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venus-haze · 2 years

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If I Were You (Yandere!Austin!Elvis x Reader)

Summary: Elvis takes up Priscilla’s offer to go to rehab for Lisa, and decides to take the steps to break from the Colonel personally and professionally. Elvis is referred to you, a Memphis-based therapist who specializes in helping patients work through codependent or otherwise unhealthy relationships. While he ultimately hopes his turning his life around will give him a better chance of reconciliation with Priscilla, the level of emotional intimacy you allow him in the context of your sessions makes him redirect his attention to you.

Note: This is based on an anonymous request. Reader is a cis woman, but no other descriptors are used. I appreciated having an excuse to rewatch some of my favorite Sopranos episodes because I got a lot of inspiration from seasons 1 and 5. It’s more dialogue heavy than my other fics because of the therapy sessions. I’m not a psychiatrist and nothing in this fic should be treated as legitimate advice regarding mental health, please refer to licensed professionals for that. Look at the warnings before deciding whether or not you want to read this fic because it’s extremely dark. Do not interact with my blog or my posts if you are under 18 or post ED/thinpso content.

Word count: 6.5k

Warnings: This is a yandere fic, so expect dark themes such as emotional blackmail, obsessive and manipulative behavior, and abuse of power, which some people may find disturbing or triggering. The therapy session scenes involve discussions of codependency in relation to parenting and relationships as well as self-blame, death, and drug and alcohol abuse. Explicit sexual content which involves force and coercion and brief daddy kink. Elvis’ mommy issues. Do not interact if you are under 18.

Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 (all other parts by @crash-and-cure)

When you received a phone call from Dr. Wilson, one of your colleagues who worked at a rehabilitation facility in San Diego, asking if you were taking new patients, you hadn’t thought much of it when you answered that you were. He elaborated that while the patient was doing well in rehab, he thought he could benefit from continued therapy sessions, particularly because of your specialization and proximity to the patient’s home in Memphis. He informed you that he’d reveal more information about the patient and provide you with the clinical notes he’d taken throughout rehab once he received the patient’s agreement and approval to begin seeing you.

A few days later, you got the follow up call. The patient was interested in being treated by you and had given Dr. Wilson permission to send you copies of the clinical notes. He finally revealed who your Memphis-based patient would be—Elvis Presley. You nearly dropped the phone when he told you. Him going to rehab made sense, his drug and alcohol-fueled antics on stage frequently made entertainment headlines, but you certainly hadn’t expected that he’d need the specialized therapy that you offered.

Elvis still had two weeks left in the rehabilitation program, and you’d receive the clinical notes before then to get an idea of what Dr. Wilson had already addressed with him. When you received the packet at your office’s mailbox, marked with a large ‘CONFIDENTIAL’ stamp on it, you almost hesitated. While aware of his career, you weren’t a huge fan of Elvis’, so that wouldn’t pose a conflict of interest, but you wondered if you could truly be impartial and fair toward a man whose existence permeated almost every aspect of American popular culture.

From what Dr. Wilson had said, Elvis needed help, not as a rockstar but as a man. You were one of less than forty therapists in the country who specialized in helping patients break down codependent relationships. Your office wasn’t far from Graceland at all, ensuring Elvis wouldn’t have to go out of his way for regular therapy sessions.

Finally opening the packet, you were faced with a manila file folder with Elvis’ full name and birthdate printed on the tab. You grabbed your notebook, preparing to write what was relevant for the sessions, but the more you read, it seemed like everything was relevant. A deceased overbearing mother whom Elvis revered as a saint, a manager who exploited his career for decades, and an ex-wife who was burdened with being the man’s stand-in mother and therapist from an alarmingly young age.

You sat back in your chair, exhaling deeply to ground yourself. Taking on Elvis Presley as a client would not be easy, that much was obvious. Most of your clients didn’t have webs as intricately woven as he did, as much to unpack and consider as Elvis. Yet, from the notes, he wanted help. He wanted to change. He didn’t want his daughter Lisa to grow up without a father, but he also wanted a career and a life that he could finally be in control of, where he could be sure of who to trust.

On a Friday afternoon, when you were in between appointments, your phone rang. You answered, resisting the urge to gasp when you heard who was on the other line, despite expecting his call.

“Hello, is Dr. Y/L/N there?” Elvis asked.

“Speaking,” you answered.

“Oh.” He sounded surprised. “Dr. Wilson didn’t mention you were a woman.”

“Is that a problem, Mr. Presley? Because I can refer you to another specialist—“

“No, that’s fine. I just thought you were a secretary or somethin’—no offense.”

“None taken,” you said.

The two of you discussed what his goals for therapy were, and that he wanted to attend twice a week, which was how often he was seeing Dr. Wilson while he was in rehab. Many people were hesitant about therapy since it had an unwarranted stigma attached to it, but you supposed the group therapy and personal sessions in San Diego had proved its effectiveness to him. You agreed to schedule appointments for Monday and Thursday afternoons at 4:30pm and leave the service door to the building unlocked for him, so he could come in at the end of the work day and not have to worry about passersby and other patients seeing him there and causing unwanted attention.

The conversation was short yet pleasant, but if you were being honest, you hadn’t been so nervous about taking on a patient since you first opened your own practice. You had tried to reason with yourself, that he was just a man seeking help like all of your other patients. None of your other patients, however, were Elvis Presley. You managed to calm yourself down the day of his first session, focusing on the other patients you had scheduled.

He arrived fifteen minutes early the day of his first appointment, a non-issue as you had made sure the session before his was wrapped up by four, giving him a window of time to arrive while the office was empty. You took a deep breath before opening the door to the waiting room from your office, and found him staring at a painting on the wall. He turned to you, giving you one of the most dazzling smiles you’d ever seen in your life.

You greeted him with a friendly smile and an outstretched hand. “Good afternoon, Mr. Presley, it’s nice to meet you.”

“Same here, Dr. Y/L/N,” he said, shaking your hand.

“Follow me, and take a seat anywhere you like,” you said, leading him into your office and closing the door behind you.

“Is this some kinda test? You can tell something ‘bout me by which one I pick?” he asked half-jokingly.

You laughed. “No, no, it’s just that we’re going to be sitting for an hour, so I want you to be comfortable.”

He sat in the armchair in front of the bookcase, rather than the one in front of your desk. You grabbed your notebook and sat down across from him. The two chairs were nearly identical anyway, so it didn’t make that big of a difference where either of you sat. Taking a moment to study him, you couldn’t help but acknowledge to yourself how good he looked. You always thought Elvis was a handsome man, but post-rehab, he seemed to be glowing in a way that seemed almost youthful. After allowing yourself to ogle your new patient, you cleared your throat.

“Now, before we begin our first session, I want to establish doctor-patient confidentiality and inform you of your rights as a patient. Is that okay?” you asked.

“Sounds good to me,” he said.

“Wonderful. I take doctor-patient confidentiality seriously. Anything you say in this room will stay in this room. However, if at any point during our sessions you indicate that you intend to seriously harm yourself or others, I would have to go to the police.”

“Seriously harm?”

“Any intentional action that would result in the hospitalization or death of yourself or another individual,” you elaborated, and he gave you a silent nod to continue. “I may encourage you to dig deeper into your psychological and emotional state, you don’t have to answer any questions that you don’t want to, but keep in mind that I’m trying to guide the conversation in a direction that will help you achieve the breakthroughs you want.”

“You know, my mama used to call you psychologists ‘headshrinkers’. Hell, I even do sometimes,” he said with a laugh.

You smiled at the comment, it certainly wasn’t uncommon for people to be skeptical of mental healthcare, but since he’d already brought up his mother, you didn’t want to lose that momentum.

“I completely understand. When I told my parents I was getting my doctorate in psychology, I might as well have told them that I was going to clown school,” you said. “Some people turn to religion for their psychological guidance. My parents are like that. Were yours?”

“Oh yeah, mama was always quotin’ scripture.”

“And your father?”

“He went to church with us sometimes, but it was usually me and mama. I stopped goin’ to church once my career started takin’ off. Didn’t have the time to, but I still love those old gospel hymns.”

You nodded, taking quick notes as he spoke.

“You writin’ that I’m some religious nut in there?”

“No, just general observations, things you’ve mentioned that have appeared while treating other patients. The more I treat people who’ve struggled with codependency, the more I can help others by recognizing patterns of behavior,” you explained. “I read from your file, which thank you for letting me look at by the way, that you experienced this codependent abuse from your former manager, Tom Parker.”

He exhaled, and you made note of his utilizing the coping method to calm himself down.

“The Colonel thought he was entitled to half of everything I made, even though I was the one workin’ myself sick. He had that hack doctor put all kinds of junk in me to keep me movin’ like some walkin’ dead man. That cost me my family and half of everything I ever earned. I’m suin’ the son of a bitch, but I can’t let this happen again.”

“Elvis, I’m sorry that happened to you. You were taken advantage of by someone you trusted. You have every right to be upset and angry. I encourage you to express those emotions while we're here,” you said. “I want to challenge you to stop referring to your former manager as ‘The Colonel’. I think that language is detrimental to your progress as it sets him in a place of authority over you, when in reality, he isn’t and never was.”

He scoffed. “What should I call him then? ‘That piece of shit’?”

You couldn’t help but laugh. “If you’d like, yes.”

For the rest of the hour, he spoke about his former manager, and while you had an idea of what went on from the notes your colleague had given you, the extent was just as bad as you’d expected. As a doctor, you were particularly horrified by the so-called ‘Dr. Nick’ who exacerbated Elvis’ addiction to prescription medications in the name of the almighty dollar. Elvis peppered in mentions of his mother throughout the session as well, and you made a note to dig into that in the future. You weren’t the biggest proponent of Freud, but you knew many people went through life subconsciously mirroring the behavior of their parents unless they made a conscious decision not to.

At the end of the session, you let Elvis know that you admired the progress he’d made so far, both in rehab and his first session with you. He smiled at that, and confessed that even though he wasn’t sure about seeing a woman therapist, as soon as he saw you, he knew there was something different about you, and he already felt comfortable around you. You stayed in your office late to work on the notes for his file while they were still fresh in your mind, and left around a quarter to seven.

The Monday and Thursday sessions continued consistently for the next few weeks, and you were thrilled with how much progress Elvis had made, both in therapy and in his personal life. He was more involved in Lisa Marie’s life and had her over at Graceland regularly, making sure his days were completely clear whenever she was over so he could focus on spending time with her. His sleep pattern had become more regular, with some bouts of understandable insomnia. You and Dr. Wilson had already agreed that with Elvis’ history of addiction, holistic approaches to any psychological conditions would be best, and prescriptions would only be given as an absolute last resort. When he told you that he felt better than he had in years, physically and emotionally, you considered it a huge success, and encouraged him to acknowledge and celebrate that.

Understandably, most of your sessions with Elvis were spent discussing his former manager and the influence and control that he had on Elvis’ career and personal life, particularly the strain it caused on his mother. That was a sensitive issue for him, and he tended to deflect when you tried to bring her up or discuss his relationship with her further. About four months into your treating him, however, he mentioned feeling some resentment toward his father for mismanaging Elvis’ finances, making an off-handed comment about how it wouldn’t have happened if his mother were still alive. You saw this as the opportunity to get him to finally elaborate.

“Your mother was the dominating figure in the family unit, then?” you pressed.

“Mama was a good woman, the best woman. She put food on the table when daddy was in jail. She believed in me before anyone else did.”

“I never said your mother wasn’t a good woman,” you observed. “Why did you jump to that conclusion, that I was attacking her?”

The room was silent for a few moments as he considered your question. “Everyone else did. You know, she was right about not trustin’ the Col–Parker. It’s like when I signed that contract with him I was signin’ her death sentence.”

“Do you blame yourself for her death?”

“I know it was the alcohol. I learned that much in rehab, but in her heart, it was me. She died while I was in basic training, doctor.”

“I’m glad you’re talking through this. It’s going to help with our future sessions, but I want to establish that you’re not responsible for your mother's death anymore than you’re responsible for her other actions throughout her life.”

He shook his head. “Me leavin’, that killed her.”

“Why would your leaving kill her? As I understand, you were drafted. You didn’t have a choice.”

“Because I was supposed to take care of her. My daddy wouldn't, so I did.”

“Do you think it’s right for a child to take care of their parents?” you asked.

“It’s not about what was right,” he argued. “I had to do it.”

“How old were you, when you first stepped into this pseudo-parental role?”

“What?”

“How old were you when you began taking up the household responsibilities that belonged to your father?”

“I was real young, when he went to jail and we had to move. I had a good childhood, though. We didn’t have much, but I had friends and I went to church, did alright in school.”

The hour was almost up, but you knew you were close to reaching a pivotal point in his treatment. As soon as you got him to consider that his codependency issues started with his mother, you could work through his relationships with Tom Parker and even Priscilla, but it’d be easier said than done to drag his mother off of the pedestal he put her on. She’d been dead for over a decade, and yet she still had a spectral stranglehold on her son.

Your intention wasn’t for him to walk out of your office hating his mother, but to recognize the unhealthy behaviors he emulated and to work through the grief he clearly never fully dealt with.

You figured you had time to ask him one more question, and chanced it with, “What do you miss most about your mother?”

“I could tell her anything, and she’d always have something to say. Maybe not what I wanted to hear, but she always meant what she said. I trusted her like no one else. I don’t know if I ever will.”

“It’s hard for you to trust people, with the position that you’re in and how people have taken advantage of you in the past. That can be lonely, and some people engage in self-destructive behavior in an attempt to get the care and attention they yearn for. I believe that you will be able to trust again. Just something to think about as the session ends today,” you said. “You’ve made a lot of progress, and I want to acknowledge that.”

He smiled. “Thank you. You really know your stuff, but I guess that’s what you went to school for.”

“I appreciate that,” you acknowledged. “I hope you have a great rest of your day, Elvis, and I’ll see you at our appointment next week.”

After Elvis left, you worked on your notes from the session to add to his file. You weren’t just paying him lip service before, he had made a good amount of progress, and even despite some of his hesitations, worked through some aspects of the treatment that you expected to be more challenging for him.

