mouth kind of a team and I just I don’t I don’t know. I don’t know why they would do it, but I wanted to bring it up because it is interesting and it definitely feels like this team has kind of been flogged. It’s kind of like Luke Kuechly Jumping Ship when everything’s kind of influx. Anyway, I’ve been kind of on the fence. Anyways, you’re going to fire my code. You’re getting rid of my quarterback. Probably maybe you’re bringing in all these new people. I just you know,

17m 47s – 18m 47s

The franchise is kind of in the in the in the train in the dirt. Whatever I can think of a word out of here and you know, the Vikings are kind of going through that’s enough that they’re a bad team. But you lose your offense of coordinator your defensive coordinator your assistant GM you might look at him know, you know what since we’re getting poached and we’re losing everything. I’ve been kind of want to make some changes. Anyways, let’s just kind of make some changes until I all I’m saying is if I had to guess the dimmers going to stay if for no other reason than he met that one qualification in that they beat the Saints and the replacement is currently coaching the Browns. However, keep that in the back your mind if the Vikings don’t have a good year next year. He’s 100% gone and it’s also possible that if they could find a good enough candidate they may move on. Anyways, I mean maybe before they go out and find it offensive coordinator. Maybe they go out and find somebody and offensive coordinator to coach the team and you know, there’s a lot of good defensive coordinators floating out there. They don’t get as many looks as had head coaching jobs as offensive coordinators do so. There’s some really quality guys that are just floating. So anyways something to keep an eye on.

18m 47s – 19m 47s

Something else that was brought up kind of a long that same vein Max in the Facebook group said he is a Packer fan from Minnesota and that there is growing speculation that Stefon Diggs is permanently unhappy on an overall average Vikings roster. Now though the point of his question was as a possible we end up getting them in the in the main response at he got was that there’s no way the Vikings are going to allow him to go to the Packers. That’s probably true. However, let’s also keep in mind. He doesn’t have to come to Green Bay in order for him to benefit us if the Vikings really do it again, they’re kind of in this middle grow their kind of in a spot where if they wanted to kind of tear things down they could or they can just try to hang on just replace the vacancies go into the draft get some more quality guys and come back and Hammer it again next year. I mean there there’s still a pretty good team. Although there is that question of the ticking Time Bomb might these guys are getting a year older and a year older and all our guys that are older or under these really long contract. I don’t know maybe we do need to start doing something a little bit more dramatic a little bit more.

19m 47s – 20m 47s

Secure Kendricks the odds of him playing at this level again or basically zero, he’s never play that at that high of a level ever in his career. He’s arguably the top linebacker in all football and I’ve been dogging the guy for 4 since forever saying he’s overrated Kendrick sandbach. You certainly was November 8th of this year and you know Everson Griffen and daneel Hunter very very good. But, you know the age catches up with everybody. These guys are both in or push in 32. Neil’s obviously a lot younger. He’s got a lot of tread left but Everson Griffen. I know you got them locked up long-term, but that doesn’t mean you got a quality player locked up long-term. He’s 32 just cuz you sign them through 35 doesn’t mean you’re freezing his age. So I don’t know. I mean if it’s true that they are considering moving on from their head coach. It’s certainly true that they could be willing to move on from there. They’re wide receiver, especially if he is kind of a head case and you feel as though he’s a negative in the locker room. I don’t know that he is I mean sometimes loud guys like that are positive other teammates really like him and I think her cousin says very much cuz he’s always screaming at cousin but so is

20m 47s – 21m 47s

The receiver feelings constantly getting into space 2 so you have to cut him if that’s if you’re just worried about him his Kirk Cousins feelings and Kirk Cousins is probably gonna be gone pretty soon. Anyway, so what are you worried about that for? Anyways, that’s enough about the Vikings. But I guess here’s to hoping you know, if the offseason has been really crazy since what like 2017 when it just really went nuts and we’ve seen teams do things that you know people that have been watching football for a long time. You just think that would never happen. That’s to correct. Those things have been happening the last few years, but some of the biggest stars just randomly end up on different teams. So it’ll be interesting to watch the Vikings in the kind of gauge and see what their strategy is which for a long time has been. Let’s just retain everybody at some point. You got to assume that they’re going to try to blow it up a little bit. We’ll see what happens little bit of minor Packers news parent leave the Packers had to work out with CFL running back to Shawn Amos. No clue. If there’s any relation to Adrian Amos. However, he is a r was a Calgary stampeder and a teammate of Reggie begelton another guy that we had.

21m 47s – 22m 47s

I believe sign to a reserve Futures deal. So we’ll see what happens when it comes to a PC still doing a lot of work and it clearly they’ve been doing some work in the CFL as well. And you know, I’m not going to not get a job goop the man knows what he’s doing. So we’ll see how the last thing I want to bring up before we take a break and get into some other more. I don’t know what college visit philosophical type thing. There was a point brought up by no other than OJ Simpson that Aaron Rodgers probably still has a chip on his shoulder against the 49ers leaving aside the part where that was a very long time ago because you probably still have some kind of a chip something that OJ seems to be forgetting is that he probably has a chip had a ship on the shoulder on November 24th, when we lost 30728 probably had a chip on his shoulder when we lost of the 49ers 23 to 20 back in 2014 as well as losing twice to the 49ers the year before

22m 47s – 23m 47s

So I’m not so sure that that really holds a lot of water I bring it up just because it’s entirely possible that there’s some pack offense of her then go. Oh, yeah, he was snubbed therefore. He’s angry therefore he wants revenge do this is the third time we face it for San Francisco in the playoffs with Aaron Rodger We Roll for 2. So yeah, maybe but I’m not putting a lot on that. However, he was the one thing I will say to try to get a little bit to that bigger than Aaron Rodgers is the general theme that although the Packers haven’t been perfect. They win when it matters, I would focus little bit more on that to be honest the fact that yes, we did lose to them earlier in the regular season, but when it really matters do we have the guys on this team come up and play a good football game and again to win when it matters that’s been there Mo all year. So be very Packers ask of them to have an ugly series with the 49ers but ultimately win when it matters and to once again prove everybody wrong something they’ve been doing literally all

23m 47s – 24m 47s

Let’s take a break and then I want to get in to see how much of this other stuff we can get at. I want to start with the the first thing first. That is this Eric eager guy who is a vitriolic anti Packers Vikings fan who is trying to put on his analytics hat as he tries to dismantle the Green Bay Packers and the shocking thing is that although other people are doing a fairly good job of it. Just just laying out historical fact and letting it lie there and letting Packer fans. Overreacting look like The Crazy Ones this Eric dude is just out of his mind. So I want to kind of walk through this a little bit to matter simply means that the offense is what is most predictive and actually this game was a perfect example of that. So it’s pretty clear. He’s trying to defend something right? He’s he’s he’s not walking something back but he got called out for something dumb and he’s trying to defend it. First of all, what in the world are you talking about? Trying to defend apparently some comment he made about defense.

24m 47s – 25m 47s

Doesn’t matter which is dumb as the guy that has in a self-proclaimed way written the book on it. That’s just not true offense is more predictive of success. That’s not true. Remember what my little project was quarterback versus defense, which really is how they started off. That’s what I call it ends up being sort of what the predictive odds of winning based on your statistical points where you rank in terms of points and yards on offense and a defendant in a mathematical sense looking at every single Super Bowl winner throughout all of Super Bowl history. I looked at what the percentage odds are based on all these things and end points against which is defensive points allowed is by far the most predictive in terms of actually winning a Super Bowl 30% 30% of all Super Bowl winners have the number one overall defense. That’s just number one.

25m 47s – 26m 46s

I’ve been through all this stuff before he’s just wrong about this defense is more predictive of success know if you’re talking about maybe some other things. I I don’t know what is initial claim was but he’s absolutely wrong having a great offense is going to help you win the Superbowl but having a better defense is much more predictive and then for him to go on and say end this game was a great example of that. Excuse me, the Packers won because of their offense against the Seattle defense. Is that the claim that you’re making that’s absurd It song about the Packers five sacks Russell Wilson had a better day than Aaron Rodgers did statistically it was Aaron who it was Russell Wilson versus the Packers defense. That was the story of this game. This was not an example of that. If you go back over history the last time they played in the playoffs the Seahawks want and it was Seattle’s defense against the Packers offense. This was Seattle’s offense against the Packers defense in both cases defense came out on top two hilarious thing though. Is that his co-host

26m 47s – 27m 47s

Yeah, that’s right. And then goes on to explain how the Packers defense was really good and that the Seattle offense was really good what this game was? Absolutely. I mean we were we were told the entire in a sort of going into the game that Green Bay was more Stout up front in Seattle and they were I mean, they think pressured Wilson more than 50% of his dropbacks. But ultimately Russell Wilson and the Seahawks have gained the Packers. They made a lot of plays Wilson at 106 passer rating when pressured their yards per play We’re actually higher than their historical, you know average for the season. I think they were saying that offense is more important than defense and this game shows in the co-host goes. Yeah, that’s true. Seattle’s offense was incredible. And in fact, they played better on offense then they have all year, but the Packers defense was better. Maybe they just think Seattle one. I don’t know.

27m 47s – 28m 13s

I’m a little confused because the initial statement for mr. Eric was defense doesn’t matter the whole Cohoes comes out and says, yes, he knows offense was great Packers defense was great Packers won and to look at his face as he just sits there and watch it happen to him is hilarious Cindy goes down and tries to do damage control and explain how Green Bay’s defense actually isn’t that good? And that in fact, I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know listen to what this guy is trying to do here.

28m 14s – 28m 48s

Upoint were talking before this which is like Willie Turner Turner drops a stone cold light up in past. That’s not an example of Green Bay’s defense being great, right? It’s an example of offense dictating what happens in this game great offense is going to win out right? That’s just what happened and that offense is also going to make your defense look good, right? So Russell Wilson in this game his fatal flaw was that he held onto the ball a long time and he did not feel the pressure and Aaron Rodgers. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop stop.

