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livingdeadinsideyourhead · 3 years

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Free Music in a Capitalist Society - Iggy Pop's Keynote Speech Transcript

Hi, I'm Iggy Pop. I've held a steady job at BBC 6 Music now for almost a year, which is a long time in my game. I always hated radio and the jerks who pushed that shit music into my tender mind, with rare exceptions. When I was a boy, I used to sit for hours suffering through the entire US radio top 40 waiting for that one song by The Beatles and the other one by The Kinks. Had there been anything like John Peel available in my Midwestern town I would have been thrilled. So it's an honor to be here. I understand that. I appreciate it.

Some months ago when the idea of this talk came up I thought it might be okay to talk about free music in a Capitalist society. So that's what I'm gonna try to talk about. A society in which the Capitalist system dominates all the others, and seeks their destruction when they get in its way. Since then, the shit has really hit the fan on the subject, thanks to U2 and Apple. I worked half of my life for free. I didn't really think about that one way or the other, until the masters of the record industry kept complaining that I wasn't making them any money. To tell you the truth, when it comes to art, money is an unimportant detail. It just happens to be a huge one unimportant detail. But, a good LP is a being, it's not a product. It has a life-force, a personality, and a history, just like you and me. It can be your friend. Try explaining that to a weasel.

As I learned when I hit 30 +, and realized I was penniless, and almost unable to get my music released, music had become an industrial art and it was the people who excelled at the industry who got to make the art. I had to sell most of my future rights to keep making records to keep going. And now, thanks to digital advances, we have a very large industry, which is laughably maybe almost entirely pirate so nobody can collect shit. Well, it was to be expected. Everybody made a lot of money reselling all of recorded musical history in CD form back in the 90s, but now the cat is out of the bag and the new electronic devices which estrange people from their morals also make it easier to steal music than to pay for it. So there's gonna be a correction.

When I started The Stooges we were organized as a group of Utopian communists. All the money was held communally and we lived together while we shared the pursuit of a radical ideal. We shared all song writing, publishing and royalty credits equally – didn’t matter who wrote it - because we'd seen it on the back of a Doors album and thought it was cool, at least I did. Yeah. I thought songwriting was about the glory, I didn't know you'd get paid for it. We practiced a total immersion to try to forge a new approach which would be something of our own. Something of lasting value. Something that was going to be revealed and created and was not yet known.

We are now in the age of the schemer and the plan is always big, big, big, but it's the nature of the technology created in the service of the various schemes that the pond, while wide, is very shallow. Nobody cares about anything too deeply expect money. Running out of it, getting it. I never sincerely wanted to be rich. There is a, in the US, we have this guy “Do you sincerely wanna be rich? You can do it!” I didn’t sincerely want to be rich. I never sincerely felt like making anyone else that way. That made me a kind of a wild card in the 60's and 70's. I got into the game because it felt good to play and it felt like being free. I'm still hearing today about how my early works with The Stooges were flops. But they're still in print and they sell 45 years later, they sell. Okay, it took 20 or 25 years for the first royalties to roll in. So sue me.

Some of us who couldn't get anywhere for years kept beating our heads against the same wall to no avail. No one did that better than my friends The Ramones. They kept putting out album after album, frustrated that they weren't getting the hit. They even tried Phil Spector and his handgun. After the first couple of records, which made a big impact, they couldn't sustain the quality, but I noticed that every album had at least one great song and I thought, wow if these guys would just stop and give it a rest, society would for sure catch up to them. And that's what's happening now, but they're not around to enjoy it. I used to run into Johnny at a little rehearsal joint in New York and he'd be in a big room all alone with a Marshall stack just going "dum, dum, dum, dum, dum" all my himself. I asked him why and he said if he didn't practice doing that exactly the way he did it live he'd lose it. He was devoted and obsessive, so were Joey and Deedee. I like that. Johnny asked me one day - Iggy don't you hate Offspring and the way they're so popular with that crap they play. That should be us, they stole it from us. I told him look, some guys are born and raised to be the captain of the football team and some guys are just gonna be James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause and that's the way it is. Not everybody is meant to be big. Not everybody big is any good.

I only ever wanted the money because it was symbolic of love and the best thing I ever did was to make a lifetime commitment to continue playing music no matter what, which is what I resolved to do at the age of 18. If who you are is who you are that is really hard to steal, and it can lead you in all sorts of useful directions when the road ahead of you is blocked and it will get blocked. Now I'm older and I need all the dough I can get. So I too am concerned about losing those lovely royalties, now that they've finally arrived, in the maze of the Internet. But I'm also diversifying my income, because a stream will dry up. I'm not here to complain about that, I'm here to survive it.

When I was starting out as a full time musician I was walking down the street one bright afternoon in the seedier part of my Midwestern college town. I passed a dive bar and from it emerged a portly balding pallid middle aged musician in a white tux with a drink in one hand and a guitar in the other. He was blinking in the daylight. I had a strong intuition that this was a fate to be avoided. He seemed cut off from society and resigned to an oblivious obscurity. A bar fly. An accessory to booze. So how do you engage society as an artist and get them to pay you? Well, that's a matter of art. And endurance.

To start with, I cannot stress enough the importance of study. I was lucky to work in a discount record store in Ann Arbor Michigan as a stock boy where I was exposed to a little bit of every form of music imaginable on record at the time. I listened to it all whether I liked it or not. Be curious. And I played in my high school orchestra and I learned the joy of the warm organic instruments working together in the service of a classical piece. That sticks with you forever. If anyone out there can get a chance to put an instrument and some knowledge in some kids hand, you've done a great, great thing.

Comparative information is a key to freedom. I found other people who were smarter than me. To teach me. My first pro band was a blues band called The Prime Movers and the leader Michael Erlewine was a very bright hippy beatnik with a beautifully organized record collection in library form of The Blues. I'd never really heard the Blues. That part of our American heritage was kept off the major media. It was system up, people down. No Big Bill Broonzy on BBC for us. Boy I wish! No money in it. But everything I learned from Michael's beautiful library became the building blocks for anything good I've done since. Guys like this are priceless. If you find one, follow him, or her. Get the knowledge.

Once in secondary school in the 60's some class clowns dressed up the tallest guy in school in a trench coat, shades and a fedora and rushed him in to a school dance with great hubbub proclaiming "Del Shannon is here, Del Shannon is here." And until they got to the stage we all believed them, because nobody knew what Del Shannon looked like. He was just a voice on some great records. He had no social ID. By the early 60's that had really changed with the invasion of The Beatles and The Stones. This time TV was added to the mix and print media too. So you knew who they were, or so you thought anyway. I'm mentioning this because the best way to survive the death or change of an industry is to transcend its form. You're better off with an identity of your own or maybe a few of them. Something special.

It is my own personal view having lived through it that in America The Beatles replaced our assassinated president Kennedy, who represented our hopes for a certain kind of society. Didn’t get there. And The Stones replaced our assassinated folk music which our own leaders suppressed for cultural, racial, and financial reasons. It wasn't okay with everybody to be Kennedy or Muddy Waters, but those messages could be accepted if they came through white entertainers from the parent culture. That's why they’re still around.

Years later I had the impression that Apple, the corporation, had successfully co-opted the good feelings that the average American felt about the culture of the Beatles, by kind of stealing the name of their company so I bought a little stock. Good move. 1992. Woo! But look, everybody is subject to the rip off and has to change affiliations from time to time. Even Superman and Barbie were German before America tempted them to come over. Tough luck, Nietzche.

So who owns what anyway. Or as Bob Dylan said "The relationships of ownership." That’s gates of Eden. Nobody knows for long, especially these days. Apparently when BBC radio was founded, the record companies in England wouldn't allow the BBC to play their master recordings because they thought no one would buy them for their personal use if they could hear them free on the radio. So they were really confused about what they had. They didn’t get it. And how people feel about music. ‘Cause it’s a feel thing, and it resists logic. It’s not binary code. Later when CD's came in, the retail merchants in American all panicked because they were just too damn tiny and they thought that Americans want something that looks big, like a vinyl record. Well they had a point but their solution was a kind of Frankenstein called "The Long Box." It didn't fool anybody because half of it was empty. It had a little CD in the bottom. You’d open it up and it was empty. Now we have people in the Sahara using GPS to bury huge wads of Euros under sand dunes for safe keeping. But GPS was created for military spying from the high ground, not radical banking so any sophisticated system, along with the bounty it brings, is subject to primitive hijacking.