The next few sessions, you pressed him more about his mother, and while he pushed back against your insinuating that some of his codependent tendencies originated with her, he did acknowledge that the pressure of not upsetting her did cost him his participation in his high school’s football team, which he loved for the brief amount of time he spent playing. She had been worried about him getting hurt, a pattern you noticed as Elvis spoke to you about his childhood.

You weren’t expecting to find that the root of her anxiety over Elvis’ well-being came from losing his twin, Jesse at birth. Elvis was born into the world having to be two men instead of one, and when his father fell through as the family’s provider, he had to pick up the slack for three. It was a lot for someone to handle even without the challenges of fame. The more you worked with Elvis, the more convinced you became that he could have benefitted from therapy a decade sooner.

In all honesty, you were glad Elvis’ appointments were at the end of the day, because they began to become almost as draining for you as you figured they were for him. Still, he never missed an appointment and always arrived early. The work you did was always difficult, and you couldn’t help but empathize with your patients, but Elvis seemed to take everything out of you.

One weekend, you had plans to get dinner with Mark, a man around your age who you’d met in grad school and had an on-and-off again relationship for a while, before deciding to stay friends. Out of habit you both referred to whenever you’d get together as ‘dates’, and the one you planned was at a higher end restaurant in Memphis. The two of you had been so busy with work that when he called you to catch up, you hadn’t realized it’d been months since you’d seen him. The restaurant was the type of place where you had to make reservations in advance, and so with this in mind, he made one a few weeks prior.

When you and Mark arrived at the restaurant, there was a crowd of loud and restless people overflowing into the street. The two of you pushed your way through to get inside and waited to speak to the host, who informed you that due to unforeseen circumstances, there’d be a thirty minute wait for your table despite your reservation.

The two of you considered leaving and going to a different restaurant, but decided against it, since you had the reservation anyway. To your relief, the wait only ended up being less than five minutes, even though you could tell by the reservation list on the host’s podium that several couples were still ahead of you and Mark.

A waiter led you to your table, and after taking your dinner orders, Mark excused himself to go to the restroom. While waiting for him to return, you could hear people gasp and murmur behind you, until a familiar shadow fell over your table.

“Dr. Y/L/N, funny meeting you here,” Elvis said.

You raised your eyebrows, not expecting to see your high-profile patient of all people in the restaurant. “Mr. Presley, how are you?”

“I’m doin’ just fine.”

“That’s good to hear. I’m glad.”

“Are you here alone?”

“No, my date is just in the restroom.”

His expression shifted, but he nodded agreeably. “Well, have a good night.”

“You too,” you whispered as he walked away.

Fuck. He was upset you were there with someone. It wasn’t uncommon for your patients to temporarily redirect their codependent tendencies onto you, considering the level of emotional intimacy that was involved with the therapy. It’d only once escalated to a level where you felt obligated to refer the patient to another therapist, but you hoped that wouldn’t be the case with Elvis. He’d been making great progress with each session.

When Mark had returned to the table, you gave him a strained smile but continued on with the date as usual. About halfway into your meal, the waiter approached with a bottle of wine neither of you had ordered.

Before you could question anything, the waiter said, “Compliments of Mr. Presley.”

“As in Elvis Presley?” Mark asked.

The waiter nodded and set the bottle on the table. You weakly told him to thank Elvis, and he left to do so. As soon as he was out of earshot, Mark leaned in, “Is Elvis Presley your patient?”

“I won’t answer that, Mark.”

“Holy shit,” he said, opening the bottle of wine.

You didn’t recognize the label from the wine rack at the supermarket and figured it was some expensive brand that was either old or imported, or both. As Mark poured himself a glass, you contemplated whether or not to drink it. Refusing so would confirm that Elvis was your patient, but drinking it would mean you accepted a gift from a patient, both situations required you violating your own code of ethics. Sighing, you let Mark fill your own glass with the wine.

The rest of the night with Mark was fun as you caught up on your personal lives, and Elvis didn’t make a reappearance at all. When Mark walked you back to your car, the two of you promised not to go as long without seeing each other again, and parted with a quick kiss.

You spent Sunday lazily reading in the comfort of your apartment, adjusting the radio in your living room to different stations every so often. All of them seemed to play at least one of Elvis’ songs at some point, and you wondered if you were only noticing the frequency he was on the radio now that he was your patient. Some artists were just radio mainstays, and he was one of them.

On Monday, you knew you’d have to address the situation with the wine to Elvis, but to your surprise, he beat you to it.

“So, how was the wine?” Elvis asked.

“It was kind of you to go out of your way to have something so nice brought to my table, but I can’t accept gifts from patients,” you said. “I hope you understand.”

He narrowed his eyes, leaning over so his elbows were resting on his knees as he asked, “That guy you were out with, he your husband?”

“No, just a friend.”

“You married?”

“No, but–”

“You ever been married?”

“No,” you repeated, “but while we’re on the subject, let’s discuss your marriage and Priscilla.”

You noticed him hesitate to answer. “Is that okay?”

“Sure,” he said.

“How did you meet Priscilla?”

“Her daddy and me were both stationed in Germany at the same time. I met her when she came to a party at my house one night.”

“What attracted you to her?”

“She wasn’t like anyone else I’d ever met in my life. She was beautiful and sweet. I just knew there was somethin’ different about her,” he said, quickly adding. “I was respectful, ya know. She put up with a lot from me, but she was there when I needed someone.”

“You mentioned in a previous session that your mother died while you were in basic training, and after the funeral you were sent to Germany, where you met Priscilla. Do you think you incorporated her into your grieving process?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

You kept pressing him for more details, knowing it wasn’t a coincidence that he happened to meet the woman he’d go on to marry after such a devastating loss. The more he elaborated on his relationship, the more you came to understand the codependent nature of it as well. Priscilla became a stand-in for his mother despite her youth, and he began to depend on her the same way. You found it particularly interesting that he encouraged her to dye her hair and gave her the same nickname he had given his mother.

“I understand you and your ex-wife are still close, and she’s part of the reason you’re here. Can I ask you, when you and Priscilla divorced, what you were feeling?” you asked.

“I–I’m sorry, can we talk about something else?”

You nodded, making a note to revisit that later. For the rest of that session and Thursday’s session, the two of you spoke mundanely about how his day to day life was going, the strides he was making to live a more sustainable lifestyle. He informed you that he wanted to make music and perform again, but wouldn’t tour while his lawsuit with Tom Parker was ongoing. Even then, he planned to take it slow, scheduling dates more spaced out to give himself time to rest. He did mention trying to work something out with his team to do one-off performances in the Memphis area in the meantime, to figure out how this new era of his career would go.

The following afternoon, when you usually had an hour or so break between sessions to have lunch, you were interrupted by repeated knocking at your office door. You opened it to find a gift basket on the ground, looking back and forth in the hallway to see if the person who left it was still there, you picked it up and brought it over to your desk. The basket was filled with an assortment of goods that you knew must have been expensive from the brand names that you actually did recognize, and all of the gifts were perfectly suited to your taste. For a moment, you thought it was Mark’s doing, but when you read the attached card, you sighed.

Early on in your career, you had made it a rule to not accept gifts or favors from patients. It helped establish to your patients that you were their doctor, not their friend, as much as you did care for them. You took your ethical responsibility as a therapist seriously, and so you contacted the company where the gift basket had come from, informing them that you’d like them to pick it up and inform the sender that you couldn’t accept it. You’d been expecting the phone call you received about an hour later.

“I tried to get what I thought you’d like,” Elvis said. “Guess I don’t know you as well as I thought.”

“Mr. Presley, I told you in our last session that I don’t accept gifts from patients. I appreciate the gesture, it was extremely thoughtful, but it violates my personal ethics.”

“You drank the wine I sent over to your table,” he argued.

You pursed your lips. You knew letting Mark accept it was a mistake. “That was a completely different scenario. If I had publicly refused, it would have confirmed to my date that you were my patient. I made the decision to respect your privacy.”

From the way he huffed over the phone, he was frustrated. He always did so in sessions when you pressed him to dig deeper into the aspects of the major relationships in his life that he didn’t want to confront. “I understand, doctor. I just wanted to show my appreciation for you, is all. I’ll see you on Monday.”

“Have a good night, Mr. Presley. See you on Monday,” you said.

The next few months went on without incident, and you were pleased with the progress you were making with Elvis. He was willing to open up to you much more, and you found yourself revealing some information about yourself to him as well. Sometimes, it unnerved you how he seemed to remember things you had mentioned in passing weeks or even months before, as if he were taking his own notes on you.

Once in a while, you’d run into him while you were running errands and minding your business in Memphis, having quick and cordial conversations before going your separate ways. Part of you suspected it was deliberate, as a man as famous as him knew he couldn’t step foot anywhere outside of his home without making the news.

On a Friday evening, as you led your last client of the day out of your office, a man you didn’t recognize was standing in the waiting room, looking around at the decor in your office. When you walked out, he looked at you as if he’d seen a ghost.

Before you could speak, he said, “You look really familiar.”

“I don’t know how that could be. I don’t believe we’ve met before,” you said. “I’m Dr. Y/L/N.”

He hesitated before answering. “I must be seeing things, then. I’m Jerry.”

“Nice to meet you, Jerry. May I ask what brings you to my office?”

“Elvis sent me. He’s doing his first show in over a year next weekend, and he wanted me to bring you this VIP pass. Soundcheck, front row seat, backstage access, the works,” he said, holding out the small plastic card to you. “It’s in town, so he’ll send a car for you.”

You shook your head, feeling like a broken record when you declined. “I appreciate the gesture, but I don’t accept gifts from patients. Please send my regards and tell him thank you anyway.”

Jerry nodded. “Alright, nice to meet you, Doc.”

As soon as he left, you collapsed onto the couch. You were making great progress with Elvis, serious progress, but it was clear that he was shifting his codependent tendencies onto you. As much as you didn’t want to, you had to consider referring him to another therapist. It’d be a hassle for him, as the closest therapist with the same specialization as you was located in Nashville. It wasn’t uncommon for your patients to exhibit similar behavior toward you, especially early on in their treatment, but you’d been working with Elvis for nearing a year. You decided to give him the benefit of the doubt, as his case was far more complex than any of your other clients, past or present.

While you were in the supermarket checkout later that evening, you glanced at the tabloid magazines that were displayed next to you, and your eyes nearly bulged out of your head when you saw the cover of most of them–various photos of Elvis, out and about in Memphis with different women who all looked almost exactly like you. Suddenly, you felt as though everyone in the store was staring at you, and you abandoned your cart, rushing out of the store and to your car where you had your first panic attack in years.

As you cried into the steering wheel, attempting to catch your breath, your mind raced at the implications of what you just saw. The women were stand-ins for you, but they weren’t enough for him, they never would be. You knew that if you continued to spurn his advances, they’d only become more elaborate and unavoidable, and by giving him some of the attention he desired, you’d only be encouraging his unhealthy behavior. Your next session with Elvis was that upcoming Monday, and you’d make sure to let him know about your colleague in Nashville and cut all ties with the rockstar.

By the time Monday morning rolled around, you wanted to cancel all of your other appointments for the day, but your other patients didn’t deserve to have their treatment interrupted because of one patient. The day flew by, to your dismay, and 4:30 arrived far sooner than you were ready when he walked through the door and into your office. He sat down in his usual seat, and you resisted the urge to glare at him. You didn’t appreciate being manipulated for personal gain, and you figured he of all people would have understood that.

“Mr. Presley,” you began sternly. “I have repeatedly tried to enforce the professional nature of our relationship as doctor and patient, and yet you insist on sabotaging the massive strides you’ve made in your treatment by repeatedly making attempts to violate that. I think that continuing to see me as a therapist would be detrimental to your recovery, so I’m referring you to a colleague of mine with a similar specialization. After this session, I will no longer be your therapist.”

He stared at you incredulously before becoming stone-faced. “Well, since you won’t be my therapist anymore, I guess you can accept all those gifts now.”

Your mouth nearly fell open at his boldness. “Mr. Presley, you’re missing the point entirely.”

“No, I think I get the point loud and clear, Y/N.”

Your chest contracted as his use of your first name. “Mr. Presley, I’m going to have to ask you to leave. Now.”

He stood up from his chair, and instead of walking out the door, crossed the few feet of space between you and caged you into your chair. He stared down at you intensely, silently, for what felt like hours. Too frightened to move, you held his gaze until he cupped your chin in his hand, gently rubbing his thumb against your skin.

“You’re doin’ this for us, mama,” he whispered, “so we can be together.”

“I’m doing this for my own safety.”

“I knew you felt the same way about me, how much you wanted me too.”

“Elvis, please, let’s just sit back and discuss this. I won’t refer you to another therapist,” you lied, trying to appeal to whatever sense of rationality he may have had.

His other hand drifted to your thigh, inching its way up your skirt. Feeling a rush of adrenaline, you pushed him off of you and hoped that it would disorient him enough for you to run out the door. Instead, he beat you to it, pressing you against the wooden door that stood between your freedom and captivity.

“C’mon, mama, we’ve had this date since the beginning,” he purred in your ear.

Perhaps you had been too preoccupied with having Elvis Presley as a professional success story than acknowledging the delusional and obsessive tendencies he displayed. Where did you go wrong? You tried to think back through a year’s worth of therapy sessions to figure out when exactly you’d given Elvis the impression that you were interested in him romantically or sexually, but were torn from your thoughts when he kissed you aggressively. He must have mistaken your attempts at protests for moans, because he only deepened the kiss, biting your bottom lip so you’d gasp in pain, giving his tongue access to your mouth.

You put your hands on his shoulders to steady yourself and tried once again to push away, but he was too strong–and determined as he backed you into your desk, the impact from both of your bodies bumping against it sending some of the items to the floor.

“Elvis, you don’t have to do this,” you pleaded. Why were you still coddling him?

“You want this, mama,” he groaned, grinding his clothed erection against your exposed leg like a dog in heat. “I know you do.”

He didn’t give you an opportunity to argue, bringing his lips to yours again and hastily unbuttoning your blouse. He rid you of your bra just as quickly, and took one of your breasts in his mouth. Guiding one of your hands to his crotch, he rubbed your hand against it, and you let out an involuntary whimper as his moans vibrated against your sensitive nipple.