28m 49s – 29m 49s

Wow, this is this is how I knew he was a Vikings fan. This is how I absolutely knew because this makes no sense Point number one offense dictates to defense. So the point you’re making is basically the the way that I’m going to be right about this is that I’m going to say offense is more important the defense and if you point out to me a good defense I’m going to say that it wasn’t actually good defense was just bad offense, which you can do in every case, except your one example is ridiculous. You gave one example of a guy dropping a pass how many other dropped passes were there? And and what are the five sacks come into play and how about the dropped interception? Can we just hand him? Can we hand Kevin King the ball since we’re just going to make stuff up. Let me ask you another question explain to me how the Tennessee Titans beat the number one ranked offense in football. How did that happen? It don’t even give me this garbage about Lamar didn’t play. Well, he threw some of the most pinpoint perfect passes I’ve ever seen in my life. He was running for his life. That is a very good offense that try to dictate a with but loss.

29m 49s – 30m 35s

To a better defense because the old adage that defense wins championships has kind of been true for a while. If you don’t have a good defense, you don’t have yourself a Super Bowl the last time a team won. The didn’t have a top-10 defense was the 2013 Ravens and I tell you right now with 100% certainty that was a top-10 defense by the time they hit the playoffs and Ray Lewis said guys. I just need one more the last time a team won Super Bowl without a top-10 defense or offense. 2016 Bronco that offense was not good at all. The quarterback was ranked 39th about the number 4 ranked scoring defense in the number one defense in terms of yarded and know their quarterback didn’t get better in the postseason. He was the same guy that couldn’t hardly do any of it. At least physically this it this is such.

30m 36s – 31m 36s

Ridiculous nonsense trying to say that despite the fact that it was actually the Packers defense that one and then the Seahawks offense that lost another what’s a good offense force a good defense and the defense with the way you twist. This is by actually saying the the Seahawks offense wasn’t good. The guy just laid out the statistics. It was a very good offensive performance and Russell Wilson played out of his mind and a know he held on the ball too long. I wonder why genius you think maybe it’s cuz nobody was open because you know defense, what are you talkin about? Why are you doing this the reputation of Pro Football Focus is going in the tank. Every time you open your mouth PFF is all about Advanced analytics. It’s about statistics is supposed to be about facts right that the even her grading scale is based on a very strict criteria of factual information and you got this guy flapping his gums sing the dumbest crap I’ve ever heard of my life offense dictates to defense a good defense.

31m 36s – 32m 36s

Is nothing more than a bad offense. What are you talkin about? This these words have never been spoken in the history of the universe ever accept by this Vikings fan who forgets that he’s on on an actual broadcast and his hatred of the Packers has so consumed him that he can’t even form a coherent thought he is. So Lowe’s to give the Packers any credit that he’s essentially saying that the Seahawks just their offense just fell apart. The five sacks just kind of happened Russell Wilson held onto the ball because he just felt like it not because nobody was open but because he felt like it despite the fact we saw the replays in the coverage and nobody was open and there was nowhere to go with the ball for not going to give Packers any credit this this this is exactly the problem and I don’t I don’t think we’re going to have time to get to my other thing. Maybe we’ll talk about it tomorrow. I don’t have a problem with the analytics Community. But but this is no different than than the end in the political realm there statistics and there is evidence for just about anything that you want to prove and when you get people with enough

32m 36s – 33m 36s

They’ll try to use all this stuff to basically paint the picture that just isn’t so and this is not even a coherent looking picture. This isn’t even using statistics or anyting. This is just a guy that’s lost his mind either. He’s lost his mind. He’s never had one. I don’t know. I don’t know who this guy is. I’ve never heard him speak before but this is dumb and it’s not just cuz he’s talking about the pack of this is the end of this is a stance that he’s taking that offense is more important the defense an example of a defense beating out the offense. It’s because the offense didn’t do what it’s supposed to do that’s called circular logic my friend. That’s not how this works. That’s not how anything works. If you’re listening to this and you want I can let you borrow my thirteen-year-old daughters introduction to logic book. It’ll maybe help you work through this a little bit. She’s done with that when she’s moved on to intermediate logic so you can borrow the the intro to logic book if you if you want it seems like you you might need it but the but the but that’s what that’s what gets me so frustrated about this because there are people that are just being honest.

33m 36s – 34m 36s

I don’t have any problem with Vegas giving better odds the 49ers again. I trust Vegas because Vegas is just all they care about is money. I trust a greedy capitalist because they just care about money there a biased they’re not willing to to to lose money to get their way of Vikings fan working at a casino setting a betting line is not going to move the line to sort of hurt the Packers fans feeling because they just care about money and so I can trust them doesn’t mean they’re right but they’re going to take all the available information which is the other thing I wanted to talk about but we don’t have time is in a how much how much of the stuff that we can see accounts for the whole picture. That’s sort of a another question that will try to talk about tomorrow because some of the analytics people seem to think that all the information we have is all the information we need and my ability to take the information and paint the correct picture is is 100% accurate. So I am all-knowing and that’s that’s when you get to be obnoxious. I love analytics. I love none.

34m 36s – 35m 36s

The love playing with stuff because it provides a little bit of context. It paints a picture but the actual Beauty and football I’ll give you the end of the story tomorrow. I’ll just ruin it is the fact that we don’t know anyting the fact that there isn’t a supercomputer that’s going to tell us who wins the Super Bowl because there will never be a super computer that can tell us that because there is an unknown quantity to the human element of football that will always remain unknown that at that can’t ever be no that is the part about football that makes football special statistics will never be able to touch that part of football ever until some of these people are just wildly speaking out of turn and I’m to the point now that anytime I see it. I’m just going to try to come swing it if you want to say you think the 49ers and I went I don’t care that’s fine. You should think that if I wasn’t a pack of Five Nights at 49ers going to win and I don’t need the other game. I don’t know. How do I run things Chiefs? I’m kind of leaning Titans a little bit same way. I was leaning Titans against the Raven cuz you have these wildly good offense is going up against a team that has a rat that is just a solidly, you know steady team.

35m 36s – 36m 36s

You don’t like I go for the study Team every time it was steady Patriots looking team versus team that let a team score 24 points in a quarter and then came back and scored like 30 or three touchdowns in 3 minutes. That is the epitome of volatility. Anyways, that’s neither here nor there point is I have no problem with Packer fans saying I think we’re going to lose that I’ve gotten so many messages saying I’m not feeling good about this. I don’t think we’re going to win that doesn’t bother me letters are a good team. Even if they weren’t there’s no guarantees in football, which is another thing that the analytics Community doesn’t want to look at. They look at the fact that the Packers almost lost the Lions save their for their garbage. Why because your supercomputer said if they were good, they would have blown him out of the water. Your supercomputer is stupid and I hate the fact that I am at war with the analytics Community because I feel like these are my people. I’m the one that’s been taking the the arrows for PFF for 2 year haven’t talked about how we can go back up in this and this guy is not the embodiment of what PFF is. I don’t know who he is. I don’t know why he’s there. I don’t know who liked who gave him a microphone.

36m 36s – 37m 36s

Speaking anything factual or even using what is going on with Twitter do this is ridiculous the stuff that’s trending is just get out of here. I got to get off here stuff popping up like why is what anyways, so there’s a lot more I want to talk about but, you know time constraints and whatnot. I know. It’s only 36 minutes in but I got to go to work speaking of a couple things everyone. Don’t forget patreon if everybody listening decides to give me a dollar a month. I can start working on my sales pitch to my wife to quit my job. It won’t work, but I’ll start I’ll try secondly on a slightly more serious note, although I would seriously appreciate that regardless of what happens with the Green Bay Packers in a few weeks. The season is over. Let me encourage you because there’s a lot more listeners now than there have been over the past year because of how much popularity with the Packers and their the playoffs and all that. Let me encourage you to please stick around after the season is over if you need a couple days to recoup after a loss if there is a loss, that’s fine. But but please come back.

37m 36s – 38m 36s

Because I’ll tell you what the offseason is when things get fun with the draft coming up with free agency coming up. This this is one of my favorite times of the year. In fact that the Packers won in the playoffs. This would already be my favorite time of the year. It’s the time when we get to dream as Packer fans about what can be what might be to look at the prospects to look at the free agents. And then once we get them to talk about what they might be able to do for the offseason is the time to dream about what could be it’s also that the best time to go back and really digging deep into what the Packers were. Not just what they can be but what they really were in to theorize and that’s what I love the most the regular season is not my favorite time to podcast it’s easy because everything is laid out for you, but it almost kind of gets monotonous is the same thing at the same schedule as it’s just but you got to hit on these points so I can’t get away from it. Even on a daily podcast you get your routines in your ritual. I like the offseason the offseason is when the fun happen, so, please let me encourage you to at least stick around for

38m 36s – 39m 12s

Weaker for 2 weeks just to see if if I’m lying to you and if you don’t love it, and if you’re not getting some inside, so you never thought you would and if you’re not enjoying the offseason by all means going to the football hibernation, and we’ll we’ll see you again in August, but I promise you this offseason going to be a lot of fun. I’m still planning on doing daily. I did it daily last year didn’t think I could but I made it and I fully intend to do it again. So that’s my pan. I’d love to see the numbers increase in the offseason instead of decrease. Anyways, you folks have ourselves a fantastic day. It’s us against the world, and that’s exactly how it needs to be. I will talk to you tomorrow. Have a good one. Bye. Bye.