I wanna talk about a type of entrepreneur who functions as a kind of popular music patron of the arts. It’s good to know a patron. I call him El Padron because his relationship to the artist is essentially feudal, though benign. He or she (La Padrona) if you will, is someone, usually the product of successful, enlightened parents, who owns a record company, but has had benefit of a very good education, and can see a bigger picture than a petty business person. If they like an artists’ style and it suits them, they'll support you even if you’re not a big money spinner. I can tell you, some of these powerful guys get so bored that if you are fun in the office, you’ll go places. Their ancestors, the old time record crooks just made it their business to make great, great records, but also to rip off the artist 100%, copyright, publishing, royalty splits, agency fees, you name it. If anyone complained the line was "Pay you? We worship you!" God bless Bo Diddley.

By the time I came along, there was a new brand of Padron. People like this are still around and some can help you. One was named Jack Holzman. Jack had a beautiful label called Elektra Records, they put out Judy Collins, Tim Buckley, the Doors and Love. He'd started working in his family record store, like Brian Epstein. He dressed mod and he treated us very gently. He was a civilized man. He obviously loved the arts, but what he really wanted to do was build his business - and he did. He had his own concerns, and style, and you had to serve them, and of course when he sold out, as all indies do, you were stranded culturally in the hands of a cold clumsy conglomerate. But he put us in the right studios with the right producers and he tried to get us seen in the right venues and it really helped. This is a good example of the industry.

Another good guy I met is Sir Richard Branson. I ended up serving my full term at Virgin Records having been removed from every other label. And he created a superior culture there. People were happier and nicer than the weasels at some other places. The first time he tried to sign me it didn't work out, because I had my sights set on A&M, a company I thought would help make me respectable. After all they had Sting! Richard was secretly starting his own company at the time in the US and he phoned me in my tiny flat with no furniture. He said he'd give me a longer term deal with more dough than the other guys and he was very, very polite and soft spoken. But I had just smoked a joint that day and I couldn't make a decision. So I went with the other guys who soon got sick of me. Virgin picked me up again later on the rebound. And on the cheap. Damn. My own fault.

Another kind of indie legend who is slightly more contemporary is Long Gone John of the label Sympathy for the Record Industry. Good name. John is famous with some artists for his disinterest in paying royalties. He has a very interesting music themed folk art collection – its visible online - which includes my leather jacket. I wish he'd give it back. There are lots of indie people with a gift for organization who just kind of collect freaks and throw them up at the wall to see who sticks. You gotta watch 'em.

When you go a step down creatively from the Padrons who are actually entrepreneurs you get to the executives. You don't wanna know these guys. They usually came over from legal or accounting. They have protégés usually called A&R men to do their dirty work. You can become a favorite with them if your fame or image might reflect limelight on their career. They tend to have no personalities to speak of, which is their strength. Strangely they're never really thinking about the good of their parent company as much as old number one. Avoid them. If you’re an artist, they’ll make you sick or suicidal. The only good thing the conglomerate can do for you – and they’ve done it recently for me - is make you really, really ubiquitous. They do that well. But, when the company is your banker, then you are basically gonna be the Beverly Hill Billies. So it's best not to take their money. Especially when you’re young. These are very tough people, and they can hurt you.

So who are the good guys?! They asked me when they read this thing at BBC 6 Music. Well there are lots of them. If fact, today there are more than ever and they are just about all indies, but first I want to mention Peter Gabriel and WOMAD for everything they've done for what seems like forever to help the greatest musicians in the world, the so called world musicians to gain a foothold and make a living in the modern screwed up cash and carry world. Traditional music was never a for profit enterprise, all the best forms were developed as a kind of you’re job in the community. It was pretty good, it was “Yeah, I’m a musician, I’m gonna skip like doing the dishes or taking the trash out.” It's not surprising that all the greatest singers and players come from parts of the world where everybody is broke and the old ways are getting paved over. So it's crucial for everyone that these treasures not be lost. There are other people of means and intelligence who help others in this way like Philip Glass through Tibet House, David Burn with Luaka Bop, Damon Albarn through Honest John Records. Shout out to Hypnotic Brass Ensemble. Almost all the best music is coming out on indies today like XL Matador, Burger, Anti, Epitaph, Mute, Rough Trade, 4 A D, Sub Pop, etc. etc.

But now YouTube is trying to put the squeeze on these people because it's just easier for a power nerd to negotiate with a couple big labels who own the kind of music that people listen to when they're really not that into music, which of course is most people. So they've got the numbers. But the indies kind of have the guns. I've noticed that indies are showing strength at some of the established streaming services like Spotify and Rhapsody – people are choosing that music. And it's also great that some people are starting their own outlets, like Pledge Music, Band Camp or Drip. As the commercial trade swings more into general show biz the indies will be the only place to go for new talent, outside the Mickey Mouse Club, so I think they were right to band together and sign the Fair Digital Deals Declaration.

There are just so many ways to screw an artist that it's unbelievable. In the old vinyl days they would deduct 10% "breakage fees" for records supposedly broken in shipping, whether that happened or not, and now they have unattributed digital revenue, whatever the **** that means. It means money for some guy’s triple bypass. I actually think that what Thom Yorke has done with Bit Torrent is very good. I was gonna say here: “Sure the guy is a pirate at Bit Torrent” but I was warned legally, so I’ll say: “Sure the guy a Bit Torrent is a pirate’s friend” But all pirates want to go legit, just like I wanted to be respectable. It’s normal. After a while people feel like you’re a crook, it’s too hard to do business. So it’s good in this case that Thom Yorke is encouraging a positive change. The music is good. It’s being offered at a low price direct to people who care.

I want to try to define what I am talking about when I say free. For me in the arts or in the media, there are two kinds of free. One kind of free is when the process is something that people just feel for you. You feel a sense of possibility. You feel a lack of constraint. This leads to powerful, energetic, sometimes kind of loony situations.

Vice Media is an interesting case of this because they started as a free handout, using public funds, and they had open, free-wheeling minds. Originally a free handout was called Voice and these kids were like “Just get rid of the old! I don’t wanna be Vice, yeah!” Okay. By taking an immersive approach with no particular preconceptions to their reporting, they've become a huge success, also through corporate advertising, at attracting big, big money investment hundreds of millions of dollars now pumped into Fox Media and a couple of others bigger than that in the US. And they get it because they attract lots of little boy eyeballs. So they brought us Dennis Rodman in North Korea. And it’s kind of a travesty, but it’s kind of spunky. It's interesting that capital investment, for all its posturing, never really leads, it always follows. They follow the action. So if it's money you're after, be the yourself in a consistent way and you might get it. You’ll at least end up getting what you are worth and feel better. Just follow your nose.

The second kind of freedom to me that is important in the media is the idea of giving freely. When you feel or sense that someone that someone is giving you something not out of profit, but out of self-respect, Christian charity, whatever it is. That has a very powerful energy. The Guardian, in my understanding, was founded by an endowment by a successful man with a social conscience who wanted to help create a voice for what I would call the little guy. So they have a kind of moral mission or imperative. This has given them the latitude to try to be interesting, thoughtful, helpful. And they bring Edward Snowden to the world stage. Something that is not pleasant for a lot of people to hear about, but we need to know.

These two approaches couldn't be more different. To justify their new mega bucks Vice will have to expand and expand in capital terms. Presumably they'll have to titillate a dumb, but energetic audience. Of course all capitalist expansions are subject to the big bang – balloon, bust, poof, and you’re gone. As for the Guardian I would imagine that the task involves gaining the trust and support of a more discerning, less definable reader, without spending the principal. There is usually an antipathy between cultural poles, but these two actually have a lot in common in terms of the energy and nuisance to power that they are willing to generate. I wish red and blue could come together somehow.

Sometimes I'd rather read than listen to music. One of my favourite odd books is Bootleg: The Secret History of the Other Recording Industry by Clinton Heylin. I bought the book in the 90's because a couple of my bootlegs were mentioned. I loved my bootlegs. They did a lot for me. I never really thought about the dough much. I liked the titles, like Suck on This, Stow Away DOA or Metalic KO. The packaging was always way more creative and edgy than most of my official stuff. So I just liked being seen and heard, like anybody else. These bootleggers were creative. Here are two quotes from the dust jacket by veteran industry stalwarts on the subject of bootlegs in 1994.