Thrusting against your hand, he pulled away from your breast, muttering something about cumming in his pants if he didn’t do anything about it soon. He shed his shirt, throwing it aside. The reality of the situation hit you as he lifted you back on top of the desk and pulled down your panties. He dragged his ring finger up your slit, and you shivered at the sensation of the cold metal of his rings against it. Apparently satisfied with how wet you were, he wasted no time unzipping his pants and ridding himself of them to reveal he hadn’t been wearing any underwear. You stared wide-eyed at his cock, as he stroked it before positioning it at your weeping cunt.

“Just take it, mama. Be real good for me and take it like I know you can,” he cooed in an attempt to placate you as he slid himself into you.

You choked on air at the sensation, not expecting how big he’d be, and tears began to run down your face. He kissed them away as he thrust into you, whispering about how good you were being, how perfect you were. Two of his fingers played with your clit, and your felt your vision go hazy at the pleasure that was building up in your core. You’d never felt that good in your life. Maybe you did want it after all.

“Fuck, daddy,” you moaned, nearly throwing your hands over your mouth at the realization of what you had said.

That seemed to stir something in him, because his thrusts became harsher and more erratic while you berated yourself for actually enjoying it. The moans that came from your throat sounded almost foreign to you.

“You got no idea how often I thought about this, mama,” he managed to groan. “Come for daddy.”

With a grotesque cry, you came, feeling yourself clench around him as he kept up his ruthless pace. His own orgasm followed soon after yours, and as you felt him cum inside you, you weren’t sure whether you hated him or yourself more. What felt like hours passed before he finally pulled out from you, leaving your inner thighs wet with cum and lightly bruised.

You looked at him through your tears, knowing your mascara was surely tracked down your face. He reached for you, and you flinched back, nearly falling off of your desk until he steadied you, and you broke down into humiliating sobs into his shoulder, your nails purposely digging into his skin. You wanted to hurt him, somehow, make him feel how you felt. Instead, he seemed unfazed, releasing you from his grip when your crying had settled down to hold your face in his hands.

He looked into your eyes with all of the delusional affection you’d feared and whispered, “You’re my girl, my bestest girl.”

#elvis x reader #austin!elvis x reader #elvis presley x reader #yandere!elvis x reader #yandere x reader #elvis #elvis 2022 #austin!elvis #yandere elvis

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butterflyrry · 7 months

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So many hints for Harry to stop acting but he and his team wouldn’t even recognize those hints even if they would hit them on the nose. Let’s just list the most obvious hints that the universe is telling him to stop trying to pursue an acting career. 1. pandemic that stopped everything and made him agree to do DWD worst mistake till now in his life! Leads to 2. the worst PR relationship ever that surely made him to question all his life decisions that lead him there. 3. baz luhrmann who cursed him for jumping ship (that Dracula movie last minute) 4. the sag strike that was in full swing right when he finished tour and would have had free time to audition and stuff and was 100% what he was intended to do 5. marvel and all that getting the worst critics ever and after just having signed an alleged 5 movie deal and only a 2 minutes teaser thing it looks like as if his character gets axed completely 6. hanging around the most boring, talentless and not at all booked wannabe ‘actresses / directors‘ and rather giving their non existent careers a push than having any great talks or experiences with really talented actors /actresses that could help him build his acting abilities (this PR charade is not convincing at all and he really needs those acting classes if he can’t properly convince people that those ‘relationships‘ are real (not talking about harries, they believe anything!)) I‘m certain there’s way more but I‘m tired

I don’t think it’s the universe saying anything. It seems more like a series of bad business decisions, things that didn’t work out as planned, and factors beyond his control.

In hindsight, it’s easy to say that accepting a role in DWD was a bad decision, but at the time, it didn’t seem that way. I doubt that Florence, Chris, Gemma and all the other actors expected that movie would turn out to be a fucking disaster, so how could Harry know that? As far as Holivia was concerned, I do feel like he should’ve known better. I don’t know how no one considered the optics of breaking up a family and hooking up with his boss, but I also don’t know if anyone could’ve predicted the absolute shitshow it became.

Baz Luhrmann was the director of Elvis, who didn’t cast him but said he hopes to work with him in the future. Robert Eggers is the director of Nosferatu, which Harry was supposedly cast in but dropped out due to scheduling conflicts. I’ve not seen any negative comments from Eggers, other than to say he thought the project might be cursed because he’s tried twice and hasn’t gotten the movie made yet.

My assumption was that post-tour, he would be filming for something Marvel-related, based on his physique. Then the strike happened, which probably changed things. Now that it’s over, I guess we’ll see what happens. I don’t think Marvel is what it once was. The Eternals underperformed and was not well received by critics or fans. So, the alleged Marvel deal may not come to fruition based on those factors, more than it being about the Eros character.

The pr stunts are what they are and we hate them, but unfortunately, I don’t see that changing. That’s what we’re meant to see. Not likely that he’ll be stunting with an established/acclaimed/well-known actress.

We don’t know what he is or is not doing to further his acting career. My opinion is that he tried to do too much, too fast. He’s a part time actor who probably didn’t have the time to properly prepare. I don’t think he was ready for dramatic lead roles. I do think he should focus more on supporting roles and work with an acting coach to build his resume and skills if acting is something he truly wants to pursue. I believe his heart and true passion are with music, though.

I personally would be fine if he focuses on music and never acts again but it’s his choice, not mine.

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noramoya · 5 years

Text

• TrayC — I love to tour.

“HI, MJ FAM . I POSTED ABOUT THIS IN THE MJ MISCELLANEOUS THREAD BUT AFTER SPEAKING TO ANOTHER FONT IN DM, THOUGHT IT WOULD BE BETTER TO CREATE A THREAD SO MORE PEOPLE CAN BE AWARE. I AM NOT ABLE TO POST THE TWEET IN WUESTION BECAUSE IT WOULD BE AGAINST LSA RULES.

BACKGROUND FOR THOSE WHO DON’T KNOW : Pearl Jr is a 'journalist' who states she has evidence that MJ faked his death. She has made 3 DVD's with her 'evidence' which she sells to naive fans. One of her main arguments is that she's spent thousands of hours on the phone to Michael himself, who she claims is Peter. Peter comes to this site to try to recruit people for his own forum. I don't think he has claimed he is MJ but he does creepy stuff like posting collections of rare memorabilia (which some people think is stolen), and mimicks MJs voice. (He sounds ridiculous but this has not stopped Pearl and thousands of lonely, vulnerable women into thinking that it's MJ). He has not disputed Pearls claims. He goes on live chats on his forum and many of these women seem to think they are in some kind of personal relationship with him. He has fairly large followings on twitter, facebook and his forum. Both of these people, in my opinion, are batshit. A few years ago, a group of fans exposed who he really was, a guy who has spends his life mimicking MJ. This is the first time I think he has been exposed in a live chat. What happened (what I posted in the other thread):

'PETER' WAS DOING A LIVE CHAT AND HE, ACCIDENTALLY, FLIPPED HIS PHONE AND SHOWED HIMSELF TO BE THE OVERWEIGHT IMPOSTER THAT HE IS. HE THEN TRIED TO DELETE THE EVIDENCE BUT ONE OF HIS FOLLOWERS SNAPPED IT AND PUT IT ON TWITTER. IT’S STILL THERE BUT I WONT POST IT HERE . PEARL JR. OF COURSE IS NOW SAYING THAT IT’S MJ’S DISGUISE. LOL! SHE GOT TO GET HER INVESTMENT BACK SOMEHOW, I GUESS. The twitter user who posted this is someone who believed Pearl and her purchased DVDs apparently.” — April 29, 2018.

• Xscape —*The dark thoughts in your head*

“TrayC, Thank you so much for bringing this info out in the open. This has truly gone on way too long.

It is the intent of Peter Midani and his followers to throw Pearl Jr under the bus, claiming she is the only one responsible, but Make no mistake.. Peter Midani admitted on LSA to giving her permission to share their conversations so he knew very well what she was saying and promoting.

I know people who buy into this whole labor of love lie but hear me out. If Michael was discovered alive by the mainstream, what would happen.. Especially to the person he decided to reach out and go public to... That person is set for life... For bringing Michael back to the world. Seventy five thousand dollars is chump change compared to millions and millions of potential income if the risk panned out.

Pearl may be crazy but She ain't stupid. And Using the argument of being biased against Peter for sounding similar to Michael to certain people, again is not logical when 99.9% of impersonators and tribute artists have no qualms nor problem about their real identity known and, in fact prefers that, so no misunderstanding happens. Peter uses his Michael like voice to seduce young girls who are MJ fans into cyber or phone sex with him. Plus, because of what Pearl Jr has promoted him as, they think they are involved with Michael, in a secret life.

Please... It's fake ! Glad to see him busted, although I am sure another claim of being hacked and stolen identity will come up. And these people buy it because they're that desperate thinking they are close to Michael somehow, even when its not him . Crazy ! Also, He supports Shana ! Thanks again Tray C :) Thanks Thanks 🙏🏼 Hugs! Hugs! — April 29, 2018. “

• SellingOutSouls — 24KCoughDrop

“I wouldn’t really worry about it. The very few stans that give her the time of day are usually from foreign countries and struggle to understand English.” — 04/29/2018.

• TrayC — I love to tour .

“Yeah, you're probably right. I'm more concerned about the 12k people that follow Peter tbh. Many of them young girls ... “. — April 29, 2018.

• Xscape — *The dark thoughts in your head*

“This is the Pearl Jr of “Wink wink.Nod nod... Michael Jackson is Alive” and Peter Midani is Michael Jackson on various platforms. I only point her out because, for a friend, Midani is a lousy one, willing to throw her under the bus for this when he gave his permission and has seen her videos. He knows what she sells ! In other words, They’re both in it, like peas in a pod ! — April 29, 2018.”

• Angels777 — Well-Known Member

Thank you @TrayC

This does deserve it's own thread for people who either aren't aware of the con-game Pearl Jr and Peter Midani have going on, or who support them and may need their eyes opened. It's so sad that some fans of MJ still continue to fall victim of shenanigans such as this. The best way to show them is to expose them.” — April 29, 2018.

• awsomegirl015 — Minding your business

“Why is it that people constantly think celebrities fake their deaths? Now Tupac is somewhat believable because there was never a real autopsy done. But I doubt Michael is still alive. The whole world saw his funeral”. — April 29, 2018 .

• TrayC — I love to your.

“Because some people find it hard to accept when their fav dies. Especially if they are still young or if under suspicious circumstances. To be clear, I don't care what people believe. I personally enjoy watching videos about conspiracy theories. I do have a problem with manipulation and scamming which I believe is the case here.” 04/29/2018.

• Xscape — *The dark thoughts in your head*

ROTFLMAO... Let's not give Peter Midani any real followers, Man ! Actually, It is hard to understand ! These young girls and followers think they are protecting and being loyal to Michael Jackson here ! Now, we know this is nonsense... Especially now . But they are convinced, so they are loyal, thinking they are standing up for Michael Jackson , secretly ! This person almost caused the collapse of another MJ fan board with this act, and I know of two girls he flirted with, who absolutely thought this was Michael Jackson ! And this happened when Michael was still living ! Just know.. The two young women I knew were devastated when everything fell apart. They loved him as Michael and it was a betrayal when he turned out not to be, or they began to have doubts. Then, Michael was murdered. How would you feel being unable to confirm or deny you knew someone. Chatted with someone.. And they may be dead ? These people didn't have the truth and no place to go to find it ! The truth is coming out, but it cannot be placed all on Gaz. Now is the time to take a stand and spread this message or share your experiences if you are familiar with this situation. Secrets only keep the lie going, with people getting coin in their pockets off MJ fans ! Let's take back our fan base for each other ! Time for the crap to go ! “. — April 29, 2018 .

• Angels777 — Well-Known Member

ABOUT : Leogirl817 said:’ I don't know how this woman can function in her everyday life!’

“She's obsessed ! Her whole life revolves around this scam. Either she thinks Michael is in the car with Prince following her, or she thinks she talks to Michael on the phone all the time.She screams about talking to Michael (Peter Midani) for over ONE THOUSAND HOURS so she knows he's alive. If you challenge her, she gets smart with you and basically degrades you by calling you names and tells you if you don't believe her then get off her page. She insists that Peter is Michael and continues to do so, even after his real face was recently exposed yet again. Talk about crazy 😜! “ — April 29, 2018.

• SellingOutSouls — 24K CoughDrops

“Woah...WHAT HAPPENED TO GAZ?!! “. — 04/29/2018 .

• Xscape — *The dark thoughts in your head*

“Gaz? He is fine, as far as I know. I don't know him well... I said as I did, because it was like there was a time he was fighting this alone... There just hasn't been much of a system in place for such victims to be able to find the truth and hopefully healing ! Instead, these people are often met with ridicule because they are hard to convince. Letting Peter Midani go, means letting Michael Jackson go, for them... So they stay silent and in the limbo .” — April 29, 2018 .

• SellingOutSouls — 24K CoughDrops.

“I find it incredibly hard to believe people would dismiss GAZ, regarding anything because, despite his falling out with some of his members on MJJC, he’s still held with high regard ! Last I had heard he had exposed Peter Midani as a fraud and the sane majority of the fan base believe GAZ. I honestly feel like regardless of Peter existing or not there’s ALWAYS going to be beLIEvers among us. No matter how hard we try or how many frauds we expose there will still be those who choose to believe in the false hope of Michael being alive. I mean you still have people that number in the thousands that believe Elvis is alive, even though the chances of somebody with the type of health issues Elvis had wouldn’t likely make it into their 80s are slim.” — 04/29/2018 .

• Xscape — *The dark thoughts in your head*

“You're right Selling. Frauds exist. Scams get uncovered... I don't know how these people truthfully face themselves with the way they con people ! Gaz is fine . He still fights the good fight. My statement was about the fact Midani has been doing this, ever since before Michael Jackson died, and Burned a few bridges forcefully with nobody knowing the full truth of who he was ... So these girls were conflicted even more, when Michael was murdered.” — 04/29/20018 .