[mikeandchesterforever]

I needed a distraction so here’s this

1. Full name: not saying bc I write personal shit on here but my roommate calls me Moca, so lets go with that 2. Zodiac sign: Sagittarius 3. 3 Fears: death, not succeeding in life, and losing the people I love 4. 3 things I love: music, tattoos, and dogs 5. 4 turns ons: 6. 4 turns offs: 7. My best friend: a wonderful human named Chai, who is probably reading this 8. Sexual orientation: Gay af 9. My best first date: definitely my most recent first date. We went to the MFA, and just got lost in there, looking at all of the art. And then we found a spot and just sat and talked for a while and it was incredible. 10. How tall am I: 5'5 and a half 11. What do I miss: my best friend… and my 3 friends that died 12. What time were I born: 5:58pm 13. Favourite colour: Black and neon green 14. Do I have a crush: I sure do… 15. Favourite quote: "Darling you'll be okay" I have it as a tattoo on my wrist in Vic Fuentes' handwriting 16. Favourite place: The beach 17. Favourite food: oh god that's hard…. I have so many. Mac and cheese is definitely one of them 18. Do I use sarcasm: yes but I have a hard time understanding it with other people (depending on who the person is) 19. What am I listening to right now: "Throne" by Bring Me The Horizon 20. First thing I notice in new person: their eyes 21. Shoe size: 9 ish 22. Eye colour: blue 23. Hair colour: brown but about to dye it 24. Favourite style of clothing: gay college kid who loves band merch 25. Ever done a prank call?: nope 26. What colour of underwear I’m wearing now?: black like my soul 27. Meaning behind my URL: this blog was solely for band stuff when I made it, and at the time Linkin Park was my all time favorite band. So yeah. 28. Favourite movie: That's hard… Probably Spider-Man bc he's my favorite super hero 29. Favourite song: Hold On Till May by Pierce the Veil 30. Favourite band: Pierce the Veil, no question 31. How I feel right now: upset, angry, nauseous, tired, sore 32. Someone I love: my incredible best friend 33. My current relationship status: single but crushing so hard on an amazing girl 34. My relationship with my parents: not bad but not perfect 35. Favourite holiday: Christmas - I love being able to buy my friends and family gifts 36. Tattoos and piercings?: 3 tattoos (but I want more), and two earring holes 37. Tattoos and piercing I want: I want a ton of tattoos, mostly song lyrics, and potentially a memorial piece for my three friends. I don’t think I want another piercing. 38. The reason I joined Tumblr: bands and venting… lots of venting. 39. Do I and my last ex hate each other? No, but I don’t know how tf she feels about me so there's that. 40. Do I ever get “good morning” or “good night ” texts? Nope. Haven't in forever. 41. Have I ever kissed the last person you texted? Nope and I'm totally okay with that 42. When did I last hold hands? My birthday dinner. My girlfriend at the time was there, and we held hands almost all night 43. How long does it take me to get ready in the morning? 5-10 minutes, once I actually get out of bed 44. Have I shaved your legs in the past three days? Lmao nope 45. Where am I right now? At my house, on my bed 46. If I were drunk & can’t stand, who’s taking care of me? My amazing best friend - already almost happened once and I wouldn't have wanted anyone else there with me, nor would I have trusted anyone else to make sure I was okay 47. Do I like my music loud or at a reasonable level? Really depends on my mood 48. Do I live with my Mom and Dad? Yes 49. Am I excited for anything? Going back to school and seeing my best friend 50. Do I have someone of the opposite sex I can tell everything to? Sure do 51. How often do I wear a fake smile? More often than I'll ever admit 52. When was the last time I hugged someone? About an hour ago, I hugged my mom 53. What if the last person I kissed was kissing someone else right in front of me? I would be so hurt. 54. Is there anyone I trust even though I should not? I'd like to say no, but lately I don’t even know who to trust anymore 55. What is something I disliked about today? I had to work a 10 hour shift with no break 56. If I could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be? I've met PTV once already but I would meet them again in a heartbeat. If not them, then definitely BMTH 57. What do I think about most? Music 58. What’s my strangest talent? I hear a noise and sometimes I can figure out what note it is. My friends all think I have perfect pitch but idk 59. Do I have any strange phobias? Heights... 60. Do I prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it? Behind it 61. What was the last lie I told? My mom asked how my day was and I told her it was good 62. Do I prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online? FaceTime! 63. Do I believe in ghosts? How about aliens? Sometimes, I guess it depends on the day 64. Do I believe in magic? No but I love the idea of it 65. Do I believe in luck? Yes I do, and I am a very lucky person 66. What’s the weather like right now? It's cold and dark, but it was warm and sunny earlier today 67. What was the last book I’ve read? My classical music textbook 68. Do I like the smell of gasoline? Yes. Very much so. 69. Do I have any nicknames? My roommate calls me Moca 70. What was the worst injury I’ve ever had? I almost got a concussion once, other than that I've broken my arm and one of my fingers. 71. Do I spend money or save it? I try to save it but when I do spend it, it's usually on tattoos and concert tickets. 72. Can I touch my nose with a tongue? Yes 73. Is there anything pink in 10 feets from me? Nope 74. Favourite animal? Hippos!!!!! 75. What was I doing last night at 12 AM? I was talking to my best friend on FaceTime, and we were talking about how we were so ready to go back to school. 76. What do I think is Satan’s last name is? Wtf??? I have no clue?????? 77. What’s a song that always makes me happy when I hear it? Hold On Till May by Pierce the Veil 78. How can you win my heart? Be patient with me, and let me learn to trust you, and we learn who we really are 79. What would I want to be written on my tombstone? At this current moment in time, I want "so long and good night" 80. What is my favourite word: indeed 81. My top 5 blogs on tumblr: all the blogs I follow bc they are all wonderful 82. If the whole world were listening to me right now, what would I say?: don’t ever give up. Life gives you so many options - don’t you dare make giving up one of them. You'll always be okay, even when you think the world is ending around you. 83. Do I have any relatives in jail? Unfortunately yes…. 84. I accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow me with the super-power of my choice! What is that power? Mind-reading. Then I'd know how people really feel about me. 85. What would be a question I’d be afraid to tell the truth on? I don’t know tbh 86. What is my current desktop picture? A picture of PTV that I love bc it's cute 87. Had sex? Nope 88. Bought condoms? Nope 89. Gotten pregnant? Nope 90. Failed a class? Almost 91. Kissed a boy? Yes 92. Kissed a girl? Yes 93. Have I ever kissed somebody in the rain? No but I want to so bad 94. Had job? Yup 95. Left the house without my wallet? Yeah… 12/10 do not recommend 96. Bullied someone on the internet? Never 97. Had sex in public? Nope 98. Played on a sports team? Yeah, when I was younger I played baseball. And I played ultimate frisbee in high school and for half a semester in college 99. Smoked weed? No 100. Did drugs? No 101. Smoked cigarettes? No 102. Drank alcohol? Yes 103. Am I a vegetarian/vegan? Nope 104. Been overweight? Mhmm…... 105. Been underweight? Nope 106. Been to a wedding? Yup, and I was in it too 107. Been on the computer for 5 hours straight? Yeah 108. Watched TV for 5 hours straight? Yes but only when I am sick 109. Been outside my home country? Yup, twice 110. Gotten my heart broken? Oh yeah... 111. Been to a professional sports game? Yup! 112. Broken a bone? Yeah, I broke my arm when I was 7 and I broke one of my fingers when I was 8 113. Cut myself? Oh yes. More than I'd like to admit, actually. I struggled with it for a really long time. 114. Been to prom? Yup 115. Been in airplane? Yes! I like them a lot actually 116. Fly by helicopter? Nope 117. What concerts have I been to? Linkin Park, Avenged Sevenfold, Bon Jovi, Stone Temple Pilots (with lead singer Chester Bennington), Warped Tour, A Silent Film, Demi Lovato, Pentatonix, and my loves Pierce the Veil (4 times to be exact). 118. Had a crush on someone of the same sex? Oh yes. 119. Learned another language? Yup! I'm not fluent in it though 120. Wore make up? Yes… but most recently it was for a play I did and I needed to look like a dude 121. Lost my virginity before I was 18? Haven't lost it yet 122. Had oral sex? Nope 123. Dyed my hair? Hell yeah and doing it again 124. Voted in a presidential election? Yup 125. Rode in an ambulance? No 126. Had a surgery? Yup, my wisdom teeth, and I'm p sure they had to surgically fix my arm when I broke it 127. Met someone famous? Yes! I met PTV 128. Stalked someone on a social network? Yes…. 129. Peed outside? Nope 130. Been fishing? Nope 131. Helped with charity? Yes 132. Been rejected by a crush? Yes…. 133. Broken a mirror? No 134. What do I want for birthday? To not spend it alone like I did this year 135. How many kids do I want and what will be their names? I don’t know 136. Was I named after anyone? Yes but I really don’t want to get into that 137. Do I like my handwriting? Not really but it's okay I guess 138. What was my favourite toy as a child? I had a stuffed cat and I named her Daisy, after my cat 139. Favourite Tv Show? NCIS, no question 140. Where do I want to live when older? Idk… Maybe near Boston, maybe not. 141. Play any musical instrument? Yup - tuba, bass trombone, alto sax, drums, piano, euphonium, guitar, and now I am learning bass guitar. 142. One of my scars, how did I get it? I have a scar on my arm from getting burned 143. Favourite pizza topping? Pineapple bc I'm a nerd 144. Am I afraid of the dark? No 145. Am I afraid of heights? Yes I fucking am 146. Have I ever got caught sneaking out or doing anything bad? No 147. Have I ever tried my hardest and then gotten disappointed in the end? Lmao did you mean my life 148. What I’m really bad at: being organized 149. What my greatest achievements are: actually living to see my 20th birthday 150. The meanest thing somebody has ever said to me: "You know what? If you're going to hurt yourself go ahead. Go right ahead." 151. What I’d do if I won in a lottery: Make myself and my loved ones financially stable - so my parents, my sister and brother in law, my brother, my best friend, and myself. 152. What do I like about myself: my eyes, my hair, and my music taste. 153. My closest Tumblr friend: I don’t have anyone that I only know from tumblr and no other context 154. Something I fantasize about my ex: her and I being together and happy… so, so happy. Going on dates, spending time together, and just loving each other so much. But it's never going to happen.

