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#if I were about 10 years back in my career I'd totally do this
avastrasposts · 10 months
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Hello!
So I just realised about 300+ people decided to follow me and, I suppose, read my stories? And 300 is such a small number but to me it's surreal that so many of you want to read what I write!
So I thought I'd introduce myself a little, just to be polite you know, and be like those author blurbs they put on the inside flap of books. So read on if you want to know more about me and my writing, or just keep scrolling if you'd rather I remain a redheaded mystery with a thing for Frankie Morales.
Also, chapter 16 of The Pilot and his Girl will be posted tomorrow, it just needs another round of editing.
Also, again, this got long, so if you can't be bothered reading all my ramblings below the cut, I totally understand. I have a habit of getting wordy....
So, I'm in my 40's and I've been writing for most of my life, starting with embarrassing little short stories in adorable misspelled fashion when I was just wee. I aspired to be a journalist and then went on a completely different tangent career wise, ending up with a PhD in an area I no longer work in (fifteen years of higher education never to be touched again but you definitely want me on your team in a pub quiz!). I have vague memories of writing fan fiction in my early 20, I think? (I'm old, give me a break). But I only got back to it late last year as a way to kick start my imagination and discipline around writing again. I needed a creative outlet and writing is something I always enjoyed and found easy to do.
I live in England, in the amazing but fucking expensive city of London. I look pretty much like my profile picture, only more wrinkles and maybe a bit of silver in all that gingerness. I'm a very good cook and baker (Pedro, I'll teach you how to cook any day!) and I'm married to my very own sweet Latino man. He's not called Frankie but he does call me cariño. I have big chunk of family in Sweden and I speak a little bit of Swedish (it's actually where I am right now, we're over here celebrating midsummer).
I started writing fanfics for The Boys fandom and Karl Urban as I was binging the whole show after finishing season 4. Then I stumbled into the Pedro Pascal fandom as I watched The Last of Us.
TLoU has a very special place in my heart. I've been gaming since my early teens and bought a Playstation 3 after saving for months, my first console after playing on PC for years. When TLoU came out in 2013 I bought and played it straight away and I, like so many others, had an experience playing it. It's the only story, in any medium, that's made me cry after just 10-15 minutes of game play. The scene were Sarah dies, still gets me every time. And the rest of the game...I turned up at work the next week in a daze, just needing to tell people about this incredible story and experience I'd had. It was like no other game I'd ever played, before or since. And I've replayed the game about once a year since 2013. Back then, that kind of game was totally unique, there was nothing like it. Some games had explored stronger story telling elements, but not on this level, nothing came even close to creating such a bond between gamer and characters. Now days we're spoiled by powerful storytelling in video games, in 2013, The Last of Us was totally unique (sorry, I'm blabbering, but I could go on at length about TLoU and the impact it had).
So when I heard there was talks about turning into a tv-series, I was scared. Really worried. The gaming community have seen so many horrendous adaptations of video games, my beloved Assassin's Creed was butchered in 2016. But then I heard Pedro Pascal had been cast as Joel and I was carefully hopeful, and then Bella Ramsey as Ellie and I got really excited. I'd seen them both in Game of Thrones, both of their performances sticking in my mind. I even remember reading about Pedro being cast in GoT and looking him up and being disappointed because he looked nothing like I'd pictured the Red Viper when I read the books. But then he just swanned in and crushed it, he was so damn good, he won me over straight away. I can't imagine anyone else playing Oberyn.
And then of course, the first few trailers of TLoU dropped and we got glimpses of the show and I remember texting my equally TLoU obsessed friend and we squealed in delight at how good it looked! And the first time I heard the clicker sound....I shuddered, it was a very real physical reaction. If I'd been on the actual set and heard it, I think I would've run a mile.
And then, as I was still writing The British Connection, a fic set in The Boys fandom, I watched Triple Frontier, and, like so many others, fell hard for sweet Frankie Morales. So jumping the gun a bit, I decided to write something with him, just a drabble, to get used to writing him and to write in the Reader insert format. But it kind a grew in scope and when I had the idea of sticking him and the rest of the Triple Frontier boys into TLoU universe I knew I had to create something bigger.
Looking back I would've made the story tighter, less lengthy, had I known from the start that's where it was going to go. But part of the fun of fan fiction is posting as you go, I think. I get feedback from you guys and it makes me think of other elements to add to the story. There isn't always a set road map for how a fic is going to develop.
If you've made it this far, congratulations and thank you, I'm impressed you read all that rambling from some stranger on Tumblr! The Pilot and his Girl has a set plan now, I have chapters drawn up and although I'm not sure how many chapters I'm going to end up with, I know where the story is going. You'll find out what's happened to Pope, Will and Benny. And Joel and Tommy will of course come back to the story later on. There will be more trauma and angst as the story continues but there will be a happy ending, of sorts, in the end.
And again, thank you all for reading, commenting and reblogging! I love you all!
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thetruearchmagos · 4 months
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15 OC Questions!
Thank you kindly @theprissythumbelina for the Tag!
You mentioned my MCs, but I wouldn't say I have any considering how I do the whole writing thing. So, for the sake of actually having something to talk about, I'll go with Gustav J. Schmidt, specifically in his post-Wars iteration.
1. Are you named after anyone? No, no, I don't believe so. 2. When was the last time you cried? Last week, and I'm not afraid to say it. We'd just wrapped a memorial, you see, and that night I suppose it all washed over me, as strong as ever. It was, nice, and at least I had Higgs with me... 3. Do you have kids? Oh, no, none at all! But, well, I've always... that is to say, we're not old crows yet, if you get my meaning! 4. Do you use sarcasm a lot? Too often, and yet at the same time not enough. 5. What’s the first thing you notice about people? How they dress, followed by how they walk. 6. What’s your eye color? Blue like clear skies, and as sharp as they were a decade ago. 7. Scary movies or happy endings? Happy endings, any time. Never quite understood the appeal of horror, once you've seen enough of the real stuff cheap gore is soft stuff. 8. Any special talents? I'll have you know I played for the Army team at the Services Billiards Tourney for three years straight when I was a Captain at GSI, and we won the whole run! Oh, those were the days... 9. Where were you born? Well, that is for me to know, and for you, not to. 10. What are your hobbies? Well, these days I've finally found the time to polish off some old writing I left unfinished back at GSI- the General Staff Institute, that is. It's work, but the sort I for the passion of it more than anything else. 11. Have you any pets? Never could stand animals, myself. We had Ol' Sarge Scalie back in Shatihab, the Corps mascot, but I left him in the care of the veterinary folks as much as possible. Cute creature for a desert lizard, but acidic bile never had a place in my tent. 12. What sports do you play/have played? My old Colonel put me on the Battalion rugby team for a game, and that accounts for the sum total of my sporting career. Damn near broke my back that day... 13. How tall are you? Oh, last I checked I was fifteen short of two metres, which isn't much less than when I commissioned. The difference being that I was considered lanky at 19, and now decidedly less so. 14. Favorite subject in school? Oh, I adored history! Majored in it at Northrop, and whenever I was out of field work I tried to get sent somewhere academic to get more of it. Military history, for the most part, though I suppose that comes with the uniform. 15. Dream job? Well, unless another war breaks out and my services find themselves in need, I'm hoping to keep where I am now. A permanent residency at GSI would be nice, or perhaps the new Combined Services Staff Institute they're opening. I've every confidence that our new officership will prove themselves to be every bit our superiors, and I'd like to help make that happen.
I, myself, will be Tagging @hessdalen-globe (For you nagging!) @athenswrites @thatndginger @avrablake @coffeexafterxmidnight and anyone who'd like to take part!
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hello-nichya-here · 5 months
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What are your thoughts on MJ's daughter supporting Israel and trying to distance herself from her dad? Girl won't even defend him
Jesus fucking Christ, are you guys coordinating these asks? This is the third time one of you asked me it, I'm legit impressed.