• BestOfJoy — Well-Known Member

“I think some people are missing the point here. It's not about people believing Michael is or is not alive. The issue here is that "Peter Midani” has been pretending to be Michael for years... going all the way back to MySpace days.He has lured young women (many who are under age) in to believing he is Michael and, in doing so , these young girls have shared very personal information with him- pictures, their address, phone number, etc. I'd like to direct everyone to MJJC's official statement made in 2014 about Peter: OFFICIAL STATEMENT OF MJJCOMMUNITY TO THE MICHAEL JACKSON FANS, RE : "Peter Midani" (Bobby Anderson) .” — April 29, 2018 .

• SellingOutSouls — 24K CoughDrops

“I understand. The problem is, our hands are tied because, these people have been given facts upon facts to prove he’s a fraud, and people still choose to believe in him. You can’t help those who refuse to be helped. I spent a good 5-6 years, after Michael died , trying to keep fellow fans from falling for the schemes and lies of frauds, but eventually realized that, if people refuse to consider the facts they are given to stop supporting these schemers, then they’re getting exactly what they’ve bargained for ! How many frauds have been exposed in the last 9 years alone and, yet, you still have naive MJ fans that refuse to use some common sense and research things, before giving people their trust and many times their hard earned money?Just look at how many dumb ass fans still follow Karen Faye despite the AEG trial exposing her for the “backstabbing c*nt” that she is ! Perhaps it’s because I’ve already reached my limits with age, but I just don’t have the time or energy to keep trying to pull these people’s heads out of the sand to force feed these people the truth, regarding the frauds among the fan community.” — April 29, 2018 .

• CHLOEXHALLE — Public Relations Agent & Lawyer.

“This shit is gonna be in history books about Michael. Mark my words. The "twin soul" shit too. I need to know why MJ fans (particularly women) are always so fucking stupid to believe shit like this ?! And it has nothing to do with age cause some of these people are over 25, and even as old as 40. Edit: Anyway I remember Pearl J from my early Twitter days. The bish was nuts then. I'm surprised she's still going over 6 years later !” — April 29, 2018.

• Xscape — *The dark thoughts in your head*

“In my opinion, I think if one focuses on trying to push anything down another's throat, It will fail. Knowledge is power and can help those people who actually DO want the truth and need support. Like Pearl Jr , for example. Her response was the frame was a mask, but Come on.. It's clear that's no mask. Why would anybody wear a mask in their home on their own computer when they weren't expecting to be seen ? Top that with, he looks rough in this pic. He wasn't planning on it happening ! Karma is a bitch !! But still Pearl tries selling her hand with the mask excuse. Nuts! “ — 04/29/2018 .

• TrayC — I love to tour.

“See, I'm of the opinion that Pearl doesn't even believe herself that it's MJ anymore (maybe she did think it was him years ago)... but she can't back track now, she's gone too far ! It would be admitting that all her 'work' her book, DVDs etc are BS ! She couldn't possibly admit that , without some pretty harsh repercussions. So she will justify any evidence to the contrary. Until the end of time ... “ — 04/29/2018.

• SellingOutSouls — 24kCoughDrops

“At the end of the day, the victims of these schemes have to be the ones to report the fraud ; but even then, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything would come of it, because it would likely fall under a civil complaint and, at the end of the day, some just don’t feel like much will be accomplished, by attempting civil action .” — 04/29/2018.

• TrayC — I love to tour

“Well she claims her work is 100% factual ! That is false advertizing ! But yeah, I'm talking more about her reputation as an investigative journalist. But I guess that's not exactly that high either ! — April 29, 2018.

• SellingOutSouls — 24kCoughDrops

“That’s still something they’d refer for civil litigation and that type of stuff takes too much time and money. It ends up being easier to just cut your losses and never look back ! Now, maybe if enough people organized a class action suit, there’d be a glimmer of hope that she’d be shut down, but it would still rely too much on hearsay and certain unknowns.” — April 29, 2018 .

• BarbaraLee — Well-Known Member

“Interesting ! I remember the statement and the exposing on MJJC, in 2014, and wondered why Gaz cared so much about it... it seemed pretty absurd to me ! But I didn't know Peter had 12K followers and it had been going on for years and years ! Jeez !! — 04/29/2018 .

• NOT ALL MEN — Well-Known Member

“So I have a confession for y'all . For years, before Michael's death, I was part of the King of Pop message board. I, along with other MJ fans, downloaded this program called Paltalk (before Skype, or before the popularity of Skype). Myself and other MJ fans would all gather in the chat . And also, if you had a microphone or headset of some kind, you can actually speak in the chat instead of type. Well, guess who would also be in the chat? "Peter Pan PYT," or "Peter Midani." Often, he'd take the mic and impersonate Michael. And a lot of us enjoyed it. It sounded scarily like Michael ! However, this shit ended up being concerning because there were girls in this chatroom who ACTUALLY THOUGHT that he was the REAL Michael Jackson (this was during 2004/2005). I remember feeling creeped out by all of this. Obviously, it wouldn't really be Michael, but so many girls thought it was ! One of my friends from the KOP board who was also on Paltalk, she was on the phone with one of the girl's parents to tell them that that wasn't really Michael Jackson. Just someone impersonating his voice. She did this while she had the mic on Paltalk. I haven't heard this fraud's MJ's impersonation voice since then, but at the time, I thought he was really good. He sounded convincingly like Michael. Then years later, after I lost my moderation status on the KOP board over something petty, there was a huge thread, there, about "Peter Midani" because there were a few girls on the site who got conned. I don't remember the full story, so if there was anyone who was there on the kOP board at the time, if you can clarify, that would be nice. But, to my surprise, it was the same guy that we're talking about here. But these girls thought it was really Michael. He wrote them poetry, and all kinds of crazy claims ! The gullibility of these women amazes me ! How these women cling on to every dude's saying-and-action, without a thought ?! It's like all senses and thinking skills are thrown out the window, and they're ready to accept and believe, and do the most for him . But, more than that, is that not only has this guy been doing this BEFORE Michael passed, but years after, taking advantage of women and girls. Michael is supposed to be dead (he is), and here ‘Peter’is, the proof that Michael is alive, and taking advantage of these desperate BeLIEvers for his morbid and selfish reasons !And don't even get me started on Pearl Jr. She's an embarrassment to black women everywhere !” — April 29, 2018 .

• TrayC — I love to tour.

“When people wonder how on earth anyone could be so naive as to get sucked into lies like this, it's placing the blame on them, instead of the manipultors. The majority of people who fall into these traps aren't like you, with a normal life etc. Maybe they are children who are too trusting, they could have mental health issues, some people lean on things like this as a form of escape from whatever horrible shit is going on in their lives. This is what is so sad about it ! it's those type of people that Pearl and Peter are manipulating. I know there isn't really much we can do, but it just disgusts me. “ — 04/29/2018 .

• ShalaShalingay — Well Known Member

“ But could Gaz help ? I mean, shouldn't this ‘Peter’ man be investigated by police for soliciting young females online ? I'm sure that must be illegal ! I don't think with freedom of speech that much can be done about the Pearl Jr. woman. I can only imagine the conspiracy talk when it will be his 10 year next year. It will be a circus .” — 04/29/2018 .

• TrayC — I love to tour .

“I don't know Gaz so I dont know. I am not a member of his forum. From what I hear he already tried to do something but I really don't know. A member of MJJC would be better placed to speak on that than me...” — 04/29/2018

• Realtk92 — Unapologetically Real

“In the case of Michael, he was a larger-than-life-figure that ruled the Pop Culture world for over 40 years ! His impact, influence and contribution to Music and Culture was and is something that had not been seen before. He has become an Immortal figure and for many it is very hard to accept he is no longer here anymore. With Tupac, they haven't found the person that killed him and they continue to release new music from his vault. That is why there is speculation around his death. “ — 04/29/2018 .

• Xscape — *The dark thoughts in your head*

“Let me take a crack and try my best to explain. Peter Midani used the same handle he always used as the email Addy to contact him by, that's how its known it's the same person as the imposter on KOPD board. Now of course, Peter cries Hacking, but that's his m.o. ..it's always an imposter, someone else when it isn't. Anyway, a moderator of that board befriended Midani through friends of hers and believed it was Michael Jackson as well. Later on, that moderator was approached by someone having doubts about the situation. This moderator kept the situation under wraps and bullied the person who came to them with their concerns to try and intimidate them into silence. The girl went over the mod's head. Hell broke loose at one point. It's like the one thing you just don't discuss there. People would rather forget. But I am, personally, of the opinion it's a network of people conning and conniving together. They think they got a good act going. Well busted ... EDIT : I want to be clear about the moderator here and note that the person apologized and lost the position over what happened, but went on to better themselves and change their bullying ways.” — 04/29/2018 .

• Awesomegirl015 — Minding Your Business

“According to the NYPD, they found Tupac’s killer years ago and have evidence but, because the guy was killed two years after Tupac, he was never convicted ! It was revealed in the tv series documentary about pac and biggie. The guy pac stomped out that night was the one who killed him. His uncle basically snitched years ago in order to save himself from having to go to jail. Let me see if I can post a clip... (it’s on Netflix). I agree with what you said about Michael , though ... He has become Immortal ! — 04/29/2018 .

• Xscape — *The dark thoughts in your head*

“Michael... It's like... somehow, people forgot he was a human being, regardless of his Talent, Wealth, and Life . He was ultimately destined to do what 100% of creatures of Earth have done and that was have a life span. They bring up he loved magic and illusion. Ok... So did Houdini, people ! It's us that yearned so much for him ! We wanted Redemption and Justice for him , because he deserved a happy life, after all he shared with the world. The world kicked him and spit him out. They’re STILL trying to rewrite his history and erase his true character from it. He deserved better than to be murdered ! To be abused and neglected right under our noses ! And, yet, Michael swallowed the blame as a drug addict, when he wasn't sleeping nights. He was very sleep deprived. But let's take the account of the murderer as gospel truth of Michael supposedly asking repeatedly for sedatives when evidence points to that version being a lie. Michael never woke up after the first sedative was given. That's what the evidence shows. Murray drowned him in drugs. He never had a chance ! It's just more injustice against Michael as ever and repeats in the media. People ignore Michael was murdered ! ‘Nope. Drug addict !’ When Court evidence and doctor’s records and testimony tell another story, the media muted. Typical media ! One day it WILL be set right though. Michael deserves at least that much in his honor ! Anyway, Hell ... You guys are reading this and can see how all of what happened to Michael hurts and angers me ! Well, some just can't come to grips with the idea that Michael was more vulnerable than was known, and was abused and betrayed, repeatedly, by those who should have had his back. A few of these clowns, MJ fans actually still think did right by Michael and loved him, because not everyone followed the AEG trial . This just wasn't supposed to happen like this for him. And Michael was their inspiration in life ! They have to find him again, because they can't feel like they can move on. Some live abused lives ... It’s tragic in some cases ! As a Michael Jackson fan since childhood, I am grateful to have grown up being inspired and spellbound by him. He was a friend, when I had no friend in my corner, giving me encouragement to believe in myself and my dreams. My heart aches for some other answer for Michael, too ... not enough to swallow a lying illusion though. There's been enough lies and crap in this fan base, people picking on us cause they think we’re an easy target ! We still have time to carry on Michael's legacy and pass it down to generations ! “. — April 29, 2018 .

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shark-myths · 7 years

Text

the mania singles

traveling through time

breaking news in Pete Wentz’s incredibly recursive, self-referential relationship with himself:

THE MANIA SINGLES ARE EXPLICITLY LINKED TO SPECIFIC BAND ERAS

CRYSTAL BALLS ALWAYS CLOUDY EXCEPT WHEN THEY LOOK INTO THE PAST AND CALLING YOU FROM THE FUTURE: the themes are laid out for us to infer that this album is a jumble, a retrospective, an out-of-order examination of the same thing from different times, angles, and selves

Is Mania is peterick retrospective album????? uh, probably

……let me explain……

The order of release is, I think, significant, so let’s proceed accordingly. Pete’s metaphors have always layered up and referenced back on themselves, with scraps from his 2005 lj appearing as recently as in AB/AP lyrics. so let’s do some tinhat digging…

Young and Menace – as made obvious by the title/chorus of the track, this is about being young and out of control. Sure, Pete might feel that way now to some extent, but this is one of the most settled and clearly happy periods of his life that we’ve ever witnessed. it’s safe to assume from readings of their discography that he felt significantly more monstrous (ah, to be a young bisexual! is there a keener #monster feel that exists) in the past.

lyrical markers to prompt us to backdate this track:

I only wrote this down to make you press rewind

Britney Spears 2000 lyrics reference

I woke up in my shoes again links us to the line in grand theft autumn from 2003 my new fashion for waking up with pants on

probable era of reference for this track: 2001-2003

Champion – once again, this track makes more sense if we place it at a time in his life when Pete and his bandmates were struggling with personal demons as well as the fickle abuse of public perception. its theme fits much better with prehiatus content from the boys’ lives, and the song opens with a prompt of exactly that:

I’m calling you from the future (to let you know we made a mistake --> and if you don’t think this ties in p e r f e c t l y to Tryst Theory we are living very different lives my friend)

there’s a fog in the past

I’m just young enough to still believe specifically, like y&m did, brings up youth as a theme; and they do seem to know what to believe in, now, personally. To me, this line is evocative of Believers Never Die and seems to place the song in that era; the lyrical content certainly addresses hiatus themes and the extremely rough time most of the boys had surviving it. (even andy told an interviewer he thought about suicide during the hiatus, and we all know how pete immolated)

specific references to pete’s rage and trying to blow out the light, like he’s trying to extinguish something in himself because of the pain it causes, and the way Patrick has always been linked up with light metaphors in pete’s writing

I got nothing but dreams inside conflicts directly with the TLOTRO lyric I’m here with having dreams. I mean we do have the omnipresent dialectic dilemma of bisexuality, and I am dicks-and-hearts-out for bi!Pete readings, but I think this specific contradiction is here to remind us, again, that these songs are dated for different eras. being full of dreams maps on really well to you are the dreamers, we are the dream; I dreamed about the afterlife but I never really lived; I used to waste my time dreaming of being alive, now I only waste it dreaming of you.