"Bootleg is the thoroughly researched and highly entertaining tale of those colorful brigands, hapless amateurs, and true believers who have done wonders for my record collection. Rock and roll doesn't get more underground than this." – that was David Fricke, the music editor of Rolling Stone "I think that bootlegs keep the flame of the music alive by keeping it out of not only the industry's conception of the artist, but also the artist's conception of the artist." – that was Lenny Kaye from the Patti Smith group, musician, critic and my friend.

Wow!! Sounds heroic and vital!

I wonder what these guys feel about all of this now, because things have changed, haven't they? We are now talking about Megaupload, Kim Dot Com, big money, political power, and varying definitions of theft that are legally way over my head. But I know a con man when I see one. I want to include a rant from an early bootlegger in this discussion because it's so passionate and I just think it's funny.

This is Lou Cohan "If anybody thinks that if I have purchased every single Rolling Stones album in existence, and I have bought all the Rolling Stones albums that have been released in England, France, Japan, Italy, and Brazil that if I have an extra $100 in my pocket instead of buying a Rolling Stones bootleg I am going to buy a John Denver album or a Sinead O'Conner album, they are retarded."

So the guy is trying to say don't try to force me. And don't steal my choice. And the people who don't want the free U2 download are trying to say, don't try to force me. And they've got a point. Part of the process when you buy something from an artist. It’s a kind of anointing, you are giving people love. It’s your choice to give or withhold. You are giving a lot of yourself, besides the money. But in this particular case, without the convention, maybe some people felt like they were robbed of that chance and they have a point. It’s not the only point. These are not bad guys. But now, everybody's a bootlegger, but not as cute, and there are people out there just stealing the stuff and saying don't try to force me to pay. And that act of thieving will become a habit and that’s bad for everything. So we are exchanging the corporate rip off for the public one. Aided by power nerds. Kind of computer Putins. They just wanna get rich and powerful. And now the biggest bands are charging insane ticket prices or giving away music before it can flop, in an effort to stay huge. And there's something in this huge thing that kind of sucks.

Which brings us to Punk. The most punk thing I ever saw in my life was Malcolm McLaren's cardboard box full of dirty old winkle pinkers. It was the first thing I saw walking in the door of Let It Rock in 1972 which was his shop at Worlds End on the Kings Road. It was a huge ugly cardboard bin full of mismatched unpolished dried out winkle pickers without laces at some crazy price like maybe five pounds each. Another 200 yards up the street was Granny Takes a Trip, where they sold proper Rockstar clothes like scarves, velvet jackets, and snake skin platform boy boots. Malcolm's obviously worthless box of shit was like a fire bomb against the status quo because it was saying that these violent shoes have the right idea and they are worth more than your fashion, which serves a false value. This is right out of the French enlightenment.

So is the thieving that big a deal? Ethically, yes, and it destroys people because it's a bad road you take. But I don't think that's the biggest problem for the music biz. I think people are just a little bit bored, and more than a little bit broke. No money. Especially simple working people who have been totally left out, screwed and abandoned. If I had to depend on what I actually get from sales I’d be tending bars between sets. I mean honestly it’s become a patronage system. There’s a lot of corps involved and I don’t fault any of them but it’s not as much fun as playing at the Music Machine in Camden Town in 1977. There is a general atmosphere of resentment, pressure, kind of strange perpetual war, dripping on all the time. And I think that prosecuting some college kid because she shared a file is a lot like sending somebody to Australia 200 years ago for poaching his lordship's rabbit. That's how it must seem to poor people who just want to watch a crappy movie for free after they’ve been working themselves to death all day at Tesco or whatever, you know.

If I wanna make music, at this point in my life I'd rather do what I want, and do it for free, which I do, or cheap, if I can afford to. I can. And fund through alternative means, like a film budget, or a fashion website, both of which I've done. Those seem to be turning out better for me than the official rock n roll company albums I struggle through. Sorry. If I wanna make money, well how about selling car insurance? At least I'm honest. It's an ad and that's all it is. Every free media platform I've ever known has been a front for advertising or propaganda or both. And it always colors the content. In other words, you hear crap on the commercial radio. The licensing of music by films, corps, and TV has become a flood, because these people know they're not a hell of a lot of fun so they throw in some music that is. I'm all for that, because that's the way the door opened for me. I got heard on tv before radio would take a chance. But then I was ok. Good. And others too. I notice there are a lot of people, younger and younger, getting their exposure that way. But it's a personal choice. I think it’s an aesthetic one, not an ethical one.

Now with the Internet people can choose to hear stuff and investigate it in their own way. If they want to see me jump around the Manchester Apollo with a horse tail instead of trying to be a proper Rockstar, they can look. Good. Personally I don't worry too much about how much I get paid for any given thing, because I never expected much in the first place and the whole industry has become bloated in its expectations. Look, Howling Wolf would work for a sandwich. This whole thing started in Honky Tonk bars. It's more important to do something important or just make people feel something and then just trust in God. If you're an entertainer your God is the public. They'll take care of you somehow. I want them to hear my music any old which way. Period. There is an unseen hand that turns the pages of existence in ways no one can predict. But while you’re waiting for God to show up and try to find a good entertainment lawyer.

It's good to remember that this is a dream job, whether you're performing or working in broadcasting, or writing or the biz. So dream. Dream. Be generous, don’t be stingy. Please. I can't help but note that it always seems to be the pursuit of the money that coincides with the great art, but not its arrival. It's just kind of a death agent. It kills everything that fails to reflect its own image, so your home turns into money, your friends turn into money, and your music turns into money. No fun, binary code – zero one, zero one - no risk, no nothing. What you gotta do you gotta do, life's a hurly-burly, so I would say try hard to diversify your skills and interests. Stay away from drugs and talent judges. Get organized. Big or little, that helps a lot.

I'd like you to do better than I did. Keep your dreams out of the stinky business, or you'll go crazy, and the money won't help you. Be careful to maintain a spiritual EXIT. Don't live by this game because it's not worth dying for. Hang onto your hopes. You know what they are. They’re private. Because that's who you really are and if you can hang around long enough you should get paid. I hope it makes you happy. It's the ending that counts, and the best things in life really are free.

#iggy pop #idk if anyone posted it here already #I'm just too lazy to look up so #here it is!

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x--daughters-of-darkness--x · 4 years

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I TALKED TO AMY LEE OF EVANESCENCE ABOUT INSPIRING THE WORLD’S WORST FANFICTION

The singer of My Immortal (the song) has now read My Immortal (the fanfic)

If you mention the name “My Immortal,” you may mean one of two things. The first is the 2003 hit song from rock band Evanescence. The second is a Harry Potter fanfic so transcendentally, mysteriously bad that it’s transfixed the internet for years.

The fanfic My Immortal is about a time-traveling mall-goth teenage vampire wizard (named “Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way”) who is obsessed with Evanescence and a variety of goth-inflected rock bands. She’s supposed to look like Amy Lee, Evanescence’s lead vocalist, pianist, and songwriter. And to this day, nobody is sure who wrote the story or whether they were serious.

Back in the real world, Lee and the rest of Evanescence have spent months under stay-at-home orders during the coronavirus pandemic. They’ve used that time to film two music videos in collaboration with director P.R. Brown, each shot by band members and their families. The latest is a surreal video for “The Game Is Over,” a song from their upcoming album The Bitter Truth. In Lee’s words, it’s shot as a “psychological thriller,” full of imagery based on a specific fear or inner demon from each member.

These videos — filmed in living rooms, cars, and other personal spaces — give fans a new kind of look into the band members’ lives. But I was curious about a different kind of fan relationship: did the creators of “My Immortal” know about My Immortal? I spoke to Lee, and the answer is yes; in fact, it’s part of a long-running family joke. She’d never actually read it, however, until last week.

You’ve made two videos under quarantine, and they’ve taken very different approaches. What was the process behind each of them?

We really had to just think kind of quickly. We were working on another video treatment that would have been full-production, this whole deal with a big crew and things we could no longer have because of the pandemic — including the fact that we couldn’t even physically get together because we live all over the world.

We recognized that “Wasted on You” had a bunch of lyrical content that felt like all of a sudden where we were. So we went for that. I really wanted it to be real on a level like people hadn’t seen us before: in our own homes, in our real lives, not dressed up, not in makeup, just the real, raw us.

For the second one, it’s like “Okay, how do we take what we’ve learned and amp it up even more to make it look like a real video more than just us being ourselves?” We have all been very serious about the lockdown, so we have been completely alone for the most part during this time — and that is cool in some ways as a creator. But you really have to live with yourself all the time.