Let's get the easy, and horrible part out of the way first: nobody on the fucking planet has any excuse to support Israel. You can hate Hamas and the goverments of countries like Iran without excusing the literal genocide of civilians in Palestine, because yes, that's what Israel is doing right now.
Paris Jackson (and everyone else, famous or not, that is still pretending Israel isn't commiting all kinds of crimes against humanity right now) should have known better and needs to get her shit together.
Now, onto the messy part:
Although Paris has recently said "it's not her role/place" to defend her dad, lets not forget the other things she said on that same controversial statement:
1 - She fully believes her father is innocent and called the "documentary" Leaving Neverland pure lies.
2 - She believes that everything that could be said about her father's innocence has been said already and she'd have nothing new to add to the conversation.
3 - Her cousin Taj has become basically the leader of the family's campain to clear Michael's name and has been doing an amazing job.
4 - She's not as patient as her father was to deal with that kind of stuff and she has been focusing more on trying to recover from her mental health issues.
That last one is important, specially when we remember that Paris has claimed to have been sexually abused in school (which left her with PTSD), and that she has struggled with addiction, paranoia and a freaking suicide attempt.
It would not be surprising to me if having to listen to allegations of childhood sexual abuse is extremelly triggering for her - especially since the person being accused of being the abuser is her late father, who was murdered by his doctor when she was just 10-years-old, and she was treated like a stupid child in denial everytime she tried to point out the things being said about him were not true.
Considering she has continued to praise her father over the years, both with small things like posting a family picture on Father's day this year and big things like saying he was a super accepting man that was totally cool with her not being straight, and DID defend him publically every now and then, like, once again, calling "Leaving Neverland" pure lies when it came out, I'd say she's not really trying to distance herself from her dad or imply she's starting to think he might have been guilty. I think she just genuinely cannot fucking stand having to act as his lawyer only to have every word she says ignored, no matter how much evidence she offers to back it up.
(And before anyone brings up the fact that Taj was also a victim of sexual abuse in his childhood and has is still speaking out in support of his uncle, including of how he helped him deal with his trauma, keep in mind that people cope differently and heal at different paces).
Do I think she could have phrased some things better? Yes.
If either of my parents were accused of something horrible and a bunch of people kept insisting they were guilty despite all evidence poiting to the contrary, would I interact with said celebrities? No, and it is extremelly disappointing whenever Paris does that...
... But then again, Michael was at war with his record label, Sony, for years and was convinced they were not only sabotaging his career but also trying to murder him, yet he still was ready to go on a final tour that was going to make them A LOT of money. Like father, like daughter.
Honestly, I would not blame the entire Jackson family if they just made one last big documentary to try and clear Michael's name, then, regardless of how it was taken, packed all their shit and moved to a remote island, far away from the spotlight and never spoke to any journalist or had any social media presence again. They've been getting screwed over and surrounded by awful people in the industry, the media, and amongst other celebrities since the goddamn sixties, it's a miracle anyone of them is still trying to "play the game" or explain themselves.
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orlissa · 6 months
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Tagged by the lovely @aloveforjaneausten :)
1. How many works do you have on AO3? 103. (mind you, some of these are crossposted on ff.net, but many of my earlier fics were only ever published there, so I'd say that actual number of fics I've ever written is closer to 200.)
2. What's your total A03 words count? 742.871
3. What fandoms do you write for? Currently? Pretty much only SaB (I usually only write for one fandom at a time). Over the course of my fic career? I've written for maybe about a dozen, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Avatar: the Last Airbender being maybe the most prominent ones.
4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? Terrible, Beautiful, Unsaid Things (2258), Through Wide, Grey Eyes (1381), The First Star in the Black Velvet Night (1182), A Little Star in the Night (1103), and The Unabridged and Annotated Diary of Mrs. Alina Morozova (874).
5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? On AO3, rarely - since the system counts your replies as a comment, inflating the numbers, it feels almost like cheating/messing with the stats, so basically I only ever reply if I get a direct question there. But I always respond here, my askbox is open, and I'm semi-present on twitter and blue sky.
6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Not gonna give actual titles here (I'd have to look them up), but I have used writing as a therapy tool to process losing people close to me. A family friend (almost like an uncle to me) who died suddenly in 2008, and my grandma, after a couple of months long illness, in 2015. Those two stories are, to me, at least, the angstiest things I've ever written.
7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Depends whom you ask, I think? :D But my fics usually have a happy ending.
8. Do you get hate on fics? Not really. I've recieved hate personally for the couples I ship, and some... puzzling comments over the years. (One I remember clearly for some reason: I wrote a two-parter story about (mostly) Azula post-atla, playing with her fractured mind, going into a tentative improvement. There was an early scene where she basically hallucinated her childhood and saw Zuko as the younger sibling - her unconscious desire to shift the power relations. Then of course I had a reader who felt the need to school me on how I don't know the canon well enough, because Zuko is the older sibling.)
9. Do you write smut? If so what kind? I do, the very vanilla kind (one guy, one chick, nothing too kinky), but in a sensual, kinda poetic way (I hope)
10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written? Once (I mean: back in high school) I started writing a Harry Potter/Wicked crossover. Thankfully, it never saw the light of day (it was also written in Hungarian, if I remember well). I think that might have been the only crossover I've ever written.
11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I know of.
12. Have you ever had a fic translated? I've gotten some permission requests for translations over the years, but I've never seen any of the finished products.
13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before? Kinda? I once wrote a one-shot with a steamy-leaning ending, and @abedsmessedupmeta wrote a smutty continuation for it. Does that count?
14. What's your all-time favourite ship? Depends when you ask...
15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will? BWHAHAHA. All of them (no, I'll finish them, really). Next question, please...
16. What are your writing strengths? I'd like to say emotional descriptions, dialogue, and humor. And apparently smut?
17. What are your writing weaknesses? Writing complex movement (e.g. fight scenes), longer narratives
18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? It's a tricky thing, because you have to integrate it into the text seamlessly, in a way that doesn't break the rhythm of the text. A Discovery of Witches does a pretty good job of it, I think. Also, bilingual (poliglot) characters habitually using certain words from their native language, especially if they are well-integrated in fandom (see: Russian terms of endearment for Aleksander) can be a handy stylistic tool.
19. First fandom you wrote for? Harry Potter. I was 12, didn't speak English well enough yet, and it was basically the only fandom with proper fanfic presence in Hungarian. A real gateway drug.
20. Favourite fic you've ever written? I wanna say Terrible, Beautiful, Unsaid Things, because while I honestly think that it turned out really well, it was my big comeback after about 1,5 years of inactivity, and I never dared to hope that it would become such a hit.
Tagging @stargazerdaisy @polikszena @menatiera @cpt-winniethepooh
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dollarbin · 5 months
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Dollar Bin #26:
Bob Dylan's Bringing it All Back Home
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Ah, the initially alarming, deeply flawed, but ultimately classic, transition album:
Neil Young started his deep dive into the ditch with Time Fades Away's bungling fever; Tom Petty crept off the plantation in search of SoCal zombies and skateboards with the hodgepodge airplane crash of Let Me Up; Joni Mitchell jumped off her increasingly precious clouds and instead fed us mysterious brownies, terrifying electric piano trance music and street corner clarinet; Paul Simon abandoned Artie on their graceful bridge and dove straight into the troubled water he'd formerly avoided at all costs, determined to reunite Mother and Child; Ringo and his clever lads joyfully totaled their quaint and geriatric tour bus so as to embrace rampaging chaos.
Each of these artists would have made their fans happy by staying the course. The public wanted endless choruses of All Together Now from each of them. After all, no one ever wants to see their hero just do it in the road.