(I think there are lots of good indicators that we can read these dreams as being pete’s dreams of being with Patrick, and I should probably write a whole post about that at some point)

probable era of reference for this track: 2005-2009ish

The Last of the Real Ones – this song, I think, is the only one anchored in the present day. (also can we talk about interviews where pete teases this song before its release and calls it their first real/only real love song????? augh)

I really specifically want to look at this bit: I’m here at the beginning of the end, oh the end of infinity with you—anyone who read my last meta post knows how I feel about the infinity = gay love content of fob’s discography—I’m done with having dreams, the thing that I believe, oh you drain all the fear from me.

listen I think we have ample ground to read that line, I’m done with having dreams, and especially the fearlessness, to mean that pete’s not just dreaming of Patrick anymore—either as a message that he’s ready to start now, or perhaps evidence that active trysting ™ has resumed (and check out the y&m elvis duran interview if you want to imagine a version of pete who had to get so drunk on sake at a sushi place that he created an excuse for him and Patrick, sharing a hotel room in nyc, to MAKE SOME EXPENSIVE MISTAKES)

the thing that anchors this most firmly in present day for me is the idea of finding true gold, finally being fearless, and understanding the worth that can be uncovered under golden plating. it took pete a lot of years and suffering to get to the point where he could appreciate that truth about himself and the people around him. this is such a love song. this is such an insane peterick love song. oh my god, you guys.

openly talking about his therapist and mental health is also more reminiscent of the modern canon, although it did appear occasionally in folie era

probable era of reference: present day

I’m seeing them play tonight in St Louis—hit me up if you are too!—and after I hear the new song I will update this with my thoughts on it. no spoilers yet—I want the first time I hear it to be live and in person with the people I love most in the world, because that is an experience that will probably never be replicated for me and wouldn’t have been possible without the album delay. thanks guys 💜 💜 💜 💜 💜

**to be continued**

#mania #lyrics meta #peterick #fob #fall out boy #tryst theory #the last of the real ones #young and menace #champion #expensive mistake #tinhat

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wbwest · 7 years

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New Post has been published on WilliamBruceWest.com

New Post has been published on http://www.williambrucewest.com/2017/08/25/west-week-ever-pop-culture-review-82517/

West Week Ever: Pop Culture In Review - 8/25/17

In movie news, there was quite the controversial casting this week, as the color lines blurred for some comic book adaptations. First up, it was announced that English actor Ed Skrein would be portraying Japanese character Ben Daimio in the upcoming Hellboy reboot. Now, according to what I’ve read, Daimio’s Japanese heritage heavily influences the character, so this whitewashing of the character doesn’t seem to be in the best interest of the character. I mean, after the problems with whitewashing in Doctor Strange, Ghost in the Shell, Aloha, The Great Wall, and Ni’ihau, you’d think Hollywood would avoid shit like this. Yes, movies are made to make money, but it’s not like Skrein is a bankable star worth slotting into the role, so it doesn’t make a lot of sense. Usually this is done for the film’s STARS. Damon, Johansson, Stone. This is a secondary character, so it really wouldn’t have hurt them to seek out an Asian actor. Normally I’m just like “Well, Hollywood’s gonna Hollywood”, but this decision just doesn’t make a ton of sense.

Next up, 24: Legacy’s Anna Diop has been cast as Starfire in Warner Bros’ Titans series, slated to air on DC’s upcoming digital service. Some folks are saying they should’ve cast a Latina, but she’s gonna either be painted or CGied in orange, so it’s not like it’s gonna matter at the end of the day. Personally, if they wanted authenticity, I think they should’ve cast an actual orange alien princess. Right now there are just too many unknowns for me to get excited about this. I mean, DC announced the digital service without a lot of information. What’s gonna be on it? What will it cost? How much of the DC library will be available to be housed on it? As for Titans, this is the show TNT passed on. Ya know, the home of such illustrious shows as The Librarians and The Last Ship. I mean, they’re basically just about a notch up from what we got in the 90s from Universal’s Action Pack lineup. If Titans couldn’t fit anywhere on that schedule, then it probably just isn’t “ready for primetime” yet.

Speaking of aimless Warner Bros decisions, they announced 2 different Joker movies this week. First up is an origin tale, directed by Todd Phillips of Old School fame, and produced by Martin Scorsese. Hmm, one of those things is not like the other. I mean, why would Scorsese touch something helmed by the dude who gave us Road Trip? And who even WANTS a Joker origin story? First of all, it’s reportedly not even going to be part of the DCEU, so why confuse the audience with a story that won’t even really “count” in the grand scheme of things? Nobody needs a standalone origin of a take on a character they’ll likely never see again. This is just as foolish as Sony’s Don’t-Look-For-Spider-Man-To-Appear Venom movie. Next, the guys behind This Is Us (SO hot right now!) and Crazy, Stupid, Love are working on a Bonnie & Clyde-style Joker and Harley film, with Jared Leto and Margot Robbie reprising their roles from Suicide Squad. Since this would sort of negate the empowerment that Harley gained by the end of Squad, it’s believed that this actually means that the planned Gotham City Sirens film, also slated to star Robbie, is now dead. Honestly, I could do without either of these movies. I found Leto’s take on Joker to be…interesting, but Less is More with that character. Plus, I don’t really think the DCEU would be strengthened by this sort of movie. It’s not the world-building they need to be doing right now, as they haven’t even figured out the core of their star characters like Batman and Superman yet.

In TV news, Christopher Sebela’s comic Heartthrob has been optioned as a TV series by Felix Culpa – a production company launched by actress/Elvis’s granddaughter Riley Keough. Now, comics are optioned every day, and the final product never comes to fruition, but I hope this series sees the light of day. I’m actually a big fan of the comic, which is published by Oni Press. Set in the late 70s, it focuses on Callie, who’s received a heart transplant while the process is still in its infancy. Given a new lease on life, but still told she’s basically living on borrowed time, she decides to change her life when she meets Mercer, a charming guy with a shady side. She immediately falls for him, and he teaches her how to be bad, like rob banks and commit other crimes. She gets off on the rush. Pretty soon, however, she realizes that Mercer isn’t real. No, he’s actually the ghost of the guy whose heart is now in Callie. So, it’s a Bonnie & Clyde story where Clyde’s calling the shots from the afterlife. The book is published in “seasons”, so the first 5-issue miniseries wrapped up back in early 2016, while season 2 is hitting stores now. If you’re looking for a new comic not from the Big Two, I highly recommend it.

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In music news, Taylor Swift did a whole social blitz to announce that her next album would be called Reputation, and would be released Nov 10th. On top of that, the first single was released last night, with rumors that the video will premiere at Sunday’s MTV Video Music Awards. Ya know, the same awards hosted my Taylor’s enemy Katy Perry. Yeah, that should be pretty interesting to watch. Anyway, the new song is called “Look What You Made Me Do”, and I’m not too impressed. It lacks a real hook, while the chorus itself is basically spoken. I feel like it has all the ingredients for a great song, but it’s not living up to its full potential. If this is an indicator of what to expect on Reputation, though, I’ll admit I’m curious. It can’t be worse than Perry’s Witness.

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Speaking of Katy Perry, we got the premiere of her video for “Swish Swish”, which was reportedly her diss track against Taylor Swift. After a lot of backtracking and sucking up, though, it seems Katy wants to put that feud behind her. That’s why this horrible video does everything it can to take the bite out of a song that was never really that biting to begin with. I mean, just look at it – Molly Shannon? Terry Crews? Even Nicki Minaj was clearly CGied in, as I’m sure she didn’t wanna be anywhere near this shitshow. The sad thing about the Perry/Swift feud is that Katy bailed on it the minute she realized the Swifties were a more powerful lobby than she had thought. Nobody was feeling her SNL performances, and Witness didn’t exactly fly off the shelves. She realized that she can’t really survive by making enemies, so suddenly she became conciliatory to save her ass. Plus, it’s kinda lame that this blood feud started just because Taylor stole a few of Katy’s dancers for her tour. Anyway, you’ll never get those 6 minutes back. You’re welcome.

I had the pleasure of joining my buddy Zac for his new podcast, The Zac Shipley Show. He’s treating these first few episodes as pilots for ideas he’s wanted to try, so our ep was called Streaming Pile, where we talked about the worst things we could find on streaming services. I talked about a Star Trek: Voyager episode where formerly perky pixie Kes returns all middle-aged and bitter. You should check it out, and give a listen to his other episodes while you’re there!

Song of the Week

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I’ve been a big Maren Morris fan since she released “My Church”, and I was really into her next single, “80s Mercedes”. With this song she continues not to disappoint, as I love the groove on this thing. Listen to the bassline. It’s not a dance song, yet you can do a MEAN two-step to it. Hell, I think you could even do a casual version of The Hustle to it. This will definitely go to #1 given time.

Things You Might Have Missed This Week

NBC’s planned reboot of Xena: Warrior Princess – which would’ve featured a full-on lesbian relationship between her and Gabrielle – is officially dead, as they said “it didn’t warrant a reboot”. Man, if only other studios would realize this about some of their projects…

Director James Gunn mentioned in a Q & A session that the 3rd Guardians of the Galaxy film would set up the next 10-20 years of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Yup, you’re just now realizing your own mortality. I’ll give you a minute to deal with that.

Speaking of Gunn, he’s attached to write the pilot for (and possibly direct) a reboot of 70s series Starsky & Hutch. This adaptation is supposed to be similar in tone to CBS’s upcoming S.W.A.T. and not comedic in tone like the 2004 Ben Stiller & Owen Wilson movie.

Surprising every critic in Hollywood, Netflix has renewed the maligned comedy Friends From College for a second season.

Known for controversial publicity stunts, Alamo Drafthouse is reportedly organizing a Clowns Only screening of the new adaptation of Stephen King’s It.

We got a new poster for Thor: Ragnarok. So many colors!

Michael K. Williams has reportedly been cut from the Star Wars Han Solo film, as Ron Howard’s reshoot schedule conflicted with another role that Williams had accepted.

There are, like, 8 different Knight Rider reboot treatments floating around Hollywood, but the latest rumor is that one of those productions is looking at John Cena as Michael Knight, with Kevin Hart as the voice of K.I.T.T. Of course, it would be a comedic adaptation, a la the popular Jump Street franchise.

Super Troopers 2, the sequel to one of the most overrated films I’ve ever seen, will hit theaters April 20th, 2018.

Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson will star in Nasty Women, which is a female-led reboot of the Michael Caine/Steve Martin classic Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

Independence Day: Resurgence‘s Jessie T Usher will star in Son of Shaft, with Samuel L. Jackson potentially reprising his role as John Shaft (from the 2000 reboot film), the nephew of the original John Shaft, played by Richard Roundtree, who is also in talks to join the movie. Man, that gave me a headache.

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Always on the cutting edge, here’s Sesame Street’s parody of 2017’s song of the summer, “Despacito”

According to the creators, the Netflix series Stranger Things will most likely end after its fourth season

The actress formerly known as “Andrea Zuckerman”, Gabrielle Carteris, has been re-elected to a 2-year term as the President of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA)

Ryan Gosling will host the season premiere of Saturday Night Live, with musical guest Jay-Z, on Sept 30th.

Jamie Bell is developing a Jumper TV series, based on the 2008 film about teleporters

Suicide Squad 2 is reportedly being fast tracked, but I hope they fast track it right into the garbage. I mean, I enjoyed the first one, but I don’t need a sequel.

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I like Nick Kroll, even though I never saw even a second of Kroll Show. Anyway, he’s got a new animated series about puberty called Big Mouth coming to Netflix and after watching this teaser I am ON BOARD!

We’re a month away from the premiere of Star Trek: Discovery, and it was revealed that it will be rated TV-MA, for Mature Audiences. Now, it doesn’t mean there’ll be tits and phasers, but it does mean they can tell more complex stories. That said, I still feel like they don’t truly understand the source material.

After a scathing essay from his ex-wife went public, accusing him of adultery and other generally shitty behavior to women, Joss Whedon went underground and the fan site, Whedonesque, shut down after 15 years.

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We got a new teaser for Netflix’s The Punisher. With the rate I’m getting through these Marvel shows, I’ll probably get to it just before Evie goes off to Hogwarts.

There was a national solar eclipse this week, which was the first occurrence since 1918. I’m sure you might’ve heard something about it. It was kind of a big deal. Folks were pimping out special cardboard glasses on Craigslist for insane amounts of money, and the American President made news by looking directly into it. It seems that it had a strange effect on different folks. For example, Netflix viewership went down 10% as people went outside to view the phenomenon. Not everyone understood what was going on, bless their hearts. At work, a frantic parent called in and said “Y’all watching the news? You hear about this eclipse? Is it serious?!” Apparently she thought it posed some sort of danger to her kids and the school. No, ma’am. It’s just a beautiful sky ballet. Anyway, the eclipse was EVERYWHERE. I didn’t get to see totality, but it was still nice to stand outside for a bit on a nice day. What am I saying? I hate the outdoors! Well, it was nice to not have to work for a few minutes. You couldn’t escape the Eclipse Fever at the start of the week, so that’s why the Solar Eclipse of 2017 had the West Week Ever.

#80s #Batman #Comics #Country #DC #Indie #Knight Rider #Marvel #Movies #Music #Politics #Pop #Race #Star Trek #Star Wars #Television #West Week Ever #Wrestling

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jamesginortonblog · 7 years

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Interview with James Norton

James Norton talks about the new series 3 of Grantchester

Q: How does it feel when the first Grantchester script of a new series arrives?

“It is a bit of a homecoming for me every time. I get little teasers from writer Daisy Coulam, producer Emma Kingsman-‐Lloyd and executive producer Diederick Santer because we’re friends now. So when I know it’s being written I start to try and sneakily get some glimmers. Then when it arrives it’s lovely. Grantchester is always beautifully balanced between being familiar and welcoming, both for us and the audience, and having that sense of nostalgia and affection. But also it always has that bite in the stories.

“As soon as you get the script it’s a complete page turner and I can’t wait to see what happens next. Not least with each episode but also what they do beautifully is maintain that over-‐arching narrative between Sidney and Geordie (Robson Green).