A few of us have gone through some difficult things in the past few years. [Bassist Tim McCord] and I both experienced losses in our immediate family. There’s just been a lot of hard. So you know when you’re finally forced to stop being distracted by all the things that keep us happy, there’s silence — and that stuff comes out. So each of us had a private kind of gut-spilling confession with [P.R. Brown] about what we’re struggling with.

We were just sharing deeply in a way that we don’t normally go all the way with when it comes to at least our visuals. When I pour my lyrics into my music, it’s always really raw. But in this, it’s like, we’re not going to hold back on the video side and just make it beautiful — we’re going to go for it and let it be ugly and share the dark parts of ourselves.

I think of a lot of your music as being open and vulnerable, and you interact with fans online. What does filming a video at home like this communicate that your normal social media presence and music don’t?

I hope it just shows more and more of that willingness to be vulnerable because as hard as it is, it always leaves me feeling more satisfied than just putting on a pretty face.

Social media’s such a weird world for me. I love it — I’m grateful for the idea that we can have a direct relationship with our fans. But it’s kind of a double-edged sword. It’s such an open platform for everybody to criticize everything about you. And when you go there, you’re going to see that. I think that’s true for everybody. It doesn’t matter if you’re a celebrity or not. It’s just a place where people don’t have to show their face to say things, and there’s a lot of ugly out there.

What’s your relationship specifically with fanworks? Do people send you things that were inspired by you?

Oh my god, it’s so wonderful. We’ve got so much art. I’ve got this huge collection of stuff that I’ve been hanging on to just from the beginning. There are so many talented people out there that pour their efforts into making a piece of visual art that is either of something in the Evanescence world or just something else that came out of them while they were listening to our music.

Then there are other things that you have to keep because they’re so hilariously funny. People will make a crazy poem that makes totally no sense but I’m a character within it, which is awesome. It’s like, I know this person’s like 12 years old and totally sincere, but this is so funny. I have a little studio, and I dedicated a little bit of time during our unexpected free time to cover it wall-to-wall in the bathroom with all the fan stuff.

Which brings me to my next question: had you ever heard of My Immortal?

I think for quite a while I was just unaware of it. And then my cynical, Reddit-loving younger sister who’s also an English teacher, somewhere during the holiday every year when the family’s all together, it’ll come up for some reason. And she’s like, “Wait — you still haven’t read My Immortal?” And I’m like, “No, what do you mean?” She’s like, “You have to. Okay, hold on. Let me read you an excerpt.” And then she’ll pull up her phone and read some awesome paragraph from the craziest, funniest thing ever that makes no sense.

It’s one of her favorite things that she thinks is the most hilarious thing in the world, and I still just kept not reading it. It’s been kind of this ongoing joke with us. And then I got a call a few days ago that you wanted to talk about it, so I was like, “Oh, crap. I have to read a little bit of it.”

I read I think not quite half of it, but it did have me in tears. I was laughing really, really hard at one point, just because of the nonsense. And then I started asking myself, is this real? I can’t quite tell. I’m totally undecided. Is it sincere? I feel like it started maybe as sincere, but they got in on it and started playing it up for the haters. I can’t tell! What do you think?

It would have to be so elaborate, but there are a bunch of cases that really make it seem like this person knows much, much more than the character they’re putting on.

I noticed a misspelling that was like, instead of triumphantly, it was “triumelephantly.” And I was like, come on, you don’t think “elephant” is inside “triumphant.” There’s no way.

At one point, the main character’s name is spelled two different ways within three words of each other.

I totally saw that, too! I’m torn because I want it to be sincere, kind of... but I don’t know.

There are things about it that aren’t cool to talk about. Like it’s not funny to talk about slitting your wrists. So it takes me a second to get past that joke, which is so recurring.

Yeah, if you go back to old internet culture, a lot of it is really ugly. And it’s weird trying to separate that stuff out.

Is it better now?

I don’t know because now I’m too old to know what’s going on. But kids do seem nicer. They often seem nicer.

I would like to believe we’ve grown up a little bit as a society from that. Maybe everybody having a little bit more of a microphone has taught us some things that we need to be aware of that are outside of our perception and our personal experiences. There are other people that are seeing that in a different way. I think it would be cool if that’s true.

I was a teenager around when My Immortal came out, and it feels like it describes a very recognizable “goths versus preps” rivalry. Did you feel that?

I think this thing is poking fun at that world — I mean it would have to be, come on — and that part of it really resonates with me in a real way. But I didn’t consider myself goth! Part of what’s weird and funny is like okay, this is describing hating the preps, and you’re the cool one, you’re the underground, you understand real life and the gravity of death, and I get it. But if you’re so depressed and everything’s so hard and you’re so real and they’re so fake, why do you put so much effort into your look?

That was what always turned me off about the word “goth” when that started being assigned to me in our early days. If I was 15 years old and you’d asked me what I was, I’m grunge. I buy all my clothes at garage sales, I don’t do crap to my look, I get ready two seconds before school, and all the preps are the ones who put all their focus on their looks and what party they’re going to go to.

But yeah, that part was funny to me. That part existed.

I love the idea of you knowing about this thing for years without having read it.

I kind of want to thank you because I did get a really good laugh out of it last night. It’s not like, when I have free time, I’m motivated to go read some horribly bad thing. But it’s actually pretty interesting.

And you’ve gotta love all the characters breaking into song to sing My Chemical Romance songs. It’s pretty great.

#Amy Lee #Evanescence #2020 interviews

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jira-chii · 5 years

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Thoughts on the Shoumetsu Toshi Anime before it even airs

The Shoumetsu Toshi anime will air in April 2019, which fills me with both excitement and trepidation...

Warning for long post. And a bit of language. I may have spoiled the bare minimum of the game in order to explain why it is awesome. There are no spoilers for the anime because it doesn't air until April 2019.

NB: This whole post is my own personal opinion. I don’t claim to be an expert in anything anime or game related. In fact, I don't play many mobile games at all, and usually steer clear of anime adaptations of such games because I know how shit they can be. I sincerely hope Shoumetsu Toshi will be different because of the quality of the writing. Also yes I am very biased. And passionate. And this whole thing is written on the assumption the producers actually want to make this anime good and worthwhile, rather than just a quick money-grab. I just have a lot of feelings about this ok.

During Shoumetsu Toshi’s fourth year anniversary, one of the projects announced was an anime! I'm sure everyone playing knew this was going to happen eventually. After all, the game has an all star cast of seiyuu, an amazing storyline, and has been marketing itself for quite a while now (collabs, live concerts, CDs, keychains and more). I have no doubt Shoumetsu Toshi has the potential to become an amazing anime if done correctly, but it will face many challenges on the path to adaptation. Here are some of them.

Too many tamashii

One of the game’s greatest strengths also becomes one of its greatest barriers to adaptation. Shoumetsu Toshi has done an amazing job at creating a huge community of characters (like, an actual city). We get to see their stories unfold and their characters develop bit by bit through various events and quest stages. Within the game, we meet characters that are strong and inspiring, characters with complex relationships, characters that are good-natured and goofy, characters with tragic pasts and so much more. There are characters with stories in this game that will tear your heart to shreds, stories with plot twists nobody saw coming until years later, and stories that were so impactful I had to write a 3000 word essay on it before I was satisfied.

Unfortunately, the anime cannot afford to invest the same amount of time and effort in its characters as the game does. Though we love them, including too many would be detrimental because 1. It wouldn’t fit the tone the anime is going for, 2. There's actually no point because the majority of these don't affect the main story whatsoever and 3. They won't be developed enough for first timers to become invested in them. Especially the ones with more serious stories.

The producers will need to carefully choose which characters to include: characters that are not only distinct and easy to invest in, but will actually contribute to the plot and make the time getting to know them worthwhile. Because one of the worst things an anime can do imo, is bring in a character nobody is invested in, who contributes nothing to the story, has zero character development (i.e. their character is based completely on cliches and tropes) but also gets about 200% more screen time than any other side character, because there is the assumption that they’ll be popular based on their character design alone. That is just lazy writing and is disrespectful not only to the audience, but also the character (I don’t care if they’re fictional, good characters deserve respect too).

I fear there is a very real danger SPR5 could become that. The in-game idol group got a real world debut, and, while I don’t mind seeing promotion in an anime (we live in a capitalist society after all), they shouldn’t contribute much to the overall story, and I will be very disappointed if the anime give them more screen time than they need purely for the sake of marketing.