But thank god they all swerved into the ditch, transitioning through straight up weird songs like L.A., Duncan, Woodstock and All Mixed Up to new, previously undreamt heights with Tired Eyes, American Tune, Blue and Free Fallin'. Thank God Paul McCartney shrieked about monkey sex long enough to give us Hey Jude.
Like most concepts in the Dollar Bin, Bob Dylan charted the seemingly reckless course for each of these vital transitions. And so let's talk about Bob's own transitional mess/masterpiece of a fifth record, Bringing it All Back Home.
It's of course tempting to think of the record in terms of Sides A and B: Like the 66 tour that followed, Bob makes an electric declaration alongside a conciliatory acoustic compromise.
But I think that assessment is all wrong, or at least too elementary (for the tour and the album). Rather, I think Bringing it All Back Home has four different, mingled song sets to consider: there are a) two tossed off novelty songs, b) three hastily recorded future masterpieces, c) three sprawling problems, and d) two songs that are total filler.
Add a fifth category: there's also one - and only one - full success on Bringing It All Back Home. That's right, it's one of my favorite albums of all time and yet I think there is only one song on the record that Bob did right the first time:
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Despite the popular imagination there are plenty of Dylan tracks which feature great singing. At least once a decade Dylan reminds us that he's capable of nailing a melody alongside surprising and perfect phrasing.
Want a handy, 70 year long, left field list from off the top of my head? I'm happy to provide!
60's Moonshiner
70's Knocking on Heaven's Door
80's Blind Willie McTell
90's Lone Pilgrim
00's Nettie Moore
10's Long and Wasted Years
20's Key West
Dylan sings She Belongs to Me with similar elegance and personality, yes? The song is built on repetition and yet nothing seems to occur more than once. He tells us twice that his lady friend is an artist, he bows down to her twice and describes her firm footwork, you got it, twice, but he does so in such different fashions, stretching the second phrase in the second line of each verse just so, like a tableau vivant that has obviously changed - but how? - while you were blinking.
Indeed I've always thought of She Belongs To Me as the musical version of the album's cover, the most staged and ambitious of Dylan's career. Albert Grossman's impossibly elegant wife, the piles of rick rack and the precious kitty cat in Dylan's lap: like the song's title itself, none of these things actually appear in Dylan's perfectly paced, intimate and stately song. But every detail seems borrowed from the song's missing verses.
(It's too bad a literalist approach was taken for the Basement Tapes cover. I'd prefer images from the absent songs rather than the drunken tea party dress up vibe that was chosen. Dylan, at least, seems to understand this: while everyone else mugs for the camera he flips his stringed object 90 degrees and dreams about the door...)
Dylan of course opened his 66 tour each night with She Belongs to Me, and all the versions are successful. But none of them touch the arrangement from the album track: Bruce Langhorne's swaying, gurgling lead guitar, the unobtrusive but burgeoning drums: everything waltzes along perfectly together and insists that Bob keep up. And keep up he does, still finding chances to linger without ever getting sleepy. It makes for lovely, lovely music: perfect from the beginning.
But most of all we think of Bringing It All Back Home as an introduction to masterpieces that Bob, and everyone else, has been wrestling with ever since. Dylan recorded the whole album in 3 days so it's no wonder that songs like It's All Over Now Baby Blue, Love Minus Zero/No Limit, and Mr Tambourine Man are so complex that we're still getting to the bottom of them.
I'm not going to spend much time on Mr Tambourine Man here; check out the Dollar Bin (#6?) on Judy Collins' Fifth Record. Suffice it to say that Dylan's first version is great, but is obviously not the master take in that there were at least two competing versions that same year that were just as good.
But let's linger over Love Minus Zero/No Limit. It's one of my all time favorites, period. I have no real idea what Dylan is trying to tell us but the poetry never fails to knock me out. Consider the third verse, which echoes Proofrock's yearning, anticipates Get Smart and makes touchstones out of everything from chess to Daniel's prophesies about Nebuchadnezzar's faulty artistic future. This is Dylan and his most obtusely wonderful:
The cloak and dagger dangles, Madams light the candles. In ceremonies of the horsemen, Even the pawn must hold a grudge. Statues made of match sticks, Crumble into one another, My love winks, she does not bother, She knows too much to argue or to judge.
And yet the album's dense arrangement simply does not understand the song's greatness. The same backing players who both corralled and gave Bob space on She Belongs To Me here force Dylan to rush through his thoughts and linger over nothing; we don't need complexity behind such lyrics and the melody: works of art always look better without gilded frames.
Dylan knew as much; he knew he couldn't hope to contain the song's multitudes on first attempt so he gave up after two series of rushed attempts over two days. But on The Other Side of the Mirror, recorded the following summer at the Newport Folk Festival, we see him come much, much closer, as the wind howls like a hammer no less, to unveiling the song's full greatness.
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I'll make a nerd club comment quickly, however, about Bringing It All Back Home's mono mix. I grew up listening to this record on an 80's era CD that made everything sound like it had been recorded in Dylan's private vomitorium. Listening this morning to my more recently purchased, but almost 60 year old, mono record, I wondered if the album track is way better than I claim here.
When it comes to others trying to touch Dylan's own interpretration of the masterpiece I usually groan (when Eric Clapton tried to play it at Bob Fest, I, listening live on some barely-there FM station, almost shouted my famous farmer buddy Ned, who was driving his dad's ancient suburban, off a very windy mountain road. Thanks for not letting us die Ned!).
The best cover of Love Minus Zero that I know of is hardly a cover at all. Witness the Go-Betweens sneaking it in to their song Clouds (no, not that song Clouds; this is one of their own with that title):
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But even so, I'm sticking to my guns: Love Minus Zero is best unadorned and sung by Bob.
The album's other lyrical masterpiece, It's All Over Now, Baby Blue, has an even richer history and an even more questionable start. I can understand, wholeheartedly, while Dylan felt done after the album's eventual take was in the can. The swirling, melodic bass alone makes the track worthy of inclusion on this, or any other, record. Dylan adds impassioned vocals and sensitive harmonica; it all comes together into a marvelous flotilla of music.
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But the song still includes a straight-up, gasp-worthy, mistake. Check out the third verse, second line. According to Bob himself, the lyric is, and always has been, "all your reindeer armies, they're all going home". Following up on Bob's seasick sailors rowing home, this is a bizarre and perfect lyric for a bizarre and perfect song.
But Dylan sings nothing of the sort. Instead we get something that sounds like "your empty handed army-ers are going home." That's not the same thing Bob! Indeed it sounds like you were so into this take 1/2 way in that you blew it, then shrugged and went out to kick it with Nico or something. Dude, Bob, give us another take!
He did of course. Like She Belongs to Me, he made the song a centerpiece of his 66 tour, usually nailing it. And many others have given us earnest versions of their own, from Them's Beck-worthy cover to the obligatory Byrd's version, and so on.
But this entire post was inspired by Chan Marshall's just released take of Baby Blue. If you haven't heard all of the Cat Power re-creation of Dylan's Judas concert, get your act together, stop reading this and do so right now.
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Why, oh why, doesn't Dylan tour and record his next album right now with Chan and Fionna Apple sharing the vocals with him? You know both women are game, and I guarantee you both of them would remember it's reindeer we're talking about here, not armyers.
Okay, that covers the initially tossed off classics-to-be. Let's talk about the problem songs: It's Alright Ma and Gates of Eden. There's a lot to be said in favor of these songs. They both feature dense writing with bumper-sticker-ready tag lines. "Even the President of the United Sates Sometime Has to Stand Naked" and "The Savage Soldier Just Sticks His Head In Sand and Then Complains" are a bit wordy but there's plenty of room on the back of my 08 Honda Civic Hybrid. I'm ready to make people tailgate me and squint.