“Then the next question is, ‘Who’s going to play all the guest roles?’ We’ve got some incredible casting directors who fill each of the roles with such high calibre actors. That’s always another great moment when we find out who’s playing who. I love it.”

Q: Is this new series slightly darker?

“If you described Grantchester to someone and they hadn’t seen it, they might assume it simply has that cosy, nostalgic, crime story feel. But as anyone who has seen the show knows it is so much more. It has so many more layers and is so much richer, deeper and darker than that. “What brings the darkness is partly to do with the way they don’t shy away from the issues of the time. We did an episode, for example, about the death penalty and homosexuality being illegal in the 1950s, along with various other themes of the period.

“The further we get to know the characters and the further we go into the series the darkness starts to revolve around their lives and the choices they make. It is darker but that’s partly because we know and love these people so much. Then the choices they make which hurt other people feel so much more painful. I think it’s partly darker because we as a cast and the audience are more invested and know these people as friends. So when people you’re close to trip up or hurt other people if feels so much worse.

“Series three is a very personal series. It’s perhaps less about the period, what defined the 50s in comparison to now, and is much more about the inner turmoil and personal journey of Sidney and Geordie. It’s about guilt and conflict. The conflict between love and duty. It is shocking and it is dark but in a slightly different more personal way.”

Q: Where are Sidney and Amanda (Morven Christie) when we return?

“We last saw them in the Christmas special. We join Sidney and Amanda four months later and they are living in denial. Amanda’s baby is called Grace and, as we know, Amanda is no longer with her husband Guy (Tom Austen).

“Sidney has very clearly become this father figure with Amanda living separate to him in a little cottage in the village near the church. They are, in a way, living like teenagers. Stealing kisses behind the church and sneaking out for jazz nights with Mrs Maguire (Tessa Peake-‐Jones) babysitting Grace. It’s playful and fun.

“But they are resisting or denying the impending decision: If Amanda divorces Guy she can’t marry Sidney and she can’t have a relationship with Sidney unless he leaves the church. So it sets up this duty versus love conflict.

“At the beginning that whole conflict is very much held at arm’s length. Sidney and Amanda are having a great time. Which is quite nice because we’ve seen so much strife between Amanda and Sidney. It was really lovely to have a bit of fun with Morven, go dancing, listen to some jazz and act as if we are loved-‐up teenagers.”

Q: Sidney and Amanda move on the dance floor to the ‘new’ sound of rock ’n roll. How was that to film?

“This is 1955, the year before Elvis made his national television debut in America. The soundtrack to Grantchester is really important with Sidney’s love of jazz and Sidney Bechet. But this is also the time rock ’n roll arrived.

“We had a great choreographer on set who taught Morven and I some early rock ’n roll moves. Which was great. I loved it. We tried to encapsulate the feel and spirit of that time. It’s a slightly different place to where we’ve seen them in the past. And it sets up what they have to lose. They are in love and able to express that up to a point.”

Q: Baby Grace is played by twins. How was it acting with them?

“Our twins were wonderful. One of them was slightly better behaved than the other so we gravitated to that one! It was a bit like having Dickens on set. When you have babies of three or four months old on set, everyone just turns into these mushy gooey messes. Those little girls were literally handed around a crew of 100 people and didn’t seem to bat an eyelid.

“It always feel like a family on Grantchester. It’s no secret that Grantchester is a very happy set and one of the reasons why we get so many great actors on each episode is because it’s an enjoyable place to be. So when you’ve got children around that sense of family and fun is added to. The days when we had the twins and then Dickens bouncing around our heels, it did feel like the Grantchester family was complete.”

Q: Episode two features a village cricket match. Was much acting required when you were batting?

“At the end of filming for the first series we had a cast and crew versus Grantchester villagers cricket match. I don’t think I’d played since then. My cricket during filming for this series was even ropier than it was back then.

“Although I’m reassured by the fact I’m always a little bit better than Robson Green who is just completely rubbish at cricket. I think I took less takes to make contact with the ball than he did. Sidney hits a boundary for four in the script. That was achieved with a couple of kind camera angles and probably one or two flukily-‐hit shots which luckily were caught on camera.

“I really enjoyed it. We were filming a little later in the year for this series, filming into the autumn and winter. We wrapped the whole series on the 23rd of December. But we filmed the cricket scenes for episode two in an amazing Indian Summer. We were so lucky with absolutely sweltering heat. So there was no trick of the camera there. We were having a lovely couple of days in the sun knocking around a cricket ball.”

Q: Grantchester’s cricket captain is played by Peter Davison. What was it like working with him?

“Peter is one of those actors who has such a great acting history. Someone I’ve admired for years. But what’s so wonderful is you would never know. He’s just a lovely, down to earth man. To have the opportunity to work with him was great.”

Q: Gary Beadle plays new Archdeacon Gabriel Atubo. How does his arrival impact on Sidney?

“When you have this duty versus love conundrum, the duty part very much is manifested in the church. At the end of series two with the Archdeacon being sent away in disgrace, it started to lay the seeds of Sidney’s doubts in the actual church. Archdeacon Gabriel arrives and is really charismatic. He provides this older brother-type mentor, father figure in Sidney’s life. He gives really wise words of advice when Sidney is struggling. But it’s not enough. It’s not just Sidney’s love of Amanda which is eating away at him, it’s also his doubts within the institution of the church.

“The courts and justice system were put on trial in series two. In series three it’s the church itself that’s put on trial. Gary Beadle and I have very fiery theological debates within the script in some great scenes.Then we’d be standing outside having a cup of tea in our costumes talking about something really mundane afterwards. He’s a great actor and plays that role beautifully.”

Q: You posted a photo online of a huge Grantchester tattoo on your back when the series three clapperboard reached ‘Slate 500’. What was all that about?

“Some people thought I actually got a tattoo and that I was obsessed with the series. I love Grantchester but that would be a bold tattoo to have on my back! We have an amazing camera clapperboard guy called Laurence. And every time we got to 100, 200, 300 slates etc, he would make the slate an occasion. They would get more and more elaborate and ornate.

“The 500 slate in the final block of filming came as we were filming in a Romani community and lots of tattoos were being worn. So he got me in early that day to make the 500th slate into a temporary tattoo. Then when we got to it I took off my shirt and someone took immense pleasure in slapping my back, which was representing the clapperboard. He didn’t tell me it would take about two weeks to get off. It’s really hard to scrub your back. But it was a lot of fun. Again, it just goes to show the spirit of Grantchester. That sense of everyone having a bit of fun.”

Q: Do you get a lot of Grantchester fans watching filming?

“This is my first experience of this type of returning drama. I’ve never done the third series of anything. We have a very loyal fan base. People who fall for the show and fall for it hard. It’s lovely because they know everything about it and they have relationships with the characters. They know more than us often about the world of the show. So they come to watch filming, especially when we’re in Grantchester itself, and they are just incredibly happy to be there. We also get attention when we’re filming in the centre of Cambridge. We’re lucky to have such a loyal fan base.

“For three years Robson and I have been trying to persuade the producers to have some Interpol story so Sidney and Geordie have to go down to Tuscany to rescue some wayward vicar or something. But they’re not having any of it, sadly.”

Q: You get a lot of attention from both the public and media. How do you keep your feet on the ground?

“I’m very lucky to have family who are really supportive. My dad is a regular extra on Grantchester. He usually does a day as various people. But we’ve never been able to persuade my mum. Until now. She is in series three of Grantchester with my dad as guests at a policeman’s ball. She was slightly terrified at how much she looked like my granny when she got the proper perm on and everything. They’re amazing. The come to set and support me. But they’re also very wise and grounded themselves. My family and friends make life feel normal.

“It’s also the people you work with. The crew and production team and rest of the cast are great. Robson Green has banked more TV hours in the UK than mostly anyone else. And yet he’s one of the most grounded, loyal, feet on the ground people I know. He always has a word for everyone. So unjudgemental and inclusive.

“I’ve been lucky to be surrounded by great family who don’t allow my feet to leave the ground, but if they do I get firmly slapped back down. And similarly with people I work with, like Robson. I look and learn from people like him. He was bombarded one day with fans and I said, ‘How do you deal with this?’ And he said, ‘These people are the reason you are able to go on these amazing journeys and play these roles. They enable that career. So it’s a contract. You give them time because they give you this career.’ It was a wise moment and I banked it. He’s a good man.”

Source: ITV Press Center

#james norton #grantchester #interview

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mittensmorgul · 7 years

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I had a wee Cas-related headcanon. And I thought @mittensmorgul etc will have done this to death so I searched #castiel #pb&j. Right? Not a sausage, much less a symbolically charged jelly and nut based bread snack. #cas + #pb & j, #pb n j. You get the picture. But seriously, someone has done the as-pie-is-to-Dean-so-pb&j-is-to-Cas meta/fic, right? He really liked it when he was human, but it just doesn’t do anything for him any more? #look, #I ship hard, #but #you've done this, right?

Hi there! And yeah, we’ve done this…

I got this message last night and conferred with lizbob about it, because I’m going to sneakily use her tags to find some relevant musings on the subject. From her 9.03 weird rewatching notes:

Aaah, I forgot that the real April gave Cas PB&J sandwiches. She’s presumably still normal real April, anyway. I choose to believe that >.>

Since I normally go around willingly forgetting this episode, it does put 9x11 in context with Cas wanting to make himself a PB&J sandwich, and feeling sad that it doesn’t taste the same. It was offered to him out of genuine kindness and to him must represent the goodness of humanity, way more than his horrible experience with April later which Buckleming kept going back to, Robbie picks out the one nice thing about this encounter for him to reflect on, since, as I was saying, they get the monopoly on defining Cas’s human experience. He has a 3 second encounter with the real, kind April, and so that’s what Robbie leaps on, rather than choosing a path to remind us over and over of what else to do with her.

That’s quite an interesting thing as well because this season of course, stretched and fraying at the seams surface level is that Cas just loves humanity that much (like, ignoring 9x23 and Metatron actually telling us straight up that it isn’t just this :P) but the Cas x humanity thread does have a lot to commend itself just because that’s not exactly a false lead that Cas doesn’t love humanity. I think it’s lovely that he’s profoundly affected by this moment. As well as, in 9x11, it then has Cas describing a disconnect between himself and this symbol, that it doesn’t taste as he remembered and he’s sort of feeling too huge to comprehend it just as a sandwich any more. Because I think there’s a real yearning in Cas for the “human things” (and 10x01-3 when he’s sick and where that line comes from, he slips closer to humanity as his grace fails, and again we see him experiencing “human things” in a small measure, again, against his will). That yearning to me says more than anything else that I think Cas should end up human or that he would want to be, if only he could allow himself to really contemplate it. For the love of a PB&J sandwich :P

And to go right back to being a grubby Destiel shipper, this is not the only 2 times peanut butter is mentioned in this stretch of episodes. In 9x07 Dean’s arrested as a kid for stealing peanut butter to make sandwiches for Sam, which aligns him with the side of humanity Cas fell in love with: the selfless peanut butter-giving side of humanity :P So a way to link Dean to Humanity appears in the first 11 episodes…

And then there’s this, which was probably the beginning of my real personal obsession with food on this show:

http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/138730581600/soo-the-elvis-already-had-me-worried-for-dean

And this from lizbob’s 9.11 rewatch notes:

Cas and his PB&J!

Which I have already talked about repeatedly and especially in 9x03 where I already talked about it thematically to Cas’s humanity arc. So I guess, let’s just write down Cas expressing nostalgia for humanity which he had to give up and is now reflecting on the less shitty parts of it and realising he has given up the experience now in favour of achieving other goals, so again in a concise moment expressing his entire character conflict over the humanity arc, especially where he is on the other side of being human.

The fact Cas was sitting alone in the Bunker waiting for Sam, and decided to just go wander around digging in their shelves in the kitchen and make himself a sandwich though. I mean, compared to my comments about what Dean did off-screen between episodes that’s pretty boring, but I like it :P In 11x18 he’s strongly aligned with the kitchen, and while we don’t see the kitchen here, he had to have been in there to get the PB&J materials, even if he moved to the war room to eat it. (Which has its own significance that Cas is ready for war not domesticity, see also: all the stuff I was saying about his new uniform, grace, etc, and the reason WHY he’s changed himself so he can’t enjoy PB&J any more)

Yeah, I’m snipping stuff out here, but these are themes they’ve applied in a lot of other ways that tie in to other things as well. Pie. Coffee. Hamburgers. Cake. Pie vs Cake. Pizza. And even beer. And if you click on any of those links, you’ll note a lot of crossover between the posts.

As for s12, I’ve been keeping a Big List of Food by episode. No mention of the pb&j again yet, but I’m keeping a close eye out. It’s called The Pies of s12, but it covers pretty much all the food-as-symbolism stuff so far.

But there’s been at least one other mention of a peanut butter sandwich as a major plot device. It was, after all, the reason Dean had been arrested in 9.07, setting up the entire story and laying down some heavy Dean Feelings.

Getting back to Cas (and really Dean, too), these references used to come in the form of cheeseburgers, going all the way back to 5.14.

And yeah, we know Jimmy enjoyed a cheeseburger from 4.20, but we also know that Jimmy wasn’t there anymore by 5.14. This was all Cas, finding enjoyment from something very human. Sure, he’d been getting closer to humanity during s5, but I think this is the first time he really enjoyed something human.

I recall there being some distress in the fandom around the time 9.11 came out that Cas would’ve been reminiscing about a pb&j instead of a cheeseburger. But we just kept waving vaguely at 9.07 and the pb&j that Dean got arrested and tossed into Sonny’s Home for Boys over.

Dean had been trying his best to feed and care for Sam despite not having enough money for groceries. John was gone on a hunt and out of touch, and 16-year-old Dean got caught trying to provide for the family in the most basic way possible. Like peanut butter was the glue that could hold their whole world together.

But at the same time, that month Dean spent at Sonny’s was unprecedented for him. For the first time in his life, he didn’t have to follow John’s orders. He didn’t have to sacrifice himself to be Sam’s primary caregiver. He got to spend a bit of time doing what HE wanted to do. He joined the wrestling team and won competitions. He learned to play guitar and met his first girlfriend. He had an adult who was interested in HIM, who wanted to help HIM and make sure HE was doing well, you know? Not just whether or not he was successfully following his orders. For Dean, stealing that peanut butter was unknowingly a stepping stone to his first (and one of his only) tastes of that sort of pure freedom in his entire life.