Complex storyline

If there is one thing I absolutely don't want this anime to get wrong, it’s the story. The Shoumetsu Toshi main storyline is frickin’ amazing. It is an epic quest that spans four worlds, involves characters literally jumping through space and time, and breaks the fourth wall in the creepiest way possible. The creativity that comes with that is my absolute favourite thing about the game, however I acknowledge some heavy changes would need to be made to make it fit the traditional anime format…

I have heard the anime will be an original story, however the PV suggests it will still retain key plot points from the game. Contrary to my general opinions regarding anime-original content, I think this is the right way to go. I think fans innately despise original stories in anime adaptations for one of two reasons: the story will either be too complex for non-fans to enjoy, ruining the reputation of the series, or the story will be too watered down in order to appeal to said non-fans and consequently lose much of what made the original actually great. Achieving harmony is an incredibly difficult balancing act, and part of this involves the series living up to its own greatness. Which very rarely happens. If Shoumetsu Toshi goes for a retelling of say, World 1, it is invariably going to be compared to the original. Also it becomes predictable for anyone far enough into the game. If the producers do want to go the extra mile and make it worthwhile for the OG fans (which is nice in theory but, admittedly, unlikely), they would need to add some meaningful original content that still retains the essence of what makes Shoumetsu Toshi, Shoumetsu Toshi. That is, it retains the same themes and atmosphere, conveys a similar message, keeps all the characters appropriately in character...basically anything that would not feel out of place if it were to be inserted into the original. Luckily for us, Shoumetsu Toshi writers have loads of experience with this. I am talking, of course, about the mountain of ranking quests, side stories and events.

I will admit not every single minor story in Shoumetsu Toshi is fantastic, particularly many of the ranking events, which usually only allow about three stages to tell a story focused on one character. However, what I think the game does do very well in respect to these short ranking stories (and many other events and side stories open to lower level players), is make them accommodating to both old and new players. This is usually achieved by including Easter eggs and hints to a greater plot for the former, while keeping the actual main story for that particular quest straightforward and accessible for the latter. This strategy avoids alienating newcomers and will be absolutely vital if the anime is aiming to appeal to a larger audience, namely the international one who are mostly not even aware of the game. Failure to adhere to this strategy is also partially why many anime adaptations of games have such a shitty track record. They try to pack in too much, usually by explaining multiple complex concepts without devoting enough time to see them properly work in action. The story might take a backburner in favour of the more technical stuff, leaving newcomers confused and bored. Then when it’s time for the climax, nobody actually understands what is happening on screen. “Just play the source material”, actual fans will say, but really, unless the premise or characters appealed to me, how likely am I to invest even more time into a game if I thought the anime was boring as hell?

I do not think Shoumetsu Toshi will be able to showcase its full potential in one anime season. But if the goal of the anime is just to promote the game, there is no need to. If the goal of the anime were to be an actual good anime though, I think the creators would need to take the same approach as the game does for its stories.

Shoumetsu Toshi’s most epic moments are its unpredictable and creative plot twists. The amazing thing is, they don’t just come out of nowhere. This game’s strongest stories are the long ones that build up gradually to spectacular and emotional climaxes, which are possible because characters are given ample time to establish their values and motivations. This helps us as an audience better understand important plot points without the story having to beat us over the head about it, allowing the game to weave a subtle yet sophisticated narrative that actually makes total sense by the end. This means the story needs to be planned out from the very beginning, and will need some time for setup. Which means it won’t truly shine until the metaphorical ‘late-game’.

Stories like these are at a disadvantage these days because, especially with the Internet giving us so much more choice, a lot of anime watchers now tend to drop a show if it fails to impress them from the very start. After about three episodes, the audience should have a good feel for the anime’s main characters, setting and a hint of the main plot. If by then, absolutely nothing about the series appeals to you, you would start to think there are better things you could be doing with your time. Unfortunately, sometimes a show just needs a long time to set up a good story (or sometimes producers dick around too much with filler episodes).

On top of probably needing a slow start, the Shoumetsu Toshi anime is at another disadvantage in respect to one type of audience, because the game does not have an English version. Which means a lot of the Western anime audience will have had no prior interaction with it and don’t know what to expect. They have no idea who the characters are, what the story is, and why its fanbase considers it so much more than just another gacha game. We just have to hope the anime is compelling enough in the beginning to ‘hook’ these newcomers, and make them stay on board long enough to make their time worth it...

A good Shoumetsu Toshi story needs to take risks. I hope to God nobody at that studio makes the executive decision to ‘play it safe’, because the last thing any fan wants is a disappointing anime adaptation with a mundane story even a non-fan wouldn’t be able to enjoy.The writers need to be given complete autonomy and trust to fully realise their creative vision, because that is exactly what is needed if this adaptation wants to use Shoumetsu Toshi’s biggest drawcard to its full advantage.

Animating exposition

This is a pretty minor thing compared to the other two I mentioned previously, but the most iconic thing that sets an anime adaptation apart from the source material is, well, the animation. Visuals and animation are probably the biggest things influencing a new audience’s first impression. Unfortunately, the PV portrayed some pretty lacklustre animation for Madhouse standards and I don’t think people were that impressed.

Good animation is time-consuming and can actually take quite a lot of effort on the part of the director (not that I have that much experience to speak to). Where to place characters in the shot composition, when and how far to zoom in for a close-up, how to best direct movement for maximum impact, but also keeping the scene direction consistent enough that the audience can still understand what is happening on screen. Dynamic scenes are hard enough, but on the other end of the spectrum, how do you animate a static character reciting an information dump in an interesting way?

Shoumetsu Toshi has a lot of talking. It's just something that comes part and parcel with a game of this format. In the game it's alright because you can read at your own pace, and it's important information. Plus they usually keep you engaged by switching up characters’ facial expressions (Shoumetsu Toshi 0 does this in spades) or by distracting you with the stellar soundtrack. I expect the anime is also gonna have a heap of exposition. I mean, from the PV alone I already see at least three expositional characters: Geek, Eiji and Kikyou.

Personally I think expositions are the hardest things to animate. And I don't mean difficult to actually draw and turn into animation, but to actually direct something like that in a satisfying way takes brain power. There are an infinite number of ways to animate characters talking, ranging from the super boring still-image-with-moving-mouth-flap, to using dynamic camera angles to keep the composition interesting, or overlaying a montage of some sort to visually convey the message without having to look at a static character. The game provides only a generic idea of how the scene might play out when animated. While this opens the door to a heap of creative possibilities, I’m concerned that if it comes down to time and budget, or if someone gets lazy, it is very likely we could end up with one hella boring sequence of exposition. Which could be a serious problem if the action scenes aren’t able to impress.

Ahh, you guys have no idea how much I want this anime to do well. There's just so much potential there.

In my opinion, traditional anime can be seen as an incredibly limited medium that must, in the span of about 12 episodes, tell a good story to its audience, invest them in its characters, and keep them engaged for half an hour each episode through pretty visuals/cool animation. If they can’t do that the audience will probably drop the series because they a) get bored, b) don’t care, and/or c) fall asleep. This also means a good anime can’t afford to sacrifice story for character development or vice versa. They need to happen concurrently.

It is not easy to make a good anime, and even more difficult to make one that lives up to the hype of its very amazing source material. As a general rule of thumb, I keep my expectations of game adaptations low, and that is what I said to myself when the Shoumetsu Toshi anime was announced. But then one day I got linked a Shoumetsu Toshi drama CD, and I was blown away by how well they did it. The title is The Vanished Elephant, a literary reference to Murakami's short story of the same name. I'm trying not to spoil but basically, the CD fully utilised the fact we can't see the characters (but can hear them) to craft a mysterious original story with a wonderful plot twist. It works just as a stand alone story, but actual players who are familiar with the characters and motifs immediately get that sense of unease at the very beginning, which is finally paid off with the reveal at the end.

Thanks to that, I can't help but be excited for the anime. If they do fuck it up, I won't be surprised but I will be very, very, sad.

If you have read this far, thank you so much for your time. If you are unfamiliar with Shoumetsu Toshi, could I ask you to please give this anime a chance? And if after its run, it does turn out shit, by all means, complain to your heart’s content (because I will be doing the same).

#shoumetsu toshi #anime #analysis #long post #afterlost

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choose-your-own-url · 6 years

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Okay, I told myself I would never talk about Priya again, but my urge to insert myself has gotten too strong to ignore even though I feel like a loser for talking about this two days later. This is going to be long so sorry to everyone on mobile who wants to scroll past (honestly don’t blame you lol), but hey, it could be worse.