But Dylan delivers both numbers as dirges. Frankly I have to take a deep breath to get through them back to back. Listening is like doing your homework, and, while I'm a pretty good teacher, I'm a lousy student. Thus, they are problem songs.
But Dylan figured out one of them, It's Alright Ma, in a big way in 74 while on tour with The Band. He belts it out in frantic double time, creating the perfect Watergate Era protest song. Obtuse and direct, vague and fierce:
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I was negative 2 years old at that point but I swear I heard Dylan's holler in utero, beckoning me to join the argument here on Earth. I'm happy to have answered the call, and I hope I never see Trump naked. But jail would be sweet...
As far as I know, Gates of Eden has never been similarly salvaged but I'd argue it's ready for resuscitation. Bob's dense Adam and Eve tale is just sitting around 60 years later, waiting for someone other than Bob to finally give it some life. Check out the lyrics to the second verse; there's plenty worth wrestling with here:
The lamppost stands with folded arms, its iron claws attached To curbs 'neath holes where babies wail, though it shadows metal badge All and all can only fall with a crashing but meaningless blow No sound ever comes from the Gates of Eden
I don't know how a lamppost can shadow a metal badge under wailing toddlers, but the whole thing freaks me out in good ways. I wish Leonard Cohen had given Phil Specter the boot and sung this with Bob instead of Don't Go Home With Your Hard-On.
The third of the problem songs is problematic in an entirely different sense. Yes, I know that Maggie's Farm is historically important because Bob used it to help create punk rock in 65 by lighting up Newport's speakers and driving Pete Seeger into an axe-wielding rage, but the song has basically no melody and is, to my ears, pretty dull. Name me a good version. Dare you! Meanwhile, I ain't gonna talk about this song no more.
I'm afraid to say that the remaining two categories, Bringing It All Back Home's novelty songs and its filler, are less rich pastures for us to dwell in, but let's visit anyway, shall we?
First of all, I'm here to tell you that one of Bob Dylan's masterpieces, Subterranean Homesick Blues, is nothing more than a novelty song. By that I mean it's a gimmick: awesome once and then never worth redoing by anyone, ever again. I've never heard a Dylan live version of any kind - he knows better - and I dare even my famous brother to produce a quality cover. (And if he plays me the Red Hot Chili Peppers' take I will declare him no longer famous.)
Simply put, I think the song is a fantastic and spontaneous piece of wit that would go stale the moment it is ever retold. Do I like the song and its sweet one liners? Sure! I dare say I have even taken a fair bit of Bob's advice to heart over the years. No one's ever caught me hanging around an inkwell, that's for damn sure. But I never want to hear the song in any other context beyond the opening two minutes of this record or in the poster flinging alleyway bit.
Thankfully Bob feels the same way. Can you imagine a Budokan version, slowed down to a reggae beat and chanted with the ladies while Dickicus Maximus on the sax shows off his swaggering mass? Or imagine a Jesus phase rewrite accompanied by auto-harps entitled Jesus is the Answer Blues (Christ's in his Heaven's, mixing up the punishments; I'm on the pavement thinking about the rapture..), or a Neverending Tour take wherein no one other than Bob, including the band, even knows the song is happening (must be Cat's in the Well?) until Bob suddenly tells everyone to light themselves a candle, at which point everyone goes from stupefied to frantic because they failed to hit record on their smuggled-in iPhones.
Instead of covers or remakes we're left with a long line of other novelty songs in the same vein. We're talking End of the World As We Know It, about 1/4 of every great song in Elvis Costello's catalog from Pump it Up to Beyond Belief and, I'm so sorry because now it's stuck in your head, We Didn't Start the Fire.
Dylan knew his 115th Dream was a one-off joke from the get go, and so he added the hilarity from the first of its only two attempts onto the intro for the record. I never miss a chance to grin at the nonsense Bob and Captain A-Rab get into, but this song is not on any best of lists and, like Subterranean Homesick Blues, has thankfully never been attempted by anyone since.
Curiously, it's also the last "Bob Dylan's Dream" song we ever got from Dylan. I guess there are really only two of them, but I think of the two I Shall Be Frees and Talking World War Three Blues as additional members of the genre. Now don't get me wrong, I love Series of Dreams as much as any other Bobhead, but images of running and climbing are no substitute for another song from Dylan's ridiculous dream journal about harpoons and Bob being reminded that he is not Christ.
That leaves us with the filler: On the Road Again and Outlaw Blues are exactly that. Had he written them, Stephen Stills would proudly place these songs on his Greatest Hits package; they are that bad.
Dylan's made more than just this one transition record, of course. John Wesley Harding... Street Legal... World Gone Wrong... Maybe all his records are transitions!
Just imagine us ten years and three new Dylan albums from now. Bob is a spry 92 and has just added a cheap-enough-for-me lager to his whiskey line. And, at long last, he has invited me over to the bobpad as my famous brother's plus one; that's right: after years of rejecting interview appeals from even the AARP, the Bobster finally wants to talk, and my bro's more than earned the gig. Our plan for the evening is to quiz Bob about how he transitioned into yet another masterful phase way back during Rough and Rowdy Ways.
Now that's a dream I'd like to hear him sing about.
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alarrytale · 7 months
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Hello! I would like to add my pov when you and other fans all calling Louis out for his drugs/alcohol/cigarettes use and mentioning it. I´ve been a fan of The 1975 since their debut in 2013 so I basically saw their rise from quite unknown indie band playing small venues to being this huge and world-known. I am very aware that Matty Healy is not popular in this fandom and I totally respect it because I know he´s problematic and even quitted the fandom back in 2018.
Writing how I saw their rise of fame I also saw Matty´s poor mental health back then and dealing with fame - my first show of them was in Oct 2014 and all I saw was a totally stoned/drunk person on stage who barely knew what he´s doing there. Few months after my show he had a big breakdown during one show and his bandmates needed to take him off the stage and I think that show ended premature. When I saw them second time in 2016 Matty came to the stage being annoyed af, he just came there looking like he´s way too bothered he´s been taken out of bed that day because of some show and didn´t even act that he´s enjoying that show. In 2017 he also looked quite off and not enjoying the show and I started to think he´s on drugs again (even when he was in "happy" long term relationship and fans were obsessed pointing out how happy he was) and of course - few month after that he ended on rehab because of being addicted on heroine. I saw them again this summer and I need to say that after 10 years of being their fan (I don´t count the time when I quitted the fandom because I still liked their old music) it was finally a good show and Matty looked the best.
Also for those who don´t know him - Matty is very well known for liking to get stoned, their famous song Chocolate is about weed, other songs mention cocaine or heroine, he´s been spotted with joint milion times, he posted stories where he´s saying his wannabe intelectual bs being stoned and there was even an affair when back in 2015 fans spotted him on the street and he took bong with them. He also used to drink and smoke on stage. And even after everything that happend, nobody cancelled him, called him out, there was no huge fandom exodus because of his behaviour and the band is still very very popular and Matty is loved by his fans.
I´m not writing this as an excuse for Louis what he´s doing and that we should just take it as a normal thing and not calling him out for being unprofessional but comparing him with Matty I just wanted to point out that there are musicians who are much worse than Louis trying to fit into his lad image (or why the hell is he like this) and yes, Matty is problematic af but look at him and compare him with Louis - there are so many lines Louis can crossed and so what he´s doing is nothing compare what I witnessed with Matty. I still think that this is his 2nd solo tour and he´s getting used to having shows which are only about him. Maybe I´m optimistic but I just think he´ll need to get comfortable and get used to routine and find out drinking/getting stoned every other night is not sustainable for long run of being on tour for months. And yes, realize that his wannabe lad image is hurting him - but that´s maybe what will come when he´ll get more comfortable and realize he don´t need to fit into anything to be loved.
Hello, anon!
Thank you for your perspective! I've now learned more about mat*y hea*y than i'd ever care to know lol.