Then (only 4 episodes later!) in 9.11 Cas reminisces about being able to taste and enjoy a pb&j for what it was, the way a human tastes it and not as an amalgamation of molecules the way an angel tastes it.

(which raises some questions about 5.14 and if Cas was appreciating the molecular arrangement of a good cheeseburger, or if Famine’s influence literally gave him an appreciation for the taste, but none of that’s relevant here atm)

Back to 9.11… Cas goes one step further and uses the pbj to make a point, the entire scene preceded by a fade-in on that pbj:

CASTIEL: Sam, I want Gadreel to pay as much as you do. But nothing is worth losing you. You know, being human, it didn’t just change my view of food. It changed my view of you. I mean, I can relate now to how you feel.SAM: What are you talking about?CASTIEL: The only person who has screwed things up more consistently than you…is me. And now I know what that guilt feels like. And I know what it… I know what it means to feel sorry, Sam. I am sorry.SAM: I know.CASTIEL: You know, old me – I would’ve have just kept going. I would’ve jammed that needle in deeper until you died because the ends always justified the means. But what I went though – Well, that PB and J taught me that angels can change, so…who knows? Maybe Winchesters can, too.

Bonus:

He misses a simple pleasure of humanity. Same as Dean. Okay imma go cry over a sandwich now.

bonus-bonus:

okay now i’m going off to cry

#spn 9.03 #spn 9.07 #spn 9.11 #spn 5.14 #spn 4.20 #castiel winchester #oh DEAN #kallipygian #s12 pie masterpost #the abominable cheeseburger #you learned it from the goats #which is technically my cas and coffee tag because that's his usual connection to humanity lately but it covers the pbj too :D

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Joe Dorsey's Big Fight: How An Unknown Boxer Knocked Out Segregation In Louisiana

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Joe Dorsey's Big Fight: How An Unknown Boxer Knocked Out Segregation In Louisiana

In 1955, an African-American boxer in New Orleans named Joe Dorsey sued the state of Louisiana for the right to fight against white opponents. What started out as a chance to advance his career wound up changing sports and culture in the state forever.

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In July 1955, inside a small dressing room in the New Orleans Coliseum, Joe Dorsey was sitting by himself, waiting to punch somebody.

New Orleans was a fanatical boxing town. The champions were local stars with style and verve. Heavy-fisted Joe Brown used his winnings to buy himself expensive suits and rounds of drinks for packed jazz clubs on Saturday nights. Ralph Dupas, known as “Native Dancer” for his frantic footwork, was a swarthy 20-year-old who looked like a cross between Elvis Presley and James Brown, topped with a pompadour. Dorsey was routinely described in local papers as “rugged,” and the Louisiana Weekly said he had “fists clenched with TNT.” “He was a hell of a puncher,” Alcee P. Honoré, who attended Dorsey’s fights back then, tells me. “He hit you; that could be it for you.”

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Dorsey’s official boxing credentials Courtesy of the Dorsey Family

Light-skinned and handsome, with close-cropped hair and pointed eyebrows, Dorsey became a local boxing hero, lavishly covered in both the black and white newspapers. He thumped every fighter who came in from out of town — Milwaukee, Miami, Philadelphia — before Coliseum crowds of more than 1,800 customers, who bought tickets for $1 or $2. But the eighth-ranked light heavyweight boxer in the U.S. couldn’t make more than $600 a year. He had to take odd jobs, like cleaning up at nightclubs for $45 a week or working at Cut Rate Liquors on Canal Street. “There were times when I didn’t have money to buy food for my family,” Dorsey would say. “I’d have to borrow from my manager or my mother.”

For a long time, Dorsey, who was good with numbers, couldn’t discern what was going wrong. “Maybe because I ain’t got much education, maybe that’s what’s holding me back,” speculated Dorsey, who lived with his family in a five-room frame house, using a stove for heat, on St. Anthony Street in the Seventh Ward. “When you got education you ain’t afraid to talk to people. You feel like you feel secure. I sure wish I had more education.”

Maybe part of his problem was that he wasn’t flashy, like the great Joe Brown, lightweight champion of the world numerous times in the ’50s and ’60s. “He was not a very flamboyant type of guy,” Elmo Adolph, the New Orleans-born boxing expert who refereed tens of thousands of worldwide fights, from Larry Holmes to Reggie Johnson, told me before his death in 2012. “He was somebody that you would enjoy seeing, but unfortunately, a lot of his fights you didn’t see, because of the fact that he wasn’t one of those main main attractions.”

Or maybe his problem was something bigger, something beyond his control: Boxing in New Orleans had been segregated since 1892, when a black boxer named George Dixon beat his Irish challenger Jack Skelly before a massive crowd. Within four days, New Orleans’ Olympic Athletic Club banned interracial boxing for good. By 1950, Louisiana’s State Athletic Commission had followed suit. Throughout his career, Dorsey had been confined to fighting exclusively black opponents, which was not only unjust, but uneconomical. Dorsey was entering his boxing prime at a particularly divisive moment: As the civil rights movement was gaining traction, some Southern politicians were determined to hold onto — and even build upon — racist laws.

In his dressing room that night, on July 22, 1955, waiting to fight Andy Mayfield, Dorsey was nervous. He dealt with the butterflies in his stomach the usual way: He fell asleep. When he woke up, according to the black newspaper Louisiana Weekly, he strode into the ring and knocked out Mayfield with a left to the midsection in the sixth round.

Then he prepared for his next fight: Six days after beating Mayfield, Joe Dorsey filed suit. He initially intended merely to provide more money for his family. But not only would he wind up avenging more than six decades of wronged African-American athletes, he would also lay the groundwork to integrate musicians and performers in one of the most culturally vibrant — but racially divided — places in America.

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Like every Southern politician, Earl K. Long considered himself a man of the people, and proved it with his eccentric, down-home behavior. On the campaign trail to be reelected governor, “Uncle Earl” walked Louisiana’s dirt roads, shaking hands, asking people what they thought about things.

Earl Long was the younger brother of the Kingfish, Gov. Huey P. Long, who had infamously ruled over the state as a benevolent dictator until a crazed assassin shot and killed him in 1935. Whereas the Kingfish formed his policy decrees from his governor’s mansion bunker in Baton Rouge, Earl was a populist who mocked the entire idea of being a politician. During election season, according to Michael Kurtz and Morgan Peoples’ Earl K. Long: The Saga of Uncle Earl, he frequently arrived at campaign events an hour late, passing the time during other candidates’ speeches by picking his nose, scratching his crotch, catching gnats in the air, and crossing and uncrossing his legs. And this was during speeches by members of his own party.

Long had to support segregation in order to win elections in the South. But he undercut these views by standing up for black people as human beings — a radical position at that time. In the late 1940s, he pushed for an equal pay structure for black and white schoolteachers. He made sure black people remained on the state’s voter rolls and campaigned at black churches.

Earl’s opposite number in Louisiana was Willie Rainach, a slick-haired, thin-lipped segregationist in his forties who had run the White Citizens’ Council in rural Claiborne Parish and proudly displayed a Confederate flag on his tie. Earl once was giving an impromptu political speech when he spotted Sen. Rainach in the audience and, in his impenetrable drawl, said, “He’ll probably go up there to Summerfield, get up on his front porch, take off his shoes, wash his feet, look at the moon, and get close to God.” Turning to face Rainach directly, Long added, as A.J. Liebling would recall in his fantastic 1970 new-journalism biography The Earl of Louisiana: “And when you do, you got to recognize that niggers is human beings!” (This prediction never came true: Rainach, a staunch segregationist to the end, committed suicide with a .38-caliber pistol in 1978.)

Yet in the summer of 1956, months into his second term, Uncle Earl signed several segregation bills that Rainach and Louisiana’s Joint Legislative Committee on Segregation pushed across his desk. The governor had no choice. He planned to run, again, down the road, and Earl Long always thought in political terms. “The trend is toward more segregation,” Rainach told reporters, and briefly he was right. Rainach’s dozen segregationist bills were part of the South’s massive resistance to civil rights.

So in late June, Gov. Long picked up his pen. Separate black and white waiting rooms at bus stations and airports? Signed! Give state police the power to enforce segregation in parks? Yes! Undercut the national court order integrating schools for white and black students? That too! Long may have been conflicted, but he handled these signings with typical folksy humor. Referring to Rep. John Garrett, vice chairman of Rainach’s committee, the governor breezily told reporters, “I don’t know how much good these bills will do, but I don’t want Garrett to think I’m courting the colored people.”

Eventually there was one segregation bill left for Long to sign. And this time, he paused. It had passed the Louisiana Senate by a margin of 33-0, and the House followed within a week. The law was to take effect in October, banning “dancing, social functions, entertainments, athletic training, games, sports or contests and other such activities involving personal and social contacts in which the participants or contestants are members of the white and Negro races.”

On July 16, 1956, Earl Long, man of the people, friend to the black voter, sworn enemy of Willie Rainach, signed the law. It would probably wind up in court, he admitted, but what could he do? He was merely bowing to the will of his constituents, who, the governor reported, favored the bill 4 to 1.

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Courtesy of the Dorsey Family

Joseph Dorsey Jr. was born on July 16, 1935, son of a carpenter, Joseph Sr., and a homemaker, Virgin. He grew up in a shotgun house in the Seventh Ward, northeast of the French Quarter, a Creole “city within a city” for working families, as Beverly Jacques Anderson put it in her book Cherished Memories. Dorsey attended the Seventh Ward’s two public elementary schools. He dropped out after his sixth year. “My mother used to say it was ‘cause he was bad,” his daughter, Dorinda Dorsey, 51, recalls.

Thicker and more muscular than other kids, Dorsey realized his talents were more suited for the gym than the classroom. “I never thought I’d be a fighter,” he would tell Jet, the only publication, nationally or locally, to interview Dorsey at length. “I was always the scary type.” By the time he was 11, he was hanging around boxing gyms near the French Quarter, where the assembled fight men noticed he had some talent. They started giving him real fights, which he won. In his wedding photo, Joe Dorsey stands a foot taller than his new wife, Evelyn Dorsey, née Watson. He’s wearing a light sport coat, wide tie, and slacks sagging an inch too long over his dress shoes. Evelyn is smiling radiantly, in an immaculately white blouse-and-skirt combo, with a dainty purse, gloves, hat, and carnation, clutching her husband’s arm. At 16, they look like they’re playing dress-up. Everything in the photo seems a few sizes too big, with one exception — Joe Dorsey’s hands are fully grown.

Dorsey racked up 12 victories in a row from 1953 to 1955, spending his spare time training at Curly’s Gym. This fixture, on Poydras and St. Charles, just outside the French Quarter, drew important boxing figures from all over the city, from cigar-smoking promoters and managers to Willie Pastrano, the future light heavyweight champion.

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William “Brother” Kron, the veteran New Orleans boxing manager, took an interest in the 167-pound Dorsey, setting him up with bigger and bigger fights. In public, he drove his fighters intensely. In private, he spoke softly, building their confidence (and loyalty) by saying things like, “Come on, now, let’s fight like you know how” when he was alone with them in their corners. As he became more successful, and popular, Dorsey would fight mostly at the Coliseum, a wooden 1922 building at the corner of Conti and Roman, near the Quarter, where the stands were built at a sharp angle, so every seat was a good one. In summers, when the oppressive heat seeped in, Coliseum officials hauled in large blocks of ice, covered them with canvas, and allowed fans to take turns sitting on them.

Although he was light-skinned and lived in the Seventh Ward, where some Creoles “passed” as whites, Dorsey was not a Creole. Once the law was passed, which happened to follow his bout against Andy Mayfield in 1955, he was more inclined to fight than hide.

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AP Photo

The law that Gov. Earl Long signed was on the books for about three years. Its immediate impact was on sports.

The long-awaited 1958 prizefight between New Orleans’ hometown light heavyweights, Joe Brown (black) and Ralph Dupas (white), had to be moved to Houston. (Dorsey, who fought in a lower weight class that didn’t attract the huge publicity and the big-time boxing promoters, couldn’t afford to take all his bouts out of state.) That year was the second year LSU’s football team was scheduled to play the University of Wisconsin during the regular season in Louisiana. They were two of the top college teams in the country, and the game might have determined who played in the national championship. However, Earl Hill and Sidney Williams, the Badgers’ star wide receiver and quarterback, were black. Due to the law, LSU officials had to contact Wisconsin and tell its coaches to leave Hill and Williams at home.

“Of course, we wanted to beat them — to show the people that set the policy up that we could play football as well as they could,” Williams tells me by phone from Kalamazoo, Mich., where he is a retired patent lawyer. “We wanted to kick their ass.” The Badgers never got the chance. Wisconsin officials courageously refused LSU’s request, as they had the year before, so the scheduled game never took place. “Canceled due to racism,” read the headline of the Wisconsin Magazine of History five decades later.

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An article on the Dupas case from Ebony. Courtesy Johnson Publishing Company

In New Orleans’ Ninth Ward, pompadoured boxer Ralph Dupas, the “Native Dancer,” attended white Francis T. Nicholls High School, named for a Confederate brigadier general and post-Civil War governor. (In the early ’60s, in response to school desegregation in New Orleans, Nicholls students would hang Confederate flags and a KKK banner and sing a song they invented called “Glory, Glory Segregation.”) But Dupas had a dark complexion. In 1957, as he was rising in the boxing ranks, a retired, white birth registrar, Lucretia Gravolet, emerged from Pointe à la Hache to insist he was not a Dupas but a Duplessis. Gravolet claimed herself to have registered Dupas — as a black man. Given the new law, Dupas had to hire lawyers and sued the city to prove that he was white. The boxer won, but the case took its toll on his family. “It really hurt us, you know,” Peter Dupas, the late Ralph’s brother, tells me, still reluctant to be interviewed after all these years. “We got that straightened out so Ralph could start fighting here. It was terrible.”