And just as a general, slightly vague, overview of what is under the cut: be nice to people, don't judge others, you can like villains, creepy is creepy, sexism and homophobia both suck, and fiction=reality isn’t always applicable.

So, first off, stop insulting people and calling them names for thinking differently. This applies to everyone on both sides on any issue really. Frankly, it’s just mean and rude and it doesn’t accomplish anything productive. It only hurts people’s feelings and causes them to get defensive. This in turn makes them resist change. They become more convinced that their side is right because the other side can only be mean and resolve to childish insults. If you’re actually trying to change minds, this approach won’t work. I understand the need to rant and release your emotions, but you have other options, like either keep if off the internet or just vague blog or whatever. Just, please try and always be kind to others.

Now for Priya. Again, I want to reiterate, liking Priya does NOT make you a bad person. Anyone who says or tries to make you think otherwise it just wrong. I sincerely apologise to anyone who has felt personally attacked by the discourse at my hands, though I certainly hope that I have not done that to anyone. I am also sorry in general to anyone that has been hurt, especially wlw. Your real life is hard enough, you don’t need a game that’s meant to offer you an escape and bring you pleasure to add to that. This is something the fandom as a whole should work on.

As for the actual criticisms of Priya, there are two main things I want to address here. I’m going to start with the criticizing people for liking a villain aspect.

If your approach to criticizing the desire for Priya has been because she’s clearly written as an antagonist, maybe don’t do this. There is nothing wrong with liking a villain. People like characters for their allure and complexities, not whether or not their moral compass is perfect.

There are countless male characters this can be applied to, both within the world of Choices and general media. So unless you see a problem with all of them, this argument should probably be dropped. Now, of course you can disagree with liking someone like Priya because of the murder and throwing house boys around and all that jazz, but don’t use your personal disgust as an excuse to make judgements about or attack other people.

Now for the second aspect I want to address, the one I think should be being the focus: excusing similar behaviors of different characters due to gender and attraction. The issue should never have been “Priya is a bad person”, but “Priya acts in a sexually predatory way”. This is the reason for the comparison to Lester rather than any other character.

Lester is a creep. Everyone knows that and no one is trying to defend him. He makes sexual advances on MC regardless of whether or not she wants it. Priya does this as well. Some people who like Priya argue that it’s not creepy because they do want it. However, there are people who don’t. Priya still acts the same, meaning that either way she doesn’t care about how MC feels.

This is the double standard. Lester is universally disliked, Priya isn’t. This difference completely depends on gender and how attracted you are to the two. Double standards are rarely a good thing, and I don't think this is one of the situations where it is. People should always be held accountable for predatory actions, regardless of circumstance.

However, I will add, because I think it is important to note, that the two characters are written very differently. Lester is obviously meant to make the readers uncomfortable and hate him, whereas Priya is written to have a sort of forbidden attraction. Neither are being excused for their actions, but with Priya, it is being used as a way to make her alluring.

Plus, lack of representation and acceptance for gay girls has made standards...low. I’m a bi girl myself. When you have such few options, you tend to latch onto options that aren’t necessarily the healthiest. I’m not innocent of this. I know there are characters I thirst after that logic says I shouldn’t.

Lester’s actions may also be more triggering than Priya’s for some.

When you compound these things together, it's not surprising people like Priya and hate Lester. I feel these are valid points, it’s just not enough to convince me that this double standard is okay.

I also want to say that there are many aspects of society at play here to allow this double standard to exist. I think sexism is the main one.

In (American) society, women are allowed to get away with way more than men in terms of abusive behavior. Things like rape and domestic abuse just aren’t taken seriously when a woman is the perpetrator.* This is because women are seen as weak and overly feminine so they can’t cause any real harm.

To be clear, I don’t see anybody saying Priya isn’t a bad person or that she isn’t toxic. I’m not trying to claim people are. I’m just trying to communicate that saying there is a double standard here isn’t saying men are oppressed. The consequences of misogyny just aren’t all negative in terms of how it affects women.

Homophobia is also relevant to this discourse. Do I think there would be backlash against liking Priya if she was a dude straight girls were obsessing over? Yes, much like how Caleb lovers were criticized. But, this fandom does have a history of homophobia, just as almost all fandoms do. You can’t ignore that history when talking about negative posts that mainly target wlw.

Obviously nobody is intentionally being homophobic with their posts. Regardless, I do feel that homophobia has allowed for people to feel comfortable having an extra level of...aggression, I guess? in their posts. I’m not exactly sure how to describe it, but I do sense it. But basically, what I’m trying to say here is there would still be anti-Priya posts if she was a man, just not at the same level.

There is one final thing I want to talk about: the relation between fiction and reality. I do think fiction mirrors reality, but it isn’t always applicable. Here, I think it’s acceptable to say the different reactions reflect how obsessed with physical attraction society is, but not much beyond that. It certainly isn’t okay to say that if you like Priya you must excuse abuse in real life. As long as the person isn’t blind to the fact Priya is a terrible person, which, again, I don’t think anyone is, then it’s fine to like her.

So, in conclusion, there is nothing wrong with liking Priya. You do you and thirst to your heart’s content. Liking her isn’t the issue. The issue is the difference in reactions to similar characters. But, regardless of your opinion on Priya, I really want to emphasize the point that attacking people is not okay. This means don’t use personal insults to argue with others. It also means don’t make moral judgements about people depending on whether or not they like Priya. Neither of these are productive actions.

Oh, and also, congrats to anyone that read the whole thing. That’s a lot of text for an internet post. Also, again, I’m sorry people on mobile. If only the read more worked. And yes, I just took an hour and half to write a post about discourse for a fictional character. I have too much time on my hands and should maybe get a life.

*I wanted to add that I am not saying Priya is a rapist because I realized people might read it that way. That was just an example of women not being taken seriously.

#honestly the being mean thing was my main motivation for making this post #but then more thoughts kept coming #playchoices #pixelberry #bloodbound #priya lacroix

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douglaskimberly94 · 4 years

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The method we will listen and the issues that were important to sit down to thrash things out, you may be the final option for solving problems in their marriage; awkward silences; negative thoughts and going your separate ways is easier.The following are some tips for helping a troubled marriage can be done; nothing is more successful?Nothing can be confronted and resolved, thereby strengthening your relationship.One very important that you will be surprise at this stage of life.If you find the factors which could have done everything, but resist arguing with your lives.

Save Marriage How To

Going through a divorce have been turning on each other.Seeing your spouse is only when we are going round and round in the field who make it as it cannot solve things on your wedding day, everything is settled and you will get on with the experienced of not being able to interact and draw inspiration from people who are successful and happy marriage.This is exactly what each other that you do not place too much to bear on our relationship that may cause you to communicate is the lack of communication is essential so both of you.As we now know, we tend to dominate your home or invite him for a divorce, it will be sooner or later?Divorce is more appropriate to compromise.

See where you start seeking ways to save your marriage.Even if a spouse who is unwilling to give you the encouragement, guidance and support each other the enough time together.If you notice that your partner to be implicit assumption that they have.When you reach this place, this circumstance, to save their marriage troubles.But little do they need not result in another quarrel.

#Can One Partner Save A Marriage Cheap And Easy Diy Ideas #How To Save A Failing Marriage

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sunken-standard · 7 years

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Hi there! Could you possibly turn your considerable talents to prompts 27 and 57, please? (if nobody has got in ahead of me!) Tom-verse if possible, but I'm happy to leave the artistic decisions to the artist :-) Ellis

I tried for Tom-verse, but I justcouldn’t make anything fit (though, I mean, if you squint, it couldmaybe fit in there before the first ficlet in the series). Sorry! For some reason the unicorn prompt just tripped me up (I’m evenreusing a bit I had written and scrapped for the other one becauseI’m just coming up empty). I’m so off my comedy game and all aboardthe train to angstville, apparently. Also, just pretend thechronology fits with the actual timeline of the show and Surrey hasthe year-round summer of LA.

“Sometimes I just don’t wantto exist”/ “You asked me if unicorns were real”

“Didyou ever wonder if unicorns were real? Like one horse somewhere inprehistory with some kind of keratinous carcinoma or something thatstarted it all?” Molly said, staring at the 14thcentury ‘unicorn’ horn (that of a narwhal, most likely) mounted onthe wall of the study.