#ask meme #I needed to do this #it really helped get my mind off of stuff

[sillystringlouis]

girl please answer all of those 1D questions. all of them

Bless you. Thank you.1: When did you first realize how much you love One Direction? November of 2013

2: Who's your favourite and why? Niall. He’s just made of sunshine. I love his voice. I love that he contributes his guitar playing to the band. I love that he’s everyone in the bands’ best friend. I love how much he cares. I also love that he’s been open with his struggles with things like claustrophobia. I love that he makes sure to tell us how he is. I love so much about Niall.

3: Who's your least favourite and why? Can I say Zayn? Cuz he’s been a bit of a dick since he left the band.

4: Name four things that remind you of your favourite. Sunshine. Guitars. Harry Potter. Anything Irish.

5: What do your friends and family think of your love for One Direction? They’ve accepted it lol. But sometimes judge me for it.

6: What's your earliest One Direction related memory? Well my earliest clear memory is Leakycon 2013 when I was ragging on my friends for loving 1D so much. I wasn’t a fan for the first couple years, I’ll be honest. 

7: Are you sometimes embarrassed of liking the boys? Hell no. You gotta love what you love, man. 

8: Do you like the boys mainly for their music? Yes. It’s fun. And listening to their music, giving it a chance, is how I started liking them. 

9: What's your favourite tattoo on each of the boys? Oh god. I don’t even know anymore. I’ve lost track of their tattoos. Lets go with the screw for all of them. Because cute.

10: What's your 1D order? Niall, Harry, Louis, Liam, (Zayn)

11: Name three of your favourite funny moments. Bro I don’t even know anymore. They make me giggle too often to pick 3. 

12: What are your five favourite songs? Never Enough, Walking In The Wind, Fireproof, Where do Broken Hearts Go, Don’t Forget Where You Belong. But ask me tomorrow and they might be different. I love so many of their songs so much.

13: What's your favourite album and why? Made In The AM. I loved how much they wrote themselves of the album. And I love how chill of an album it is. 

14: Is there a One Direction song that makes you cry? I used to cry during Little Things. But not so much anymore.

15: Is there a One Direction song that you can't stand at all? Would people kill me if I said What Makes You Beautiful? Because yeah. No thank you.

16: Favourite music video? Drag Me Down

17: Least favourite music video? You and I

18: What's your favourite hairstyle on Harry? I’m a sucker for his long hair. He rocked it.

19: What's your favourite hairstyle on Zayn? AMAs. That ONE TENDRIL OF HAIR FALLING DOWN. Y’all know what I’m talking about.

20: Do you get nostalgic over fetus One Direction or do you think they're hotter now? Hotter now. I’m a fucking 23 year old woman. No fetus 1D please.

21: Which of the boys would you want to get drunk with? All of them, TBH. Depends on what I was looking for. If I wanted to get drunk and CHILL? Niall. If I wanted to get drunk and party - Louis and Liam. If I wanted to get drunk and have crazy conversations? Harry.

22: Which of the boys would you want to have a movie night with? Niall. Potter Movie Marathon. Lets go.

23: Which of the boys would you want to go shopping with? Oh Harry for sure. Best fashion sense of the lot of them.

24: Which of the boys would you want to have really rough and kinky sex with? Goddamn. Fuck me. Zayn. Probably.

25: Which of the boys would you want as your best friend? Niall.

26: If the boys were animals, which boy would be which animal? I hate these sorts of questions. 

27: If the boys were a song ( not a One Direction song ), which song would which boy be? And these.

28: Sort the boys into Hogwarts Houses. This I’ll do. Niall is a Hufflepuff. Louis is a hatstall between Gryffindor and Slytherin and ultimately would end up in Gryffindor (he reminds me of Sirius Black. Which is high praises from me. Even though I know Sirius wouldn’t have ever been a Slytherin. But anyway). Liam is a Gryffindor. Harry is a Hufflepuff. And Zayn is a Ravenclaw. 

29: Is there something you dislike about the boys as a band? The fact that they’re STILL ON HIATUS? GOD.

30: Which of the boys is the best boyfriend? Niall. Thoughtful, sweet, and loyal. Niall would be a kick ass boyfriend. 

31: Which boy is which fictional character? ( Book / Movie / TV- Show ) Meh. Still not into these sorts of questions.

32: Which boy is the most like you personality-wise? Oh god. Louis maybe? Snappy and outgoing but a little self conscious? Yeah. 

33: Do your friends like One Direction? Some do, some don’t. 

34: To how many of their concerts of have you been? Oh god. 17. Listen. I followed them to the UK and saw half the tour for their last tour. 6 straight shows at the O2. I was at all of them. 3 shows in Sheffield. Again - there. 

35: Blond or brunett Niall? Brunett

36: What would you get your favourite for christmas? LOLOL nothing. Maybe tickets to a show or something. Here’s the thing. 1D can buy anything they want. I’d have to be thoughtful and shit and I don’t know them well enough to give them good thoughtful gifts.

37: Describe your dream-date with your fav. Booze and good food while at a Blackhawks game. Cuz you best believe I’ll make Niall into a hockey fan and make him support the right team.

38: Describe your dream- wedding with your fav. I’ve never been the type to imagine such a thing. Sorry. But yeah.

39: Would you want kids with your fav? How many? How would you name them? Again - I’ve never been into imagining such a thing. I know I’ll never date my fave so why bother?

40: Have you ever felt like you're losing interest in the boys? Yeah. But it comes back. I ebb and flow in my fanship of things.

41: You hear One Direction in public- do you go off or pretend not to care? Go off if I can. But usually I’m working when I hear them lol. They play at my work all the time :)

42: Do you have any posters? A couple but not up

43: Do you like the film This Is Us? I’m watching it right now lol. Or listening to it while I answer these. I love it

44: Do you have any merch? A few things. mostly tshirts. And the headband bow. And things like that

45: Do you think the way the boys act in public is how they really are? To a degree but not entirely. They’re public figures. Just like any other public figure they’ll never be fully themselves out and about.

46: Do you believe in Larry and other conspiracy theories? Fuck no. Get out of here with that Larry bullshit. Let Louis live. I could go OFF about how fucking disrespectful some Larries are about Louis and his child. But I won’t right now. 

47: Which of the boys' girlfriends do you like the most? I never really form opinions on any of them because like. It’s not my life or my place to say anything.

48: Did you ever hate on a female associated with the boys? Nah. Not at all

49: Favourite ship? Narry

50: Favourite bromance? LiLo

51: What's your favorite fanfic? I couldn’t tell you offhand. But there was a Narry fic, I forget what it’s called, where Niall and Harry ended up forming a duo after the band split up. And it was awesome. 

52: Do you read a lot of smut? Used to. Less so now.

53: Describe your favourite dirty fantasy with your fav. Again - with the imagining unrealistic things lol

54: If you got to spend an entire day with your fav, what would you do? Go to the HP WB studio tour then see Hamilton. :) 

55: If you were a One Direction song, which song would you be? Midnight Memories

56: Would you rather get high with Zayn or see a movie with Liam? See a movie with Liam

57: Would you rather go ice-skating with Harry or play Monopoly with Niall? Both. I can’t pick between ice skating and Monopoly lolol

58: Would you rather stroll through London with Louis or hang in Los Angeles with Harry? London with Louis

59: Would you rather sleep with Niall once or go on three dates with Zayn? Sleep with Niall

60: Favourite Louis moment? Him performing on X Factor just recently. He’s so brave, that wonderful boy.

61: Favourite Niall moment? Every moment ever. 

62: Favourite Harry moment? Also every moment ever.

63: Favourite Zayn moment? When he tweeted Louis his condolences then showed up in London with the rest of the boys to support Louis.

64: Favourite Liam moment? Snake Habitat. 

65: Has your fav always been your fav? Nope. But I cycled through pretty quickly to get to Niall

66: If you were to pick an outfit for your fav, what would you get him? I really dig when he wears Alexander McQueen tshirts. Stylish but casual.

67: If you were a tattoo artist, what would you make Niall's first tattoo? The screw. Next question.

68: Talk about the three things you like the most about your favourite. Didn’t I already do this? 

69: Talk about your favourite's sense of humour. Dumb. I love it.

70: Talk about your favourite's face and why you love it. His smile. HIS SMILE MAKES ME WEAK. Okay? Okay.

71: Talk about your favourite's body. Gorgeous but not too buff. Which is rad.

72: Do you like the way your fav dresses? Yeah he’s fine lol.

73: When was your fav the hottest? When was his prime? Right now

74: Which of the boys would you rob a bank with? Louis. 

75: Which of the boys would you tell your darkest secret? Niall

76: Which of the boys would you avoid to get in a fight with? Liam. Boy is strong

77: If you saw your fav in public, would you run after him or leave him alone for good? Leave him alone if I couldn’t meet him without making a scene about it and make people mob him

78: What kind of fan-pic would you like to take with your fav? hugging pics are my faves.

79: Have you ever spammed your fav on Twitter? Nah. That’s annoying.

80: What do you like the most about Liam? How warm and loving he is.

81: What do you like the most about Zayn? His bravery. He faced a lot of adversity.

82: What do you like the most about Harry? His silly side. He lets loose nicely.

83: What do you like the most about Niall? How he brightens every room he is in.

84: What do you like the most about Louis? How he feels like he could be your best friend and how much he cares for his friends.

85: Favourite AU? Meh

86: Which of the boys would make the prettiest girl? Zayn proved he does. 