The law’s repercussions would stretch far beyond New Orleans, affecting even the great Louis Armstrong, the hometown hero who had long since graduated to international stardom. “I just wonder what them politicians got on their mind,” responded Satchmo, who was barnstorming the world with a band of white and black jazz musicians in the ’50s. “They got the nerve to have my picture hanging on the wall of some of the finest clubs in New Orleans, but still I can’t play there. I recorded with the Dukes of Dixieland in Chicago the same record they’re playing on New Orleans jukeboxes, but we couldn’t play there in person. Don’t forget to quote me as saying, ‘I don’t care if I never go to New Orleans again.’”

Some of the great musicians from that time barely remember any kind of segregation law, since the indignities of Jim Crow were merely part of their routines back then. “When you live with segregation 24/7, there are things that occur consistently that you don’t like. You’d be in a state of outrage all the time,” veteran New Orleans jazz pianist Ellis Marsalis, father of Wynton and Branford, says. “A lot of what happens is, kind of, you anticipate, and you become numb to some of it.”

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Dorsey had become close with Ernest “Butch” Curry, a sports editor for the Pittsburgh Courier, a black newspaper that distributed its Louisiana edition through an underground network of churches in New Orleans. Curry’s office was on Dryades, not far from the Quarter, and a civil rights lawyer named Louis Berry worked in an office building down the street. Curry and Berry brought Dorsey into a group of anti-segregation activists who had been meeting secretly at restaurants in black neighborhoods.

In the sparse second-floor office above the dining room at Dooky Chase’s, some of the most renowned civil rights lawyers in New Orleans history shuffled in and out while chef Leah Chase, the owner’s wife, kept the red beans and rice flowing. In this small but important group of men were Dorsey’s Seventh Ward neighbor, A.P. Tureaud, who would fight just about every civil rights case in the 1950s and 1960s, integrating schools and buses throughout Louisiana, and Berry, a Howard University-trained lawyer. They took on integration fights as if divvying up territory — you take the schools, you take the buses, you take sports. “I’m a good fighter, but I can’t make any money,” Dorsey told the men. “But I could make money if I could fight these white boys.”

Berry and Israel M. Augustine, who would later become the first black district judge in Louisiana, agreed to take his case, with Berry as the lead attorney. The first hurdle was the $350 fee for filing suit in New Orleans federal court. With help from Curry and his sportswriting colleagues, Dorsey and Berry solicited donations by installing cigar boxes in restaurants, bars, and nightclubs in black neighborhoods. One uptown barber, Joe Daly, gave $300, as Evelyn L. Wilson reported in her comprehensive 1993 profile of Berry in the Southern University Law Review.

So on July 28, 1955, Dorsey, with the help of Berry and Augustine, sued the Louisiana State Athletic Commission. White newspapers such as the New Orleans Times-Picayune initially buried the news on Page 3, but black newspapers ran glowing photos of handsome Joe Dorsey, his pretty wife, and their four beaming children. The Louisiana Weekly regularly published a photo of Dorsey with his dukes up, staring straight into the camera, his brow intensely wrinkled, as if he were on the brink of punching out racism in all of Louisiana.

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The Louisiana Weekly, December 5, 1958

Dorsey’s attorneys had to expand the suit a year later, in 1956, after Gov. Long signed the law. Now they weren’t just suing the athletic commission, they were suing the entire state of Louisiana. And the state fought back ferociously. At the time, officials in Southern states didn’t like it when the federal government told them what to do, especially when it came to civil rights. “I’m going to enforce the laws made by the legislature of this state,” vowed Jack Gremillion, Gov. Long’s handpicked attorney general, a Democrat who, ironically, would soon provide crucial support in the South for John F. Kennedy’s 1960 presidential campaign. The state argued “the police power defense,” as Wilson described it in the Southern University Law Review. If Joe Dorsey were to knock out a white boxer, if Wisconsin’s Sydney Williams were to throw a touchdown pass against all-white LSU, the fans would erupt into riots, or so the state of Louisiana predicted.

But the formidable Gremillion ran into a wall of a judge. John Minor Wisdom, who’d graduated first in his Tulane University class, a World War II lieutenant colonel who received the Legion of Merit, had been a liberal Republican who helped Dwight Eisenhower win the presidential nomination. Ike paid Wisdom back for his loyalty in 1957 by appointing him to the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in New Orleans. The timing was important: three years after the Supreme Court’s Brown vs. the Board of Education decision, which desegregated American schools everywhere. Following Brown’s lead, Wisdom and his fellow judges spent the next decade dismantling segregation throughout the South, in voting, schools, jails, playgrounds, restaurants, and bars. In November 1958, the three-judge U.S. District Court, on which Wisdom served, sided with Dorsey. The court called the law “unconstitutional on its face” and chastised Louisiana for attempting to declare itself a sovereign state, independent of federal civil rights protections. “Even if riotous conditions did result from mixed boxing exhibitions,” the court wrote, “we doubt if this statute would be sustained by the Federal Supreme Court.” Less than six months later, the Supreme Court affirmed.

Dorsey, the quiet boxer who could barely scrape together enough money to raise his children, was a hero. “Joe Dorsey as a name is just ordinary, only a step removed from the tens of thousands of John Joneses and Bill Browns and Tom Smiths on the American scene,” the Washington Afro-American opined, in 1959, under the headline “Because of Dorsey.” “Yet this obscure light heavyweight from New Orleans, Louisiana, has earned the gratitude of athletes everywhere through his fighting heart.”

Joe Dorsey’s victory immediately gave white and black people in Louisiana the legal right to play sports and music together. And then he faded away. That may have been because the U.S. Supreme Court didn’t comment in its decision, which meant Dorsey’s case didn’t get as much national media hype as other desegregation verdicts of the time. It may have been because Dorsey resolutely refused to promote himself, and he was rarely quoted in news articles about the case. And Jim Crow did not go away.

It took a lot of civil rights victories, big and small, over a long period of time, for that to happen. Louisiana State University’s football team didn’t sign or put black players on the field — running back Lora Hinton and cornerback Mike Williams, respectively — until 1971 and 1972. In 1961, at the new Playboy Club in the Quarter, Al Belletto, the veteran jazz bandleader, replaced his white bass player with hotshot Richard Payne, a black man he considered the best in the city. To cover his ass, Belletto called his Playboy superiors and explained his decision, as he recalls by phone. There was a pause. His boss asked, “You want the guy?” Belletto responded, “He’s the guy.” The boss said, “You get him.” The boss told him not to worry, because at Playboy, they had far better lawyers than the state of Louisiana could ever possibly have.

For years, Belletto’s mixed-race big band played in the third-floor penthouse at the Playboy Club. The musicians ignored the bunnies as best they could.

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Underwood Archives/UIG / Rex/REX USA

Desegregation came too late for Joe Dorsey. Six months after he won his civil rights case in the Supreme Court, his boxing career abruptly stopped. The next six years of his life, as far as sports are concerned, are a blank. “[Louisiana boxing officials] killed him by not giving him any creditable bouts. They passed the word. If he couldn’t get no fights, he couldn’t train — he would just die out,” remembers the Rev. Samson “Skip” Alexander, a veteran New Orleans civil rights activist, historian, and photographer who knew Dorsey and his family. “That was a different time. You had to watch what you said, and you couldn’t speak out and have an attitude of wanting things to change. If you had that kind of attitude, they passed the word on you.”

In the ’60s, Dorsey supported Evelyn, four young boys, and a baby daughter, Dorinda, as he found work as riverboat banana handler, a liquor-store porter, and, finally, on the docks. During his six years away from boxing, other fighters grew stronger, including Herschel Jacobs of White Plains, N.Y., who had a personal philosophy of never letting anybody hit him with the same blow twice.

On March 21, 1966, when he was 30, Dorsey began his comeback. A decade earlier, white and black musicians had been arrested and hauled into court merely for playing jazz with each other on the same stage during an informal jam session at what would become Preservation Hall; now Lou Messina, the boxing promoter, lived with his white family in an all-black neighborhood across the street from Municipal Auditorium, outside the French Quarter, and nobody had any trouble.

“I don’t remember New Orleans having the [same] racial tensions as the rest of the South,” recalls the late Messina’s son, Louis, who is now a veteran concert promoter for AEG Live. By this time, attitudes were beginning to change — black fighters could fight black or white fighters. Dorsey laid out free-swinging Bobby Simmons of Philadelphia in four rounds at the Municipal. Later, Dorsey gave the same treatment in five rounds to Texas’ Benny Bowser. Both were black. Then Lou Messina gave Joe Dorsey a night of his own, telling reporters it was “long overdue appreciation.” Messina set Dorsey up with hulking white Arizonian Johnny Featherman. Dorsey crushed him, although the fight hit a curious snag in the third round, according to the local papers, when Dorsey hit Featherman so hard he fell to one knee, but Dorsey slipped in an extra punch, prompting the ref to stop the fight rather than pronouncing a knockout. The crowd of mostly black Dorsey fans booed lustily, and Dorsey eventually won on a TKO.

On Oct. 17, 1966, however, Dorsey was struggling to stay on his feet. An hour and 10 minutes into his prizefight against young Herschel Jacobs, 26, even the crowd of 1,900 at the Municipal Auditorium could see Dorsey’s rugged fists of TNT were not as effective as usual. It wasn’t as if Dorsey wasn’t in shape. He prided himself on his workouts, jumping rope and pounding bags endlessly at Whitey’s Gym, spending hours beating on the best young boxers he and his manager could find. And Jacobs didn’t have a physical edge. Dorsey came in on the scales at 175 and a quarter pounds. Jacobs hit 176. Both were light heavyweights, built like upside-down triangles, wide and thick in the chest and skinny and muscular everywhere else. (Evelyn Dorsey, who always sat in the front row of Joe Dorsey’s fights, in a pretty dress, next to his sister, had the responsibility of altering the fighter’s shirts so they could properly accommodate his chest.) Dorsey had the better record, 22-4-1, and his manager insisted he had never been knocked down. Jacobs was 20-12-2, his manager attributing the losses and ties to being “jobbed” at opponents’ rings with rinky-dink hometown refs. Both were working men: By this point Dorsey was a longshoreman, while Jacobs worked construction, “exercising all day long, but you’re getting paid for it.”

For their fight in October, Jacobs had been favored slightly. He had the better moves, but in the early rounds, according to Louisiana Weekly, Dorsey landed the best punches. He came out flailing in the fourth, pushing Jacobs into a corner, and kept up the momentum in the fifth with strong combinations. Jacobs wasn’t fazed. His manager, Kid Sharkey, had been pushing him absurdly hard, and the fighter had a regimen of getting up every morning at 5 a.m. to run 5 miles, taking a bus to his construction job, working all day, taking another bus to the gym, and training against top fighters, including light heavyweight champion Jose Torres, all evening.

At the end of the ninth round, Herschel Jacobs’ right fist came out of nowhere as the bell rang, connecting with Dorsey’s jaw and knocking “The Fighting Longshoreman” on his butt. Dorsey tried to recover in the 10th, but Jacobs had broken him. Jacobs’ final blow was a left hook, flying in from what seemed like half the ring, hitting Dorsey cleanly on his right jaw. Dorsey went limp, hit the rope, then hit the floor.

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One of the challenging paradoxes of researching Dorsey’s life is that while he was such an important civil rights figure in Louisiana, information about him is available only in scraps, an old feature in Jet here, some sports-section paragraphs in the Times-Picayune or the Louisiana Weekly there, bits and pieces picked up in old New Orleans city directories. Dorsey died of cancer in 2004. His wife, Evelyn, has Alzheimer’s disease and can no longer give interviews. (They divorced late in life.) Two of their sons are dead, one is serving time in a Louisiana prison, and Dwight, a longtime chef who now installs air conditioning, didn’t want to be interviewed. The Dorseys also adopted two younger sons.

That leaves Dorinda, a systems analyst for the Department of Agriculture in New Orleans. She is quiet and stoic, the way most people who knew Joe describe him. But she can be coaxed into giggly remembrances of her parents. She talks in short sentences, and rarely says more than she has to. “Normally, he was training,” she says. “I remember him drinking a big cup of raw eggs. He’d train. He could jump rope — twist and turn the rope. He worked out — punching bags and all that.”

She has darker memories too. Dorsey may have been a civil rights hero, but he sometimes turned those big hands on his family. “I think he hit me once because of something I did,” Dorinda says, laughing nervously. “My mama used to whup me all the time.” During a tour of her family’s old Seventh Ward neighborhood in her Nissan Altima, Dorinda recalls Cyril Kelly, a Texas fighter her father beat in the ring at least twice, coming over in the ’70s to insist that he used to beat her dad in the ring. (Most of the official records are documented in the Times-Picayune archive and collected via BoxRec.) This turned out not to be true, but Dorsey, true to dignified character, didn’t bother to humiliate his old friend by correcting him in front of his daughter.

After losing to Herschel Jacobs, Joe Dorsey tried one more comeback fight in 1969, and lost. The boxing career he began at age 11 was, truly, over. As a longshoreman, he supervised a gang that would ride in trucks up and down the Mississippi River, from New Orleans to the Port of Baton Rouge. For a long time, black workers had to do the dirty work. White workers ran the lift machines, and worked on the decks of the ships. Black people worked “in the hole,” using their backs and arms and legs to hoist bags of cotton and other heavy cargo off the ships.

To make matters worse, Angola state prison inmates, after serving their sentences, gravitated to the gangs on the docks and had no problem beating up their co-workers and stealing their money on the job. Dorsey’s colleague on the docks, boxing fan Alcee P. Honoré, says Dorsey had to teach a lesson or two with his fists. That usually did it. “He wasn’t anybody you wanted to mess with,” Honoré tells me.

Joseph Dorsey’s legal battles integrated sports and music in New Orleans and Louisiana. Dorinda wasn’t alive when they happened, but she keeps a plastic container of yellowed articles in her home in New Orleans, pulling it out for any visitors expressing an interest. She’s thinking about donating them to the Amistad Research Center at the local Tulane University, but hasn’t yet brought herself to do so. Dorsey’s nieces and nephews brought the articles to their elementary school classes for years, boasting of the important man in their heritage.

“He didn’t talk about it,” Dorinda tells me. “A lot of people didn’t know about it. But his family does.”

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