“Probablysomething along those lines, could have been an oryx or a rhino thatsomeone saw while in an altered state. Between ergot, mushrooms,natural fermentation, and all manner of disease andnaturally-occurring poisons, added to the fact that there was noreliable way to record an experience, it’s amazing we as a speciesever came to any consensus about the nature of reality,”Sherlock said as he searched the club treasurer’s desk.

“Saythat at a physics conference sometime,” she said.

Officesupplies, sweets, nail clippers, cap for a memory stick but no memorystick (bugger), sticky note with password to company server(P@55vv0rd, how clever), deck of naughty playing cards (didn’t evenknow they still made those); nothing useful. Bollocks.

“Whenhave you ever been to a physics conference?” He paused in hissearch.

“Never. But I’ve heard stories.”

“Whenhave you 'heard stories?’”

“Anex-boyfriend is a theoretical physicist. That one was more schizoidthan sociopath, though.”

Ugh. Another one. He wished she wouldn’t talk about them. He’d muchrather pretend she wasn’t an actual woman and never had anyboyfriends at all, for reasons he didn’t care to examine at themoment. Or ever. He went back to rifling the drawer.

“Haveyou ever considered your time would be better spent by taking up ahobby instead of wasting it on relationships? Knitting, taxidermy,paragliding?”

“Sexis a hobby.”

“Nymphomaniaisn’t a hobby, it’s an addiction.”

“Well,what do you know, we have something in common,” she said lightlyand, in Sherlock’s opinion, rather cruelly.

“Notan addict, I’m a user, there’s a difference.”

“AndI’m not a sex addict. Though, I mean, I’m not a user,either, because that sounds like I’m just looking for a sugar daddyor something. I just like sex. A lot. I mean, we only get so muchtime, might as well enjoy it.”

“Yetwhen I say that about any number of arbitrarily illegal substances, Iget crucified.”

“Wellit’s not like I’m going to suffer a collapsed vagina from repeatedpenetration, unlike a vein and a needle. Or, you know, literally diefrom too many orgasms.”

Hegrunted as he popped the secret panel behind the drawer. He reallyhoped it wasn’t booby trapped. Good thing she was being so annoying;if he started thinking about her vagina and repeated penetration hemight get sidetracked.

“Isthat his girlfriend or his daughter?” Molly muttered as shelooked across the lawn to the pool.

Sherlocklooked for himself; the client’s midlife crisis girlfriend and eitherher sister or her friend (hard to tell, they both had the same dyedblonde hair and Instagram brows and noses picked from a book in aCzech bargain-basement plastic surgeon’s office) were lounging indeck chairs. Nothing particularly striking about them; he wonderedwhy she sounded a bit bitter. Wasn’t like her. Best not to ask, hethought, lest he actually get an answer. Solving the case shouldcheer her up.

“Girlfriend. And she’s got nothing to look forward to but a life ofdisappointment and melanoma. Come on, I want to check thegroundskeeper’s cottage before he gets back from shaving thetopiaries or painting the grass green or whatever other crimesagainst nature these people feel the need to commit for the sake ofappearances.”

“Wow,is that…?”

“Youasked me if unicorns were real. Apparently they are,” he saidas they approached the groom, busy saddling a white pony with a pinkmane and a rather realistic horn somehow affixed to its head.

“Huh,”Molly said. Then, as the pony lifted its tail and did what allanimals do, “The internet lied. That was supposed to be arainbow.”

Sherlocksmirked, then schooled his face before addressing the groom. Wouldn’t do to look happy while questioning the main suspect.

“Sothe groom was actually the birth mother and she was helpingthe ex-wife steal from the client? I will never understand richpeople. Kinda sad for the little girl, though,” Molly said,looking out the window of the train.

“Alwaysis,” he dismissed, but not rudely. He hoped.

“Imean, I kind of sympathize with the ex-wife, especially after seeingthe girlfriend. A woman gets to a certain age and she’s just…disposable.”

Helooked at her askance; that uncharacteristic note of bitterness wasback in her voice again.

“Isthis about Tom? You broke it off with him, why are you still upsetover it?”

Surelya few months was more than enough time to get over him. She barelyblinked before moving on from other boyfriends.

“It’snot about Tom. Well, maybe some of it. I’m just tired ofstupid men always coming out on top in these things.”

“Hardly'on top’ in this case. His nine year old daughter already resentshim, which is unlikely to change, he can’t perform for hisbarely-legal fiancée—yes, I found a ring while looking for thememory stick—without the help of a little blue pill, and she’lltake him to the cleaners in the divorce settlement within five years,provided his hypertension doesn’t kill him first, at which point thedaughter gets it all anyway. That is, if there’s anything left bythen. He has a mountain of debt and he’s made nothing but poorinvestment choices since his ex-wife left.”

“Youknow about investing? I thought you hated City boys and the entireconcept of money.”

“Iknow a bit. Mrs. Hudson knows more. She did successfullylaunder the earnings of a not-insignificant drug cartel for thebetter part of twenty years.”

Theway Molly’s lips pressed together and her eyebrows rose as she tippedher head indicated she really wasn’t very surprised.

“Evenso, ’s still not fair, is it?”

“Verylittle ever is,” he said.

Hedidn’t like Molly being so pessimistic. It was out of place with theorder of things. He’d much rather she talk at length and in greatdetail about her vagina and its numerous exploits if it meant shewasn’t so… down.

“SometimesI just don’t want to exist. It’s still a man’s world and being asingle woman over thirty sucks.”

Nothinghe could really say to that without sounding like a completearsehole. Just because he didn’t voice any opinions on it didn’tmean he was blind to the struggles competent women faced. Hell, heknew what it had done to his own mother, and she’d been relativelylucky in the stable, supportive partner area.

“Well,you’ve always got me?” he said, more in the form of a questionthan a statement. He squinted to make it look like he really wasn’tsure if that was the correct protocol for offering support; hecouldn’t let her know he meant it so sincerely that he refused tothink about the feelings it stirred and what that might mean.

Sheglanced at him with an expression on her face he couldn’t read, thenlooked back out the window. "I suppose I could find a worsesidekick,“ she said after a few moments.

"Sidekick.” He raised an eyebrow.

“Well,yeah, obviously. I did solve the case, after all.”

“Youdidn’t solve the case. You found the memory stick, and that was justdumb luck. I solved the case. He made the check out to me.”

“Itwasn’t dumb luck. I knew they had cats, and I know where toy-sizedthings end up when there’s a cat around.”

“Yes,and if you want a sidekick you should get another cat. I’ll just beyour… consultant.”

“Consultantpain in my arse,” she said, her lips twitching up a bit at thecorner. It was a start.

“Theysay 'follow your bliss…’” he said lightly, which earned himone of those impish smirks that gave him a mild, almost pleasant formof indigestion.

Sidekick. Honestly. Though he supposed there were worse fates than playingsecond fiddle to Molly Hooper.

#anonymous #drabble ask meme round 3 #sherlolly #sunken's secret stash

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383designstudionyc · 6 years

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I recently had the opportunity to meet with one of my former students who had just graduated from FIT. As we caught up, she asked me a series of questions about working in the industry. One of them was (and I’m paraphrasing somewhat), “How do you ‘hustle’?” We both chuckled, but I knew what she was talking about. I recall watching a talk hosted by FIT with designer and self-proclaimed hustler, Dapper Dan, and costume designer for the Netflix series, “The Get Down”, Jeriana San Juan who also referred to herself as a hustler. Both recounted stories of their unusual paths into the world of fashion and how they leveraged their resourcefulness to create a lane for themselves that would help advance their careers.

Today’s fashion job search (any job search really) can sometimes feel like a hostile environment if you don’t learn to embrace it, be flexible and become a bit of a hustler. More importantly, you have to get creative with searching for a new gig, as creative as you would be in your work because these days, opportunities lie in some unexpected places.

So how does a newbie get their hustle on in this new-fangled job market? Here are some tips that I find have worked (and still work) for me.

“I grew up in a working class family. . . . Nobody had high hopes for me. But I was a hustler.”—Mark Cuban

1) Start by developing a hustler’s mentality: Historically, a ‘hustler’ has had a negative connotation. But in more recent years, a ‘hustler’s mentality’ is equated with persistence and resourcefulness, pushing forward when others might quit, finding solutions using unlikely methods and leveraging some of today’s newer, untraditional platforms to bring attention to and promote your brand. Many of today’s ‘disruptors’ have a ‘hustler’s mentality’ in that they see an opportunity to do something differently when others are content with or can’t see past the way it’s always been. They’re innovative and think outside of the box. In fact, for some, there is no box, and they can convince you of the same.