87: Which of the boys will make the best husband? Niall again.

88: Which of the boys will make the best dad? Louis IS the best dad

89: Which of the boys is most likely to be a succesful solo artist after 1D? I wouldn’t have necessarily said this before, despite how much I love Niall. But now I’ll say Niall. His music is gonna be super chill and rad and played on radios everywhere. I’m so pleased.

90: Have you ever had a carrot phase? Nah that was before my time.

91: Is 17 year old Harry overrated? No age of Harry is overrated.

92: Red suspender- Louis or weed smoking bad boy Louis? Both. They’re both very special and important parts of his being. Red suspender Louis was a young and innocent and more carefree Louis. Weed smoking bad boy Louis has toughened up some. He’s still warm and lovely. But he’s also more fiercely protective and mature. 

93: Did you watch 1D Day? Talk about your experience. Yep. Well. Some. I was also at work some. That was about a week into me being a fan of 1D so it was...an experience lol

94: Narry or Zouis? Narry

95: Ziam or Ziall? Ziall

96: Did you ever make fan art? nah.

97: Do you write fics? Nope

98: Do you think you'll get over the band one day? Maybe. But that’s okay if I do. I love the time that I’ve loved them.

99: What's a One Direction related memory you will never forget? Literally flying to London for them? And meeting some wonderful people because of them. Also meeting Louis was pretty amazing. 

100: Talk about the first time you really noticed the boys. I mean. Noticed how? You’d have to live under a rock to not notice them after X Factor. But I finally let myself start liking them about 4 days before Midnight Memories leaked :)

THANK YOU FOR THIS. FUN TO TAKE A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE!

#Anonymous

[simona-a-marinkova]

This year my friend and I have picked Budapest as the place to celebrate our birthdays. Great way to try something different and be away from London for couple of days. It was pretty good decision, and I was excited to get the flight from London Heathrow to Budapest – Ferenz List Airport.

It was sunny July evening when we landed – 1st sight of Budapest is Danube, green neighbourhoods, blocks of flats and not so big, modern airport. Cool city. And definitely very well maintained and tourist-friendly. Few quick tips to keep in mind below.

  Transport & Getting around

It is easy to get from the airport to the city centre – just get the shuttle bus 100E and get off at Kalvin Ter M (in the heart of the city). Ticket price is 900 F (around £3). Bus ticket can be bought from a machine at stations or service desk. Staff usually speaks English and are happy to help if needed. Other option is to get Uber.

The bus is a cool way to get a sense of the city – I noticed wider streets (compared to London), mix of houses and blocks (left from Soviet time), new modern buildings and green spaces / gardens. The city reminded me of Sofia and also of Berlin in terms of architecture and some shops / brands.

Also, a good sightseeing tip is – take tram Number 2, which is following Danube. Ticket cost around £1 and you could sit and enjoy the view on the way. Danube is a pretty evening view 🙂

  Accommodation

We stayed in Pest (the flat part of Budapest) and almost everything was walking distance from our place. Our Airbnb studio flat was near the main tourist high street, Danube bank and Vörösmarty tér (Square).  It was so handy and there was no need to take public transport. I also enjoyed biking one day by the river – it was quicker way to explore the bank and also chill out. Streets are full of cyclists so definitely worth trying.

The city has plenty of Airbnb, hotels and hostels – so good choice for any type of travel. I’m fan of hostels and next time I go – I will try this option. Budapest is perfect for sightseeing, partying and meeting other travellers.

  Cash or Card

I am not big fan of cash and normally prefer to pay with a card. Luckily, in Budapest in most places to eat and all thermal baths you can pay with card. Cash is required if you purchase a ticker for some attractions or at local markets. Be aware – sometimes it is not possible to split a bill if paying with card. Also, there are ATMs almost everywhere – at the airport, near major stations and banks.

  Budapest – My favorite thing about the city is the sightseeing places and thermal baths. If I was living there, I would stop going to gym and focus on swimming in the baths instead. I enjoyed chill in the water on a hot day. Here’s what we did over the weekend…

  Walking Tour & Sightseeing

If you visit the city, I strongly recommend trying out any of the free walking tours available. They are fun and at the same time you can learn more about the city and local history. This is the tour we attended:

Budapest Free Walking Tour

It starts every day at 10:30 am – meeting point is in the city centre, Vörösmarty square (at the lion fountain). It is free and at the end of the tour, you tip as per your budget. The tour covered some of the top sights in the city like – St.Stephen’s Basilica, Chain Bridge, Royal Palace and Fisherman Bastion. Our tour guide, A. was funny with great sense of humour and she told us more about the local history with some “politically incorrect” insights. This is what I like the most! It’s cool to hear that the Change Bridge is the biggest in Budapest or Vastagh Gyorgy and his horse’s statue (it is in Buda) is famous for the balls of the horse! Apparently, before exam local students come to the statue and touch the balls for good luck. Another interesting insight is from the communist times – after Hungary was “liberated” from the Nazis by the Soviets, “Soviets wanted to make sure that Hungary is Nazi free that they forgot to go home for the next 45 years”.

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Also, you could learn several Hungarian words, which is fun as the language is nothing like any other language in Europe. Well, apart from Finnish and Estonian – apparently the 3 countries have common ancestors, who have split after arriving in Europe. In any case, I remember the essentials:

beer is shur 

wine is por 

Other cool place to visit in Budapest is the Liberty Statue – located on one of the hills in Buda and watching over the city. This is Soviet monument, and because it looks cool it was not destroyed after the collapse of communism. It’s popular spot for young people to have a drink at sunset, and enjoy the view of the city.

Not to miss is also the building of the Parliament – the working place of the Prime Minister of Hungary. It is the 3rd biggest Parliament in the world, and its architecture is absolutely beautiful! It stands at Danube’s bank and it’s a gorgeous view in the evening with all these lights.

I wanted to visit the National Museum as well, however I did not have enough time (got distracted in the baths!). As I heard, the museum has pretty interesting artefacts around local history and pagan / nomadic past of Magyars (Hungarian ancestors).

Not to miss is also the Catholic Cathedral, St. Istvan (or Steven) which has the sacred remains (piece of an arm) of the saint, who is the 1st official king of Hungary. The cathedral is beautoful and surely would be appreciated by art lovers.

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  Jewish district and the hipster Budapest

Obviously, the Jewish district is known for the history during WW2. It starts with the Great Synagogue at Dohany Street. It is the 2nd biggest synagogue (after the one in Amsterdam), though locals claim it is the biggest. It is an interesting monument and it is worth visit – just be aware of its opening hours and dress code. Also, in its garden there is a silver tree, whose leaves contain names of Hungarian Jews killed in WW2.

I’d say the district is my favourite part of the city – it is artsy, hip and young. It reminds me of London’s Shoreditch. I like the idea of using old stuff in a creative way and creating outdoorsy places, where people can socialise over a drink.

We visited very cool place – Szimpla – like a beer garden / bar open day and night. The definition of hipster place! Also, I bet it is great spot for live music in the evenings. No wonder is popular with tourists.

We enjoyed couple of Soproni pints (local beer) before moving on to the near by street food market Karavan. Here we tried the local “communist pizza” – Langos. You could also have touristy burgers and even vegan options are available. Karavan is a cool place, good to have local fast food and some beers.

This area is also popular with the many bars, garden restaurants and night life.

Thermal Baths

This is a must experience in Budapest! The city is known for its thermal baths and so I wanted to try at least 2 of them over my short stay. Baths are increasingly popular, and as I saw sometimes you have to queue to get in. I imagine this is annoying for locals because of queuing and higher prices. We visited 2 baths – Rudas and Szechenyi.

Night swim at Rudas Bath

Rudas is located on Danube bank, near the bridge. It has several sections – thermal baths, wellness and swimming pool. Entry is around 5100 F (or £15-£16). We tried out the night bathing from 22:00 to 04:00. It was busy Saturday night, and we queued for around 25 mins until we got it. The bath is well equipped with lockers, changing rooms, showers and laundry dryer.

The wellness part has 2 big pools with different temperatures – 26 C and 33 C (if I remembered correct). There are also 2 smaller pools – very cold and very hot 42 C. I tried to get in the hot one, and my feet was burning so I gave up on it. Some people manage to stay there for several minutes – admirable! I would feel like boiled chicken if I had to get it there! I was mostly in the bigger pools, which I thought are perfect place to have a nap whilst enjoying the jacuzzi effect. Really nice massage for your back or feet.

The thermal bath part on the other hand is located in an ex mosque. The mosque built in Ottoman times was regenerated and now its beautiful building is used as a bath. The night vibes are so relaxing – lights shadowing, beautiful ceiling and light blue watered pool. The bath here has 1 major pool (I assume it should be around 34 C).Once I felt hot, I was jumping in the other smaller pools – these are 4 more pools between 28 to 42 C. After hot pool, 28 feels freezing. Not to miss is the steam room too – how long could you stay in 50 C steam?

And the best bit of the bath is the rooftop! Smaller warm pool on the roof, with view towards Buda and Danube. It was beautiful! Imagine chilling there with a drink in the pool? A dream, and I quite enjoyed it. That night was even more beautiful as it was thundering and we could see the lightening in the sky from the pool. I am not sure how safe this is, but experience is worth it.

Szechenyi Bath

This bath is different – it is actually outdoors and is located outside the city centre, next to the zoo. The best way to get there is by Metro for several stops. Again, the bath is in a beautiful yellow building. It needs some renovation, however it still looks great. It has a swimming deep pool and 2 more big warmer pools. I spent my bday day there – sunbathing and chilling in all pools, trying out the bubbles and jacuzzi. Perfect place to float. Entry is again around 5400 F. There is also restaurant when you get hungry / thirsty.