We can agree that mat*y is far worse than Louis, but why are we comparing the two? I don't see any similarities, not in their upbringing, their career, challenges they've faced or target audience/fandom? The only thing they have in common is shit coping mechanisms.
Matty seems like a nepo baby who grew up rich, maybe without getting attention from his parents, which led him to craving attention, any attention. He probably faced pressure to be cool. His mental health suffered from that and it lead him to drugs and acting out. His band is currently taking an indefinate hiatus because he's widely disliked and currently 'cancelled' for being deeply problematic.
Louis' issues stems from being told he's not good enough and from supressing his sexuality, against his will. In addition he's had some devastating losses and now probably feels a responsibility to provide for his family. He's also faking being a dad, while knowing his fandom doesn’t buy it. He's living under enormous pressure. He is pushing himself more than is healthy and is drowning his sorrows in drinks and drugs. Louis is not generally problematic, and him starting to not giving his all as an artist is a new development. He's not doing it for attention, but out of insecurity. He's also not intentionally trying to harm others with his actions. So i think their cases are a bit too different to be compared.
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ashyblondwaves · 2 years
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From the asks you'd like to have post
Thing I want to know about you
What was the first piece of media you remember getting properly invested in? What sorta stuff did you take part in in that community? (Eg reading fics, making art, just consuming the content, reading theories, etc)
Have you heard of Star Trek? Thoughts?
Why I follow you
Honestly I saw that you were following people back and I was like oh! Opportunity for new mutual?? Then we interacted like once and I imprinted on you like a small bird so you pop into my head all the time now when I'm on Tumblr. I like ur Wandavision posts, but also in general you're kind of a mood.
What I associate you with
Generally, Wandavision, also that you have kids. You seem a bit tired with ur job. You just seem like a cool adult really.
Anything
I get to fly a plane tomorrow!! I'm really excited :D
Hello! Thanks so much for sending in a message! My thirsty ass appreciates it and YOU! <3
What was the first piece of media you remember getting properly invested in? What sorta stuff did you take part in in that community? (Eg reading fics, making art, just consuming the content, reading theories, etc) I would have to say it was ER. The show started when I was about 9 or 10 years old and I watched it from day one. It took some time, but eventually I read fics and joined a forum dedicated to the show and made posts about it and my favorite ship (Carter and Abby/Carby). I made a few friends that I'm still in touch with to this day.
Have you heard of Star Trek? Thoughts? I have! I've never watched it, but I've certainly heard of it. My dad was really into it when I was really young, so that'll always be my association with it, that it reminds me of my dad. Other than that, that's about all I know lol,
Honestly I saw that you were following people back and I was like oh! Opportunity for new mutual?? Then we interacted like once and I imprinted on you like a small bird so you pop into my head all the time now when I'm on Tumblr. I like ur Wandavision posts, but also in general you're kind of a mood. I think "you're kind of a mood" is the best compliment I've ever received, thank you lmao. I try to appeal to many audiences heh. Awww you imprinted, that is so cute! You can feel free to hop into my inbox anytime you want to say hello, I'm almost always around unless I'm asleep. So yeah! Feel free to say hello at any time, you're always welcome to :)
Generally, Wandavision, also that you have kids. You seem a bit tired with ur job. You just seem like a cool adult really. Yay at being associated with Wandavision! What an honor! Haha, do I complain about work that much? Oops! I'm not so much tired with my job as I am tired from it. I work overnights so the hours are a little rough if I don't find time to take some naps through the day. But thank you! My kids think I'm just a typical millennial mom (they roll their eyes at me at least 10x a day lol) so it's always nice to hear I'm still cool lol.
I get to fly a plane tomorrow!! I'm really excited :D Oh my gosh, that sounds awesome! Have you ever done it before? Are you nervous about it? I'd probably be shaking like a leaf, but I'd totally try it. It's such a fascinating hobby/career.
Thanks so much for stopping by this morning! It really broke up the monotony of my work shift! <3
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theghostpinesmusic · 3 months
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youtube
Goose put on a hell of a show for the two-night stand at Hampton Coliseum that was this year's Goosemas. I'll admit, though, that I struggled a bit to appreciate the second, third, and fourth sets as much as they probably deserved because the first set was, in my opinion, basically perfect. I had a similar "problem" with this year's US fall tour: I saw six (!) shows in a row in person, but my first show was Montana, which is a serious contender for the best show of the year. I thought four of the next five shows were also great (Spokane didn't click with me, but I loved the venue and having a show in my adopted PNW "hometown"), but nothing entirely stacked up to the first night, and it took awhile to adjust my expectations.
So, yes, while Goosemas was great overall, it was a weird run to watch from the couch because it felt like it peaked at the start. That said, what a peak! This mirror-themed set is five songs: a theme-appropriate, well-played "Earthling Or Alien?"; a "mirror" mashup of both arrangements of "All I Need?" with an amazing bliss jam, the "mirrored" "Tumble" I covered in my last post, a great cover of Michael Jackson's "Man In The Mirror"...and a twenty-plus-minute-long jam of Justin Timberlake's "Mirrors."
Yeah, you read that right.
Unlike most of my Goose jam posts, I'm not going to start by introducing the song here: it's a JT song, it's a billion times popular than any Goose song you probably know it already, and I don't know much about JT's music that a cursory Google search couldn't also tell you anyway. So let's just jump into it.
Before we get to the jam proper, the first thing I love about this cover is that the band (in my opinion) absolutely nails the song itself. I mean, I'm sure anyone who is totally in love with JT's music and has never heard of Goose is going to find it lacking, but within their own particular sound, I think the band does a great job with it.
Watching live, it took me until the second chorus to realize where I'd heard the song before, then I started laughing like a maniac. I love that busting out a bunch of (mostly) surprising covers like this one is what the band chose to do for their biggest two shows of the year/their careers so far.
Then, after Rick's anthemic outro solo that starts at 4:45, the band moves into a synth-y jam space at 5:55. Watching live, I started laughing even harder: like, they're not only going to cover JT, they're going to jam out the song?!
Yes. Yes, they are.
The initial space here is slow, deliberate, and a little murky due to the background synth. Peter moves pretty quickly over to the Vibe, which makes things a bit more melodic, and Rick adds some growl to his tone in response. The interplay here between them and Trevor is fantastic, if sparse. Rick is playing more notes here, but the super-heavy reverb'd tone from Peter really dominates the feel of the jamming.
Pete lays back a bit starting at 10:15 and Rick takes a bit more of an assertive role. The Sinister Factor gets dialed up a bit more. One neat detail of this section is the riff that Rick starts playing repeatedly at 11:20, which you can hear Trevor pick up at 11:45 when Rick moves on to the next idea.
As usual, maybe my dumb ears deceive me, but I hear a key change (or at least a scale change from Rick) at 12:16. This moves us out of sinister territory (mostly), and causes Peter to throw out a few siren sounds. I feel like you know we're officially way out there when Peter starts breaking out the siren.
At 13:45, Rick mixes things up again, and Ben follows along with him. This is a neat move that speeds things up and really brings the percussion forward in the jam for the first time. Peter also switches over to what I think of as his xylophone patch, which always makes my day. Synth loops and xylophone patches? Yes, please. There's something particularly fun and unique about the juxtaposition of Pete's "xylophone" and Rick's grungy, bluesy tone here.
It sounds like Rick teases something briefly at 16:37, but I can't tell what. It might just sound a little like "What's the Use?" to me. Shortly after this maybe-tease, the band goes full speed ahead and Rick goes nuts for a bit as Peter switches to organ washes. We crash into a really peaky section starting at 18:28.