For us, that could mean showing how your skill set can benefit other job functions or other industries. How many times have big businesses hired CEO’s and VP’s from industries that have nothing to do with theirs? But they knew that their ability to manage and grow a business would be beneficial to them no matter the industry. Maybe you’re approaching a company with a way to solve a problem. A colleague of mine recently read about some production issues a company (whose products she used) were having. She found the CEO on LinkedIn and reached out to her noting how she’d had similar issues in her last position, gave a few suggestions on how to help solve her problem, and noted that she would be happy to head up a team to put these processes in place.

For me, my skills and ‘hustle’ have allowed me to work in apparel design, textile design, graphic design, product development and production. It’s also helped me establish a successful digital design training business (where I’ve trained individuals and companies including Jones Apparel, PVH and GAP), and after many years of applying and talking to people, an adjunct position at FIT.

2) Develop your personal brand: If you’re starting a business and want to get new clients, you’ve got to market and promote the business so people know who you are, what you do, what you’re about and why they should choose you over so many other people. The same is true for your personal brand (YOU)! Yes, recruiters help to get you in front of potential companies, you are your best advocate. If you think about it, you’ve probably already done this with your signature method of design. This time, you’re developing a signature for yourself.

Put some of your work out there (see tip #4), start a blog about something with which you’re knowledgeable, write an article on LinkedIn, or use YouTube to demonstrate your expertise. I can guarantee that most recruiters and hiring managers are checking you out (at the very least on LinkedIn) before they call you, so give them some positive and informative material to help reinforce why you’re the expert you say you are!

3) Engage with your network: Of course we all know networking is important, but just becoming connected with someone on LinkedIn isn’t enough. In fact, it’s become very impersonal. But it doesn’t have to be. First off, take the time to write a sincere note to the person you want to connect with. Don’t just send the generic ‘Hi, I’d like to connect with you.’ And once you do connect, please don’t just automatically email them with a pitch. People are happy to support and help out those they like and trust, so allow them time to get to know more about you.

This also might be a no-brainer, but take some time to get offline and meet people in person. Ultimately, no matter how great the resume, people want to hire someone they like and feel they can work with. So get out and meet people in person. Let them see how great you are and why you’re not only knowledgeable but easy to work with.

One great way to do this is to find a meetup group. There are a ton of fashion specific meetup groups on Meetup.com that are open to anyone who’s interested. But don’t just stop with fashion groups. Check out some of the career and business groups, even some of the more social groups if you can make the time. Think about doing a presentation at a meetup. It’s a great way to make sure everyone there gets to know you and your background, and you can casually mention that you’re available to consult on a project or open to new opportunities. Almost everything is a game of numbers. The more people you meet and communicate with, the more opportunities come your way.

4) Bring your portfolio into the digital age: I know there was a time when it was taboo to make your work public for fear that someone will steal your ideas. But times have changed! I’ve gotten several leads for freelance gigs and new students who wanted to take class with me just by having a portfolio on Styleportfolios.com or because they liked an Instagram drawing I did. There are so many more places where you can upload an online portfolio (including Behance which works seamlessly with Adobe products), and creating a website is so easy these days, many people opt to self promote that way. Whatever you decide, you need a digital presence. And don’t worry about putting your entire portfolio up. A nice smattering of some great pieces that demonstrate your skills is enough to get someone interested.

5) Keep your LinkedIn profile up to date (with a picture) and then use it! For some people, I have to even take it a step further back and say, “Sign up on LinkedIn and create a profile.” LinkedIn has become one of the best and most used business, social networking sites on the internet. So if you’re not using it, you’re losing out. I remember I was following up on a referral I’d gotten, and I was trying to setup a meeting to speak to HR to come train their staff. When she finally called me back, I didn’t even finish my pitch about myself and my company before she cut me off and said to me, “Yeah, I looked you up on LinkedIn to see what you were about. I liked what I saw. Why don’t you come in next week?” Is it possible I would have gotten that meeting without my profile? Maybe. But I’ve always believed I may not have even gotten a callback without it.

6) Put as much design into your resume as you do your portfolio: I was debating this one a bit with a colleague, but I strongly believe in a visual and well designed resume. She felt it was just a way for people to distract from how little experience they have, but I disagree. I mean, you have to find ways to standout from the crowd and what better way to do this than with a resume that’s as beautifully designed as your portfolio. Plus, let’s be honest. We all like to see pretty things, and a well designed portfolio AND resume is eye catching. And we’re creatives, so why wouldn’t your resume look like a work of art? Keep the old one (the text-only version) in case it’s requested to upload to a database, but make sure you have your visual resume ready to email and/or to hand out when you’re meeting a recruiter or in your interview.

Check Pinterest for some great ideas for formatting or download a template from Adobe Stock.

7) Remember your existing connections, and I don’t just mean your colleagues: Yes, of course, you should reach out to existing and past associates but think about other people or institutions that could be helpful. Does your school have a career or alumni office? For example, if you’re an alumni of FIT, they have a career office that you can visit (as well as free job boards), and it’s available to you no matter when you graduated.

Many schools not only have alumni groups thru the institution, but they also have a LinkedIn Group. I know my school does, and I have seen people postings for job openings as well as job leads. Are you a member of a sorority or fraternity? They’re also great ways to get leads. My father told me when he first moved to NY, he had just graduated from college with a degree in education but no connections whatsoever to help him get into a school. He got his first teaching assignment after meeting another teacher at a fraternity meeting who put him in touch with the right people.

8) Do your own thing: I have always been a proponent of spending time in the industry and learning all you can, making connections with whomever you can before you go off on your own. But with the resources available to designers today and the opportunity to learn and reach more people thru social media, who says you can’t step out and do your own thing? I remember speaking with a co-worker who once did sales for Fubu when they were just starting out. He talked about how great of an asset it was NOT to have somewhere there saying, ‘You’ll never be able to produce that!’ They didn’t know any better, but it allowed them to partner with their factories to figure it out and to do things that no one else was doing at the time. When nothing else seems to be working, it may be time to step out and do your own thing, OR

9) Do something else creative: Here’s where you get to not only be a creative but also get creative about what your role can be. Often we get stuck on titles or what a Creative Designer is supposed to do, but who’s to say you can only design apparel or that the skills you use as an apparel designer aren’t beneficial in other areas and can’t be as equally creative and fulfilling.

Do you love designing trims or adding functionality to your garments? Maybe you should also be looking for a job is in Innovation? Love the process of research, shopping and watching the runway? Maybe you need to be in Trend or Forecasting. There are a plethora of other creative fashion jobs that we often don’t even think about, but they’re necessary and need people to fill those positions.

Or how about designing the look for a new luxury or lifestyle brand, or revamping an existing one? The possibilities are endless if you can think past what’s been done and see your creativity in a different light. And let’s not forget that other industries regularly hire people from outside their own, so think about how you can carve a niche for yourself in Tech or some other growing business.

10) Never stop learning: There is no guarantee anymore that you will get a job, or if you do, keep that job. But what you can do to help solidify your ability to keep working is to stay relevant, and the only way to do that is to continue to learn, grow and keep up with the current technology.

My husband has a phrase that he likes to use: ‘Forever the student.’ Your education doesn’t stop once you’ve left school. In fact, the real education has just begun. You’re constantly learning the industry, how it works, how people work in it, and now, the constantly changing technology that’s being used within fashion. And now that AI is here, one of your next challenges is learning how to solidify your creative place in a newly developing fashiontech world. That may mean going back to school or taking a class to learn new software. Whatever it is, stay abreast of what’s next and don’t wait to embrace it.

I know this was rather lengthy, but companies work and hire people so differently now, it’s important to have options for approaching your job search. There’s no one thing anymore that works for everyone or every company. You don’t need to use every one of these tips, and I’m sure each of us have our own tricks of the trade that work, or you’re developing some new ones. What I do know is that I’ve kept all of these tips in my arsenal over the years, consistently followed them (maybe not all at once, but always at least one tip), and I’ve never NOT been able to find work when I wanted it. I hope they’ll be as beneficial to you as they’ve been to me. And feel free to share your tips that work or some ‘out of the box’ ideas that we can all try.

The Art of the Fashion ‘Hustle’ I recently had the opportunity to meet with one of my former students who had just graduated from FIT.

#career #fashion design #fashion industry #featured #job hunting

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