Speaking of food and drink…

Places to eat and drink

One flag here – Budapest city centre is full of Italian places. I love Italian food, however I would not eat it when in Hungary. To me – this is a tourist trap, and may suit well if you fancy pizza and burger (oh yeah, burgers everywhere). I am a fan of trying local dishes, so we were looking for places to have more Hungarian meals. Of course, in tourist areas prices are 3-4 times higher than the normal for locals. We were advised to eat in Pest, as Buda is more expensive and food is not greater.

So first – what is actually Hungarian food? Meat. Loads of meat. If you are vegetarian, or worse – vegan, you will struggle and you will not try locals meals.

Hungarian dishes

Goulash (Gulyás) – this is a soup with beef and paprika. The traditional version is soup, however tourists tend to have the stew version (which is the touristy option).

Paprikash – this is a stew with chicken, sour cream and paprika sauce, and also Hungarian version of dumplings. It is very tasty and goes well with red wine for dinner! Actually we have Paprikash in Bulgaria too, but ours is more tomato focused and no dumplings.

Langos – this is very popular street food. It is actually what Hungarian eat when drinking. It is fried fatty bread topped with sour cream and cheese. Other versions include paprika. I even saw Nutella Langos. It is very similar to our mekica – which we eat for breakfast.

Cake – Budapest has a plenty of bakeries or coffe houses and you can get delicious cakes. The traditional cake is a type of Sponge cake.

  Hungarian drinks

Alcoholic on top of that.

Wine – Hungary is a wine region, so when visiting definitely try some loal wine. Red wines are particulartly good.

Palinka – Hungarian spirit, they say up to 70% alcohol. It tastes like fire. If you tried other Eastern European spirits like rakia you know what to expect 😀

Unicum – is a traditional herbal liqaur and they say is good to have a shot when getting a cold.

  Where to eat?

Depends on your taste. We tried mixture of street places and nice restaurants.

Street food places – we tried Karavan market and the Central Hall Market. The Central Market has a range of grocery stands, souvenirs and up stairs it has several street food and Cafes. I got a chocolate truffle cake for 300 F and it was the best cake I had in town.

For breakfast, we tried to very good places: Kuglof and a French bakery Amber. At Kuglof I really liked the French toast with fried eggs and Paprika, and the massive chocolate latte. At Amber I gave a try to another chocolate cake.

For dinner, I enjoyed soup guyash at Hungarian bistro. I also tried chicken paprikash at another garden restaurant Borze Kavehaz, which was pretty good. Portions here are quite big, so I was struggling to finish my meal.

  Budapest is one of my favourite cities, and I will be back. I have always wanted to visit around NYE – as it’s beautiful and why not anjoy thermal bath again when cold?

Definitely great place for weekend trip and / or solo travel!

        Weekend break in Budapest -this is why it’s a good idea!

This year my friend and I have picked Budapest as the place to celebrate our birthdays. Great way to try something different and be away from London for couple of days.

Weekend break in Budapest -this is why it’s a good idea! This year my friend and I have picked Budapest as the place to celebrate our birthdays. Great way to try something different and be away from London for couple of days.

#budapest #culture #danube #europe #food #hungary #paprika #thermalbath #tips #travel #walkingtour #weekendbreak

[news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog]

How Phish became the unlikely heroes of digital music streaming

As Phish recently prepared to hit the road for their annual summer tour, I found myself digging in the dark reaches of a closet to locate a binder I'd filled with dozens of CD recordings of the jam band's live shows. 

Every show is a spectacle unto itself, an ever-changing setlist that never repeats, lasting between two and three hours, and featuring improvisational jams that can stretch upwards of 20 minutes. Each one is unique, and if you're a fan, you want to hear every possible version of your favorite song, and to collect them all. As a fan of the band for the last 23 years, I've been hell-bent on trying.

But it's more than just the memories. Hauling out the overstuffed binder, I thought of the band's open-minded recording policy — trading is okay as long as the shows are audience recordings (as opposed to soundboard recordings) and no one profits — and how it's helped create something special. In Phish's 35 years and counting, their fans have done the remarkable: They've used technology to turn their favorite band into one of the quieter successes of the streaming music revolution. 

Piles of dusty tapes and CDs like the ones in my closet are now nostalgia-inducing relics of the past. We're living in a time when anyone can listen to just about any Phish show with just a few taps on their phone. And it's all thanks to a forward-thinking fan base and a band willing to experiment in the digital space.

Making the digital leap

So, about that binder. 

Can’t find my old cassette tapes but found my binder of some old Phish shows on CD. Left: the final discs from the Big Cypress Y2K fest, Right: Clifford Ball (1996) pic.twitter.com/sojOGmfJRi

— Marcus Gilmer (@marcusgilmer) July 16, 2018

Yeah, that's a lot of CDs. But fans who traded shows in the early days had to deal with even more unruly stacks of cassette tapes.

In the late '80s and early '90s, getting your hands on a Phish show was difficult. You were often limited to trading with other fans in parking lots before shows, or you might luck into finding a friend with tapes you could copy. 

It was a meticulous process as well. Attention to detail was a key factor for fans looking to build their collections, because there were so few ways to get your hands on copies, and you wanted the one that sounded best.

Then came the internet, which changed just about everything.

Phish is hardly the only jam band to have a fan-friendly taping policy. The Grateful Dead developed theirs years before Phish even formed, and plenty of other artists, from Umphrey's McGee to Pearl Jam, have similar policies. 

But Phish is unique in the way their fans were early digital pioneers, using this new way of communicating to flex their ingenuity via message boards like etree.org and fan-run websites to build online communities to facilitate these trades.

Oh #Phish tapes, why can't I part with you. Who's got some phriendly advice? pic.twitter.com/C7UHe0vdzP

— Jennifer Bill (@BillJennifer) February 1, 2016

As digital technology has improved and gotten even cheaper, fans have continued to use their savvy to figure out better ways to share the band's shows far and wide. Case in point: all those damn CDs of mine. 

Writable CD drives became increasingly affordable throughout the late-1990s, as did high-speed internet — especially on college campuses, where jam bands like Phish were especially popular. Since shows were recorded on digital equipment before they were transferred to cassette, fans were now able to copy the recordings directly to their computers, where they could be burned to CDs or stored digitally. 

Fans of Phish and similar bands (the Grateful Dead, Widespread Panic) used these new tools to share shows across the web using File Transfer Protocol (FTP) sites (a forbearer of BitTorrent) and fan sites, even as Napster and MP3 sharing were still fledgling parts of the internet. People could now easily find and procure high-quality recordings of the shows without having to spend a fortune on postage and blank tapes.

This all coincided with a few other events that would help push Phish's popularity to new heights — and kickstart the band's own efforts to take advantage of this new tech.

Coming into the digital age with Nugs.net

Phish's long jams and their blend of rock, jazz, prog, and a dash of bluegrass helped the band organically build their own following. But they also welcomed Grateful Dead fans into the fold after the 1995 death of Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia brought that band's touring to a halt. 

In the the late 1990s, Phish was also going through a creative peak that coincided with the band's first major flirtation with the mainstream. This brought an influx of new, younger fans (myself included) who were hungry to dig into the band's back catalog, which included hundreds of shows. Thanks to those aforementioned technological advances, it was now possible to do so with relative ease.

One of the sites that fans visited frequently for access to these shows was Brad Serling's Nugs.net. It accrued such a large following that representatives from the Dead and Phish would eventually make a fateful decision that left Serling playing a big role in the bands' digital future. 

Serling told me the original response from the Grateful Dead to Nugs.net was pretty open: "Do whatever you want, just don't rip us off." But the site's popularity changed things.

Nugs.net circa 2002, just before Brad Serling went to work for the bands he loved.

Image: mashable screenshot

By 2000, according to Serling, his site was doing 3,000,000 downloads a month of free Grateful and Phish shows. At this point, the bands reached out to Serling. 

"I got a call from the lawyer that represented both Grateful Dead and Phish at the time, who said we either need to shut you down or go into business," he told me. Given the chance to work with the bands he loved, Serling happily sent in a business plan and was eventually brought on to help the bands transition to the digital era. 

In the fall of 2001, Phish had gone on hiatus. To fill the void, the band announced a series of archival live CD releases, called Live Phish. In December 2002, the band announced their return to the road and Live Phish Downloads, one of the projects Serling was hired to help build, was unveiled. 

LivePhish.com as it appeared in early 2003

Image: mashable screenshot

The site offered downloads of every live show the band played on that tour, available immediately after each show concluded, as well as additional live shows from the band's archives, all crisp and clear soundboard recordings. (Shows on all subsequent tours have also been made available after their conclusion.) The shows were DRM-free and could be downloaded as MP3s or, for audiophiles, Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC) files, which offered a higher quality sound.

Serling developed similar sites for bands like Metallica and Red Hot Chili Peppers. His old site, Nugs.net, continued to evolve, eventually becoming a silo where jam bands like Umphrey's McGee, Widespread Panic, and Grateful Dead spinoff Dead & Company could offer shows under a brand already familiar to jam band fans. The site also includes artists known for unique live experiences like Bruce Springsteen and Pearl Jam. 

The evolution of Nugs.net brought in dozens of additional bands, as seen in 2014.

Image: mashable screenshot

"Certainly in the jam band world where Nugs.net is servicing all of these bands that operate in the same universe with the overlapping fanbases, you can't expect the same fans to subscribe to multiple services," Serling explains. "So we quickly realized while Phish can stand up and do its own thing, for all the other bands, we pretty much have to put them together under one roof."

But Phish continued — and still continues — to take the streaming game to new levels, finding the perfect balance between fan service and business savvy. 

"Like a velvet-rope Spotify"

Phish broke up in 2004 but reunited five years later in March 2009 (a separate story unto itself), thrilling fans and revving up the business side again. A year later, ahead of their 2010 summer tour, the band launched the first version of their LivePhish app, which brought the services of the website to smartphones and garnered praise. 