Normally, this would be the culmination of a big jam like this one, but instead the band takes off into another space after the peaks, slowing things down again at 19:50. Pete lays down some bluesy piano that Rick chops away under. Though the spotlight is visually on Peter here, I feel like this is actually the most locked-in the whole band is during the jam. I love what Trevor is playing, and the (relatively) minimal drums add to the jam rather than subtracting to it.
My only complaint about this entire performance is that the last minute of the jam (with Peter's bass piano riff and the tempo slowdown) is so badass that I'm sad they only stuck with it for a minute. The quick ending is neat, though.
And that's the story of how Goose jammed a Justin Timberlake song!
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theold-ultraviolence · 10 months
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hey bestie,
I am going to try to use the time that I might need while I wait for my roommate to stop using the oven to write to you!
first of all: apologies for all of the time it has taken me. last week was in general bad for various reasons but also I have been badly panicking because I am scared of not being able to graduate (although such a thing will happen in march and my deadline are on january. of next year...).
still, sorry. truly.
also sorry for not going around listening the newest album of a7x. I could have in all truth today because I was on the train but it literally was the messiest ever, between foreigners who didn't understand the concept of silence and old people not realizing that the seat number is written down on the roof of the seats.
still, I shall catch up on this week, as I undoubtedly need their own music to focus onto (and properly download my rage without murdering my roommates).
oh yeah, latin cultures are indeed similar and I do know that they have some similar saying although changing in nature as they are better fitting to the culture.
still, we aren't... a very matriarchal culture in all truth, in here, although what you said happens all too often, although we don't really have the whole 'toxic boi mom' culture. but girls are instructed to learn how to take care of themselves early on and men that women are to take care of them (and although it's illegal, possible employers often ask whether you have an intention to start a family).
like my grandma was joking with me after I told her that I have recently learned how to properly iron my stuff (I don't but hey... it looks semi-nice) about how 'now we have universities and career' but by my age in her times I'd have to know all this stuff since I'd have to be married.
ALTHOUGH, the fact that we often go to uni means that men also need to OFTEN take care of themselves (like my dad is always commenting about the fact that he'd be ironing his own shirts back in uni), so that helps, although mommy boys are often too present and oftentimes justified and spoiled.
and yeah, I get about not feeling bad alone being alone, but also needing somebody to share stuff with! in all truth it's a thing that I relate to mostly in social climates as I feel like it'd be easier to go out (like going out at night, at concerts, on trips. maybe it's just an anxiety of mine, but still...). still, being on our own - unless we met aemond or eddie munson - isn't that bad, when the option is trash.
also I totally relate to loving your country and yet, wanting to go away: like I am going to fight anybody who says anything remotely bad about Italy but also, I'd hope to run away from here as soon as FUCKING possible.
alright, alright, I know that my answer on my blog last week was definitely underwhelming so I'd like to backtrack and be more positive: the trip wasn't bad in itself but it was a whole lot of change and as my therapist says... changes sadly take energy. it was difficult and I ain't going to lie, been forced into a whole comitive of people didn't help, as everybody had something and ugh...
the conferences were honestly interesting and I think that the whole places where they were hosted were ABSOLUTELY gorgeous and aside a problematic ups and downs of the road (literally) the city is great and honestly so so beautiful. on the night of the day before the last we actually got to dine in the main square (the food was atrocious).
sadly it did rain so it was a bit ... too cold to enjoy but I had fun!
(I also got in a whole lot of doctorate gossip so...).
with this being said, still, the main problem was the obvious disorganization of the trip. for me especially, because I have celiac disease and upon settling (we were supposed to have like snacks + lunch served at the conferences) I discovered that apparently, there had been a mistake and they hadn't received my request. so yeah, nice (it all settled, but still... I did cry).
but yeah overall, I'd say a 7/10.
also so glad you have your own 'malocchio'! I think it's a thing that we all share so it's nice to know that we aren't everyone! and it seems also linguistically similar!
re vampire: this reminds me that I have yet to read 'dracula'.
(I know shame on me, but I am waiting for somebody to gift me the penguin classic thingy to read it. if I have to read it, I want to do it fashionably).
OH I AM GLAD YOU ENJOYED MY SILLY LITTLE FIC!
I am truly glad you enjoyed and for your lovely comments as they seem to find a whole lot of things I didn't notice firsthand and such a thing always fills me with a whole lot of love!
and I hope you'll get to watch 'castlevania' soon (even more if you are in a vampire mood! I honestly need to catch up also onto the kas! eddie playlist and onto his vibe in general) as it won't disappoint you
(and if you love aemond, well ma'am there is another blondie with daddy issues and sexual trauma for you to thirst on).
and I love 'doctor jekyll and mr. hide' as well, alongside using the theme of the creature both for characters/reader/oc (apparently as of lately I have been into vampires, so...) but yeah, it's very interesting and relatable.
if you ever end up reading 'mexican gothic' pls feel free to always chat me up to let me know your opinion. I am actually answering all of this to let you know I intend to start 'lady chatterley's lover' tonight as I am finally back with my uni bookshelves!
re culture: yeah, sadly I am all too aware of that and in all truth it's why I have been wanting to do what I am currently studying as it opens positions that are relatively new so... you might get paid... but yeah, sadly oftentimes culture gets ignored and those who pay is the younger generation, who gets lured in with promises of recognition for unpaid work.
it's a story I know all too well and in all truth, it's such a shame as we should definitely promote more culture instead, of making it available only to an elite of people both from a work side and an audience one. ugh.
I wholly get it about being delusional making our days better, but babe, if we manifest, I am sure we'll get all those hot british men shipped right through the royal mail service to our houses, just have to keep all our fingers crossed!
and NO I GOTCHA! I still have crushes for older man... idk... but I was like very surprised that ewan is just a year above me (also like... everybody says that he as aemond looks thirty and I... don't think so... like he has our age... not much more...). like sir, are you... how am I going to call you daddy (affectionate)? but yeah, see? a reasonable age gap? we totally are getting them for christmas!
I shall now go back to my pity of procrastination and reading and wish you an happy summer (and happy trip! you must tell me everything after you come back!) (I am joking, I am joking!).
have fun and I hope this shall be a lovely week for you!
-🌗
BESTIEEEEE Again, NEVER apologize for taking time bestie, cause, look at me (shamefully) replying super late! the end of the semester really destroyed my brain, and when I was finally free, all I could do was stare into the abyss lmao!
Ok so this is gonna be the longest reply ever, so putting everything under a ´read more´! x
AAAH idk if by now you've listened to it, but I would LOVE to listen to what you thought of it! I keep finding more metaphors and meaning to the songs everytime I listen to it, and it definitely hasn't gotten old for me!
Oh my gosh, from my perspective that sounds like actual heaven!? men that are capable of doing their own stuff for themselves? if only you knew how many men that are older than me aren't capable of even boiling water (like my uncles, who I despise lmao lskjfldfskjg I'm exaggerating about boiling water, but it's along those lines). A friend of mine once got sick and her boyfriend was taking care of her, but, I was so shook because he kept posting Instagram stories about not knowing how to make her soup? SOUP!? And I'm like, boy instead of goofing around on Instagram you can just google a recipe, it's really not that hard. But he was acting like doing that (1) task for her sick girlfriend was like asking him to go down the mines and hunt for diamonds lmao.
being on our own - unless we met aemond or eddie munson - isn't that bad, when the option is trash. SO TRUE BESTIE. Also, on the subject of going out alone, I don't know if I mentioned it but, I SO WOULD if it was safe to go out alone here. Women really cannot do anything here, we can't take public transportation or literally go anywhere without being harassed or fearing for your life. This seems like such a grim scenario I'm painting, but it's the harsh reality. We have a huge problem with feminicide in the country, so I rarely leave my house now because of it.
Re your trip: First of all, don't about your reply on your blog, don't worry at all about it being underwhelming, I didn't think it was at all! plus, you were just coming back to it and you were tired, so really, don't feel bad about that dear!