Then, in October 2014, Phish changed the game again, announcing the LivePhish+ service, which gave subscribers access to the entire LivePhish catalog — including every live show starting with the band's return in 2002 and subsequent tours; all archival Live Phish releases; studio albums, band members' side projects; and the band's LiveBait compilations. 

A new feature also allowed fans to download free copies of shows they attended by scanning their ticket's barcode (this service was switched to free streams in 2017). 

The standard tier for LivePhish is currently priced at either $9.99 per month, or $99.99 per year. There's also a HiFi tier for subscribers, much like Tidal, Serling notes, higher-quality lossless streams for $19.99 a month, or $199.99 for a year. 

As for subscriber and revenue numbers, a rep for the band said they didn't release that information publicly and the band declined a request for an interview.

"High-res audio has always been something that's important to me as a consumer," Serling says, "so I've made sure it's part of everything we do."

A look at some of the offerings on the LivePhish iOS app

Image: mashable screenshots

Serling notes that the demand for that higher quality audio format is pretty consistent from fans seeking the best possible recordings of Phish. "We know the demand is there because when we're selling just downloads, 30 percent of our download sales are people buying CD quality or higher, and I would say maybe 10  to 15 percent are opting in for higher than CD quality," he says.

While many of the archival Live Phish releases, are available on Tidal and Spotify, Serling points out, "You can't get last night's Phish show. We're the exclusive distributor of that content."

He adds, "That is a premium service. We look at it — to over-simplify it — like a velvet-rope Spotify for live music."

And the service is always adding new elements. While webcasts have been available to purchase via the desktop or over-the-top versions of the app (i.e., Apple TV), in April 2018, LivePhish added an archival video component, making a rotation of classic shows available to rewatch.

Serling says the plans are "to blow this out with hundreds of more full-length concert videos." 

The service is a dream for Phish fans who remember how difficult it was to put together tape collections during the pre-Internet days. 

But what if you don't have the means to pay for this access or just don't want to shell out the subscription fees? There are still ways to get your hands on pretty much every Phish show ever played. It doesn't cost a penny, and it's still legit. 

Streams by fans, for fans

The way in which Phish fans have shared and tracked audience-recorded versions of the band's live shows has also evolved with technology.

First and foremost is the famed Phish Spreadsheet. Updated by Kevin Hoy, the sheet is a scrupulously organized collection of downloadable links of just about every Phish show, plus a large chunk of side projects and solo efforts and other tangental Phish recordings, all abiding by the band's taping policy.

But the evolution has spilled into streaming as well, with sites like PhishShows and PhishTracks that offer up on-demand streams of the band's shows. There's even PhishJustJams, a site that strips away the verses and choruses of songs, streaming only the improv jams. 

Hit play on our whole Top 25 series and sit back and enjoy the day. Happy 4th everyone!https://t.co/CzkVcNobp9 #phishjustjams pic.twitter.com/mRrS446Cvq

— PhishJustJams (@phishjustjams) July 4, 2018

And a few fans have been able to take their streaming sites from the web to the phone, building mobile apps that give fans on-demand access to streaming from just about anywhere.

The Relisten App

Daniel Saewitz was in college and working hard on building a website that could stream legally-shared versions of Phish shows when PhishTracks rolled out. 

"I remember seeing it and being like, oh my god, this is the exact idea I've been working on," Saewitz recalls. "[PhishTracks creator Jeff Lang] clearly had been working at it longer than me, so it wasn't such an original idea. I was a little bit bummed to see that someone else had beat me to the punch, although it was very cool."

Instead of scrapping the project, Saewitz transitioned to making his site a place to stream Grateful Dead shows. It was originally called ListenToTheDead.com and pulled from the deep library of shows available on the Internet Archive's audio site.  

Enter Alec Gorge, who had already created PhishOD, an app that lets fans could stream shows, add reviews, create playlists, and search across the library of Phish songs and shows available on PhishTracks.

The ReListen app

Image: mashable screenshots

Soon, Saewitz had expanded his site to include other bands whose shows are streamable from the Internet Archive and rechristened the page as Relisten. Gorge decided to build a new app for Relisten, one that could be more flexible in hosting multiple bands, reusing a lot of the code he had used for PhishOD. The app is even available on Sonos now. 

"It was like ping-pong, back and forth," Gorge said of the collaboration, "because each thing that we did inspired or motivated the other person to take the next step."

PhishOD and Phish.in

While PhishOD originally pulled shows that were on PhishTracks, with the blessing of that site's creator, Jeff Lang, PhishOD now pulls from another popular streaming site, Phish.in. 

Phish.in's creator, Justin Craig-Kuhn, had worked with Jeff Lang on PhishTracks but decided he wanted to do something a little different. With Lang's blessing, he used parts of the code base from PhishTracks and utilized shows available on the spreadsheet to create Phish.in.

Phish.in, a terrific website for streamin Phish shows

"I wanted to add features Phish Tracks didn't have at the time," Craig-Kuhn tells me. "I wanted other stuff like the map, the ability to log in and like stuff, and to build playlists." 

Eventually, Gorge found Phish.in and worked with Craig-Kuhn, utilizing Phish.in's thoroughly documented application programming interface (API) which makes building software off of the site much easier, and used Phish.in to feed the PhishOD app.

It's become so popular, even Phish frontman Trey Anastasio has copped to using PhishOD, telling Rolling Stone in 2016 he sometimes listened to parts of shows on the app. 

Spreading the love

Like Saewitz and Gorge, Craig-Kuhn is driven by the simple desire to share the sounds he loves with others. "There's some really beautiful music there," he says, "I just want to have more people experience Phish." 

Per the band's policy, he can't accept money or donations for the site, but he's happy to pay out of pocket to host the shows online: "It basically costs me a hundred bucks a month to host it, and it brings me a lot of joy that a lot of people get to enjoy it."

Serling is, understandably, conflicted — a fan who once shared music online who's now on the business end, focused on protecting the band's bottom line. "I think a lot of those apps are great," Serling says. "But by attracting users and doing stuff with the band's trademarks and the songwriters' intellectual property, it's a little dicey."

Indeed, as Serling notes, it's all up to the band. "Do I wish [the streaming sites] didn't exist? Yes," he continues. "But am I gonna shut them down? No. It's not my prerogative to shut them down because I don't own the content."

Love, respect, and a recipe for success

Phish has consistently managed to be one of the best-selling touring acts in America. In 2016, nearly 35 years after their debut, they were still a top-25 grossing tour. And the band has managed to set trends, with fan support, in another area as well. 

In the mid-1990s, Phish began throwing its own music festivals. Tens of thousands of fans descended upon places like an abandoned air field for multiple days of music (just Phish), food, and other entertainment, ranging from a Ferris wheel to movie screenings. Their eleventh festival, Curveball, will unfold this August in upstate New York. 

As Pitchfork noted, these festivals served as precursors to the current music fest model, including Bonnaroo, which began life as a jam-band-oriented affair before diversifying its lineup.  

At the core of all this success is a two-way street of admiration, respect, and loyalty that goes beyond your typical band-fan relationship, especially given the size of the fandom. It's hard to picture Taylor Swift or Jay-Z being able to similarly communicate their appreciation for the proactive nature of their fanbases.

But for Phish and its fans, it's definitely tangible. The band continues its taping policy (taper tickets are still available for purchase at their shows), and fans' show their ongoing devotion by following the band across the country or subscribing to LivePhish and purchasing webcasts when they can't.

Relisten's Saewitz acknowledged the role each group in the ecosystem contributes to make his and other sites and apps possible. 

"It really wouldn't be possible without the bands," he says. "It's also really important to give credit and respect to the tapers, the people who are spending thousands of dollars on mics and hard drives and and tapes and who are going to all of these shows. And there's always an audience to consume that music."

As for me, well, after unsuccessfully leafing through that heavy binder for the show I wanted, I shrugged and threw it back in the closet, grabbed my phone and searched LivePhish for the show. When I couldn't find it there, I located it on PhishOD, put in my headphones, and hit play. 

Tens of thousands of fans will be likewise glued to their phones this summer, checking their apps for the latest shows from the road. As they do so, they can be grateful for the work of fellow phans who helped to share Phish's music — and for the band we all love, who made it possible for all of us to always be part of the show, no matter where we are. 

WATCH: From balloons to satellites, here’s how big tech is battling it out to bring internet to the most remote areas

#_category:yct:001000002 #_lmsid:a0Vd000000DTrEpEAL #_author:Marcus Gilmer #_uuid:2ceb8765-64d1-3c99-aec9-c067bf9516f8 #_revsp:news.mashable

[simona-a-marinkova]

This year my friend and I have picked Budapest as the place to celebrate our birthdays. Great way to try something different and be away from London for couple of days. It was pretty good decision, and I was excited to get the flight from London Heathrow to Budapest – Ferenz List Airport.

It was sunny July evening when we landed – 1st sight of Budapest is Danube, green neighbourhoods, blocks of flats and not so big, modern airport. Cool city. And definitely very well maintained and tourist-friendly. Few quick tips to keep in mind below.

  Transport & Getting around

It is easy to get from the airport to the city centre – just get the shuttle bus 100E and get off at Kalvin Ter M (in the heart of the city). Ticket price is 900 F (around £3). Bus ticket can be bought from a machine at stations or service desk. Staff usually speaks English and are happy to help if needed. Other option is to get Uber.

The bus is a cool way to get a sense of the city – I noticed wider streets (compared to London), mix of houses and blocks (left from Soviet time), new modern buildings and green spaces / gardens. The city reminded me of Sofia and also of Berlin in terms of architecture and some shops / brands.