Second. Oh my gossssh, I know, about change, bestie, I know. And it does sound like A LOT went down during the trip that hadn't been foreseen, and on top of that being within that much company, I absolutely understand how that must have meddled with your enjoyment of it. I know people must be like, 'it's not a big deal' but if our minds are alike, rest assured that I know that those kinds of changes or unexpected mishaps regardless of how tiny, are HUGE. I don't deal with change or unexpected things well, AT ALL and it takes such brain power for me to get back to normal (hence why my mind was all over the place this semester and why I can't seem to do normal things like reply to messages on time). But especially that thing about them not being able to accommodate for the snacks that you requested is awful because in those kinds of scenarios, I'd be like, if I had KNOWN you wouldn't have the food I can eat, I would've come PREPARED. Things that are out of our control are so difficult to deal with. I'm so sorry these things happened during your trip, bestie! but besides that, I am glad to hear that it was not all bad and there were moments throughout you enjoyed! like I've said, I do hope you have a chance of revisiting that place soon, to be able to appreciate the surroundings better and also right the wrongs of the previous trip.
Re: dracula and fics. I JUST GOTTA SAY FIRST OF ALL THAT, THERE ARE A COUPLE OF FICS OF YOURS THAT I HAVEN'T GOTTEN TO!! Again, my brain? MUSH. Absolute mush. And I have once again overestimated the amount of bookmarked fics I've liked over these past weeks aaaaaaaaaaah but please know that I'm saving them for a moment where I can enjoy them, bestie! don't want you to think I only liked them and didn't mean to reblog.
ughhh I haven't watched Castlevania yet! bestie one thing about me is that I SUCK at watching shows, even ones I do wanna see. Just yesterday I saw BBC'S 'Dickensian' to see Joseph Quinn in it (which is actually an amazing show that I definitely recommend, especially if you like Charles Dickens!) and I got that DVD as a Christmas gift last year lmao. So yeah, sad to report I haven't, but it's definitely on the list! I also meant to say that I changed plans and I put 'The Blind Assasin' on hold because for some reason it wasn't grabbing me anymore. I've noticed that tends to happen to me with Margaret Atwood's work. I never finished 'The Handmaid's Tale' either, but I DO LOVE her poetry and have a couple of anthologies by her that I did devour in one sitting. I don't know why it happens, because I do actually like her style of writing, but I think when it comes to her novels, it's got more to do with the pacing of it that it kinda starts to drag for me. I'm now reading 'Salem's Lot' by Stephen King, which is more straightforward spooky and I think I'm gonna finish it quite quickly. And it IS about vampires, at least as far as I know! (so, we're still on theme, heh). I ordered a copy of 'Mexican Gothic' so maybe if I'll read that after I finish Salem's Lot! AND AHHHHHHHHH SO HAPPY YOU'RE READING LADY CHATTERLEY'S LOVER! PLEASE please please you gotta tell me your thoughts on it!
hot british men shipped right through the royal mail service to our houses OH PLEASE. Ngl bestie, these days I've been returning to my Joseph Quinn feels. My brain since last year apparently has been rotating between Joseph, Ewan, and most recently Jack O'Connell. Can I request for these three to be shipped through the royal mail service, pretty please??? I think that would fix me. Also yeah, I keep seeing people say Ewan looks 30 and I'm LIKE!?? NO!!!??? HE'S BABY. They just say that because he has a really sharp bone structure and he's crazy tall smh.
Also, gonna reply to your other message in here as well! Ok as soon as I read about the rec I was SWEATING fearing that it wasn't gonna be on my Netflix but it IS! EEK! both series! I already added them to my list! It being in the Roman dialect intimidates me a bit slkfjglskjg (I think I've seen a video of Damiano singing in it while preparing backstage in one of their tour videos) because I think I'm just starting to get more acquainted with listening to spoken Italian in films and such, but! I think I could watch it dubbed in English maybe, and then I'll be able to know what the characters are saying to at least get the general message of it before watching it in Italian. Thank you so much for all your wonderful recs, as always! it really means a lot to me because it makes the process of learning way more fun when I know I have someone to share! I've been neglecting the actual courses that I did pay for (they're online and self-directed so it's cool) because of everything in life, but things are starting to clear up a little bit and I hope I can get back to that soon because I'm sick of duolingo giving me the same dang exercises. I can already tell you a thousand times that il cuoco cucina l'anatra and that io sono una farfalla. LMAO. Ohhhh maybe one day I'll be able to write you a whole message in Italian! (not long like these ones, of course, but, ya know)
I hope I didn't miss anything, bestie! once again, so sorry for the wait with my reply. Hope things have been going well on your end, and that you've been able to indulge at the beach like you told me you were gonna do! Sending you all the love and the tightest hugs! x
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In the words of Rodney Dangerfield, probably: "I can't get no respect, and if I continue to encounter this level of disrespect, I'm gonna expose myself to high levels of radiation so I fucking die."
My first job was delivering newspapers. I was 11. I got tips rather frequently, which was great for a child with a burgeoning, Yu-Gi-Oh habit. The rules were to put the newspapers in between the storm door, get the papers delivered by 5 PM and be courteous.
I'd received a list of the customers that I'd be delivering to, which totaled about 80. My route was actually 3 combined routes, which was a lot for an 11 year old that has had punctuality and service absolutely branded into their brain.
My first complaint was a lady that was not on my list of customers who called my home multiple times because she hadn't received papers for a week. She yelled at me multiple times, including in person, until it finally sank in after the 15th time I informed her that she wasn't on my list. After it was corrected, I never spoke to her again, but I received $50 tips each Christmas.
My second, and thankfully final, complaint was from the wife of a family friend. She did not like me when I was 14 and I'm sure she'd hate me now. She very specifically told me that she wanted the newspaper rolled up in a rubber band and placed on the ledge next to the front door. I did this every day for about 6 months until the company I received papers from was actually out of rubber bands for a couple weeks, so I placed the paper neatly in the door for a couple days and they told me to do what they'd originally requested. I explained I didn't have rubber bands and i didn't know when they'd be back. They didn't care. I compromised and folded the paper neatly and placed it on the ledge. After a few days of that, the family friend, a 45 year old man, was watering his plants when I brought the paper up and handed it to him. Upon which the 45 year old man screamed at his 14 year old newspaper carrier, "ARE YOU GODDAMN STUPID?! HOW HARD IS IT TO FOLLOW SIMPLE FUCKING DIRECTIONS?!" From that day forward, I never stopped placing it, banded, on their ledge, out of fear of being screamed at again. (Sidenote: Paper carriers were required to purchase their $20 bags of rubber bands. I made, after taxes, about $80 a week.)
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After the paper route, I worked at a gas station for about 6 years. Day 3 of the job, an old man handed me a $50 bill for candy and I had trouble using the register to determine his change. He went to his car, brought in a handful of change and counted it on the counter in front of me, looking at me with every coin he counted. As he collected the change he smiled and said, "See? It's not that hard, is it?" I then refused to ever use the register's calculator again and did all the math in my head. Never missed a cent in 6 years.
Every once in a while we had a dentist and a drunk construction worker who would come in and condescend to me and scream at me for his tall boys for not being cold enough, respectively.
My first job out of college was a dying factory that I only took because it was full time. The HR person told me that she was hesitant to hire me because I had a degree. I drove 35 mins to this job every morning at 4:30 AM, would often get home at 5 PM, and was never paid a cent of overtime. Eventually, I was hired at a much nicer factory for a $5/hr pay bump that was 2 miles from my house. I turned in my 2 weeks and the HR person sneered at me, "Well, I've learned my lesson in hiring college kids."
After 3 additional jobs between the better factory and my current career, I had mostly positive interactions and only left those jobs to pursue better pay and better prospects as to my field of study. I've now been out of college for 10 years and am comfortable in my job. Occasionally, you have to deal with a difficult customer, but it isn't too bad.