Also, a good sightseeing tip is – take tram Number 2, which is following Danube. Ticket cost around £1 and you could sit and enjoy the view on the way. Danube is a pretty evening view 🙂

  Accommodation

We stayed in Pest (the flat part of Budapest) and almost everything was walking distance from our place. Our Airbnb studio flat was near the main tourist high street, Danube bank and Vörösmarty tér (Square).  It was so handy and there was no need to take public transport. I also enjoyed biking one day by the river – it was quicker way to explore the bank and also chill out. Streets are full of cyclists so definitely worth trying.

The city has plenty of Airbnb, hotels and hostels – so good choice for any type of travel. I’m fan of hostels and next time I go – I will try this option. Budapest is perfect for sightseeing, partying and meeting other travellers.

  Cash or Card

I am not big fan of cash and normally prefer to pay with a card. Luckily, in Budapest in most places to eat and all thermal baths you can pay with card. Cash is required if you purchase a ticker for some attractions or at local markets. Be aware – sometimes it is not possible to split a bill if paying with card. Also, there are ATMs almost everywhere – at the airport, near major stations and banks.

  Budapest – My favorite thing about the city is the sightseeing places and thermal baths. If I was living there, I would stop going to gym and focus on swimming in the baths instead. I enjoyed chill in the water on a hot day. Here’s what we did over the weekend…

  Walking Tour & Sightseeing

If you visit the city, I strongly recommend trying out any of the free walking tours available. They are fun and at the same time you can learn more about the city and local history. This is the tour we attended:

Budapest Free Walking Tour

It starts every day at 10:30 am – meeting point is in the city centre, Vörösmarty square (at the lion fountain). It is free and at the end of the tour, you tip as per your budget. The tour covered some of the top sights in the city like – St.Stephen’s Basilica, Chain Bridge, Royal Palace and Fisherman Bastion. Our tour guide, A. was funny with great sense of humour and she told us more about the local history with some “politically incorrect” insights. This is what I like the most! It’s cool to hear that the Change Bridge is the biggest in Budapest or Vastagh Gyorgy and his horse’s statue (it is in Buda) is famous for the balls of the horse! Apparently, before exam local students come to the statue and touch the balls for good luck. Another interesting insight is from the communist times – after Hungary was “liberated” from the Nazis by the Soviets, “Soviets wanted to make sure that Hungary is Nazi free that they forgot to go home for the next 45 years”.

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Also, you could learn several Hungarian words, which is fun as the language is nothing like any other language in Europe. Well, apart from Finnish and Estonian – apparently the 3 countries have common ancestors, who have split after arriving in Europe. In any case, I remember the essentials:

beer is shur 

wine is por 

Other cool place to visit in Budapest is the Liberty Statue – located on one of the hills in Buda and watching over the city. This is Soviet monument, and because it looks cool it was not destroyed after the collapse of communism. It’s popular spot for young people to have a drink at sunset, and enjoy the view of the city.

Not to miss is also the building of the Parliament – the working place of the Prime Minister of Hungary. It is the 3rd biggest Parliament in the world, and its architecture is absolutely beautiful! It stands at Danube’s bank and it’s a gorgeous view in the evening with all these lights.

I wanted to visit the National Museum as well, however I did not have enough time (got distracted in the baths!). As I heard, the museum has pretty interesting artefacts around local history and pagan / nomadic past of Magyars (Hungarian ancestors).

Not to miss is also the Catholic Cathedral, St. Istvan (or Steven) which has the sacred remains (piece of an arm) of the saint, who is the 1st official king of Hungary. The cathedral is beautoful and surely would be appreciated by art lovers.

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  Jewish district and the hipster Budapest

Obviously, the Jewish district is known for the history during WW2. It starts with the Great Synagogue at Dohany Street. It is the 2nd biggest synagogue (after the one in Amsterdam), though locals claim it is the biggest. It is an interesting monument and it is worth visit – just be aware of its opening hours and dress code. Also, in its garden there is a silver tree, whose leaves contain names of Hungarian Jews killed in WW2.

I’d say the district is my favourite part of the city – it is artsy, hip and young. It reminds me of London’s Shoreditch. I like the idea of using old stuff in a creative way and creating outdoorsy places, where people can socialise over a drink.

We visited very cool place – Szimpla – like a beer garden / bar open day and night. The definition of hipster place! Also, I bet it is great spot for live music in the evenings. No wonder is popular with tourists.

We enjoyed couple of Soproni pints (local beer) before moving on to the near by street food market Karavan. Here we tried the local “communist pizza” – Langos. You could also have touristy burgers and even vegan options are available. Karavan is a cool place, good to have local fast food and some beers.

This area is also popular with the many bars, garden restaurants and night life.

Thermal Baths

This is a must experience in Budapest! The city is known for its thermal baths and so I wanted to try at least 2 of them over my short stay. Baths are increasingly popular, and as I saw sometimes you have to queue to get in. I imagine this is annoying for locals because of queuing and higher prices. We visited 2 baths – Rudas and Szechenyi.

Night swim at Rudas Bath

Rudas is located on Danube bank, near the bridge. It has several sections – thermal baths, wellness and swimming pool. Entry is around 5100 F (or £15-£16). We tried out the night bathing from 22:00 to 04:00. It was busy Saturday night, and we queued for around 25 mins until we got it. The bath is well equipped with lockers, changing rooms, showers and laundry dryer.

The wellness part has 2 big pools with different temperatures – 26 C and 33 C (if I remembered correct). There are also 2 smaller pools – very cold and very hot 42 C. I tried to get in the hot one, and my feet was burning so I gave up on it. Some people manage to stay there for several minutes – admirable! I would feel like boiled chicken if I had to get it there! I was mostly in the bigger pools, which I thought are perfect place to have a nap whilst enjoying the jacuzzi effect. Really nice massage for your back or feet.

The thermal bath part on the other hand is located in an ex mosque. The mosque built in Ottoman times was regenerated and now its beautiful building is used as a bath. The night vibes are so relaxing – lights shadowing, beautiful ceiling and light blue watered pool. The bath here has 1 major pool (I assume it should be around 34 C).Once I felt hot, I was jumping in the other smaller pools – these are 4 more pools between 28 to 42 C. After hot pool, 28 feels freezing. Not to miss is the steam room too – how long could you stay in 50 C steam?

And the best bit of the bath is the rooftop! Smaller warm pool on the roof, with view towards Buda and Danube. It was beautiful! Imagine chilling there with a drink in the pool? A dream, and I quite enjoyed it. That night was even more beautiful as it was thundering and we could see the lightening in the sky from the pool. I am not sure how safe this is, but experience is worth it.

Szechenyi Bath

This bath is different – it is actually outdoors and is located outside the city centre, next to the zoo. The best way to get there is by Metro for several stops. Again, the bath is in a beautiful yellow building. It needs some renovation, however it still looks great. It has a swimming deep pool and 2 more big warmer pools. I spent my bday day there – sunbathing and chilling in all pools, trying out the bubbles and jacuzzi. Perfect place to float. Entry is again around 5400 F. There is also restaurant when you get hungry / thirsty.

Speaking of food and drink…

Places to eat and drink

One flag here – Budapest city centre is full of Italian places. I love Italian food, however I would not eat it when in Hungary. To me – this is a tourist trap, and may suit well if you fancy pizza and burger (oh yeah, burgers everywhere). I am a fan of trying local dishes, so we were looking for places to have more Hungarian meals. Of course, in tourist areas prices are 3-4 times higher than the normal for locals. We were advised to eat in Pest, as Buda is more expensive and food is not greater.

So first – what is actually Hungarian food? Meat. Loads of meat. If you are vegetarian, or worse – vegan, you will struggle and you will not try locals meals.

Hungarian dishes

Goulash (Gulyás) – this is a soup with beef and paprika. The traditional version is soup, however tourists tend to have the stew version (which is the touristy option).

Paprikash – this is a stew with chicken, sour cream and paprika sauce, and also Hungarian version of dumplings. It is very tasty and goes well with red wine for dinner! Actually we have Paprikash in Bulgaria too, but ours is more tomato focused and no dumplings.

Langos – this is very popular street food. It is actually what Hungarian eat when drinking. It is fried fatty bread topped with sour cream and cheese. Other versions include paprika. I even saw Nutella Langos. It is very similar to our mekica – which we eat for breakfast.

Cake – Budapest has a plenty of bakeries or coffe houses and you can get delicious cakes. The traditional cake is a type of Sponge cake.

  Hungarian drinks

Alcoholic on top of that.

Wine – Hungary is a wine region, so when visiting definitely try some loal wine. Red wines are particulartly good.

Palinka – Hungarian spirit, they say up to 70% alcohol. It tastes like fire. If you tried other Eastern European spirits like rakia you know what to expect 😀

Unicum – is a traditional herbal liqaur and they say is good to have a shot when getting a cold.

  Where to eat?

Depends on your taste. We tried mixture of street places and nice restaurants.

Street food places – we tried Karavan market and the Central Hall Market. The Central Market has a range of grocery stands, souvenirs and up stairs it has several street food and Cafes. I got a chocolate truffle cake for 300 F and it was the best cake I had in town.

For breakfast, we tried to very good places: Kuglof and a French bakery Amber. At Kuglof I really liked the French toast with fried eggs and Paprika, and the massive chocolate latte. At Amber I gave a try to another chocolate cake.

For dinner, I enjoyed soup guyash at Hungarian bistro. I also tried chicken paprikash at another garden restaurant Borze Kavehaz, which was pretty good. Portions here are quite big, so I was struggling to finish my meal.

  Budapest is one of my favourite cities, and I will be back. I have always wanted to visit around NYE – as it’s beautiful and why not anjoy thermal bath again when cold?

Definitely great place for weekend trip and / or solo travel!

        Weekend break in Budapest -this is why it’s a good idea! This year my friend and I have picked Budapest as the place to celebrate our birthdays. Great way to try something different and be away from London for couple of days.

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