This morning, I received an email after reaching out to a customer yesterday, in which he lambasted me for having the gall for contacting him, because he is a busy surgeon. All I originally asked was if he'd be available a certain day and if he wasn't, when could he meet.
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I broke it down into simpler terms, condescendingly apologizing to him for offending his sensibilities by having the gall to use language that I've used, verbatim, to communicate with hundreds of customers over almost a decade on the job.
Haven't heard back yet.
The point of this trauma dump is that I briefly touched on negative experiences in 4 jobs that I've worked. The situations I described took place over an accumulated, maybe, 30 days in the 22 years that I've been working. 30 days is about 0.4% of the 22 years that I've worked. I didn't even mention the fact that those 4 jobs were only half of the 8 jobs that I held in that time, and yet I'm focusing on this insane minority.
Your words mean so much more than you ever realize, for better or worse. If you can't pay respect to those that serve you, it points out a far larger cavity in your soul than your ego and prestige can ever fill. Never underestimate the fact that a single "fuck you," in traffic might consume a person's entire day. Watch your mouth and consider the fact that you are not the main character in this story.
Thank you for listening, though I'm not sure why you would.
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darlingnisi · 3 years
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Paisley Park Job Alert : Social Media Coordinator
Purple Tumblr/Twitter/Instagram fam! YOU WERE MADE FOR THIS ROLE! 
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Qualifications
Bachelor's (Preferred)
Social Media Management: 4 years (Preferred)
Marketing: 1 year (Preferred)
Full Job Description
This position is non-remote and located in Chanhassen, MN, a suburb of Minneapolis.
Paisley Park seeks a Social Media Coordinator to collaborate on digital content creation and oversee day-to-day social media activity for Paisley Park and other Prince-affiliated social media channels.
Reporting to the Senior Marketing Manager, the Social Media Coordinator works across digital and social platforms to thoughtfully and creatively further the Prince legacy, bringing Paisley Park’s brand to a massive global audience.
RESPONSIBILITIES & EXPERIENCE
Planning & Assessment
Collaborate with Paisley Park marketing and agency teams to prepare social media plans for Paisley Park tours, programs, and initiatives.
Maintain content calendars for all Paisley Park social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Twitch, and any future platforms), and coordinate content for other Prince-affiliated social networks.
Measure content effectiveness (both paid and organic) and track against goals, implementing improvements as needed.
Content Development and Posting
Develop and publish compelling customized social media content for Paisley Park including shooting video, writing, editing, and posting for distribution across each channel.
Test and implement strategy for emerging social media platforms.
Assist the Prince Estate on fulfilling social media messaging, including coordinating postings and execution of Estate initiatives.
Community Management
Monitor inboxes and post comments across all owned Paisley Park channels.
Respond to inquiries in a timely manner.
Escalate requests as needed and factor community management trends into social media planning.
Other responsibilities as assigned.
Background & Qualifications
REQUIRED:
Bachelor’s degree.
4+ years marketing and brand social media oversight experience.
Excellent communication skills and attention to detail.
Fluency with Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and/or other social networks.
Strong Proficiency in MS Excel, Word, and PowerPoint.
PREFERRED:
Extensive experience with Adobe Creative Suite (including Photoshop), social media management tools (e.g., Sprout Social), and Basecamp.
Background in museums, attractions, and/or cultural performance venues.
WORKPLACE BENEFITS, CONDITIONS & REQUIREMENTS
Ability to work a flexible schedule that meets the needs of the role, including weekends, evenings, and holidays.
Must adhere to a pescatarian work environment while working on Paisley Park campus.
Must pass a background check and drug test prior to starting work.
Paisley Park offers a competitive benefit package to all qualified employees.
We are committed to creating a diverse environment and are proud to be an equal opportunity employer.
Job Type: Full-time
Benefits:
401(k)
Dental insurance
Employee discount
Health insurance
Life insurance
Paid time off
Vision insurance
Schedule:
Monday to Friday
Education:
Bachelor's (Preferred)
Experience:
Social Media Management: 4 years (Preferred)
Marketing: 1 year (Preferred)
Work Location:
One location
Company's website:
paisleypark.com
Benefit Conditions:
Waiting period may apply
Only full-time employees eligible
Work Remotely:
No
COVID-19 Precaution(s):
Personal protective equipment provided or required
Plastic shield at work stations
Temperature screenings
Social distancing guidelines in place
Sanitizing, disinfecting, or cleaning procedures in place
APPLY HERE!
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caticornsrreal · 5 years
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Fighting Dragons with You
After twelve years, I'm finally telling the internet why I love Taylor Swift🖤 
Hello, internet using world. I’d like to introduce myself to the few people who followed me. Hi! My name is Christa and I am a Taylor Swift fan with every fiber of my being. Full disclosure, this is a short novel so now is your chance to make an exit, but I hope you stay.
Taylor and my ridiculously furry cat, Lyle
(affectionately nicknamed “rent-free”), are the only two beings made of flesh and bone who have been consistent in my life for the last 12 years. With a close second being my son, Gauge, who just turned 10. I won’t get into the details (in this post) as to why that is, but let’s just say there were a lot of ups and downs growing up.
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The last 12 years have been an evolution for Taylor,
and subsequently, for me. At (dare I say it) 
38 years old, I’ve found that a lot of things happen in a decade. Like, A LOT. Now, I don’t feel 38. I guess I owe that to humor, singing, dancing, sarcasm, and launching a successful career that didn’t exist 15 years ago —something that has made me always push harder to set new goals and stay humble. But one thing I didn’t do over these last 12 years that I deeply regret was starting a fan page for Taylor. I mean, ESPECIALLY since I’m a professional travel blogger who makes her full time living from digital content!
There’s been a lot of momentum over the last 12 years
—demands which left me with little to no free time. But I can’t blame my absence from the Swiftie family entirely on that. In fact, I’d have to say, I blame much of it on fear.
Fear,
of being misunderstood, fear of judgment or writing something lame. I’ve had over 2,000 articles published online and in print as well as countless social posts, but the thought of Taylor seeing something I wrote and thinking it’s totally weird (or cough, too long for the internet), well let’s just say I’d be less afraid of walking into a burning building.
Fear,
of being called a fake because the financial demands as a single mom left me little money to spend on myself or Taylor merchandise, much less tickets to a show. I’ve always placed my son’s needs before mine.
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Fear,
that I was too old to be a Taylor Swift fan. I mean, I was 26 when she hit the music scene and she was what, 16? I’ve been afraid. Afraid I would be rejected by other Swifties who really are the only people who understand this love we have for her  —which is basically like being rejected by your own people. Also, it’s super weird to be following teens/young adults on social, much less engaging with them.
Fear.
Along with my fear, a perfect storm of entrepreneurial demands, single motherhood, failed relationships (one of which was a marriage), and family matters have served as a constant reminder that my dream of ever meeting Taylor takes residence on another planet. An actual trip to Mars seemed more attainable. 
I feel like there is a whole demographic of women, “Swiftie Moms” who echo my story,
having watched Taylor grow into the strong beautiful woman she's become. Women my age who love her from behind the wheel of their SUV, on the way to drop their kids off to school, on the way back from a milk run, in the dark hours of the mornings when they’re dancing in the kitchen with a full on hair bun singing into a coffee spoon. Unnoticed fans who haven’t had the time to dive head first into the Swiftie Universe. But here I am. After all the fear and all the years...
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So, why?
This is a hard one to answer. I guess you can say that after many years of challenges, judgment from others, and doing the complete opposite of what logic and reason said I should  —divorce, single motherhood, a second degree in my late twenties... risking it all to start a blog (which by the way in 2013 wasn’t even considered a side job much less a career), I kind of got to a point where I became
fearless.
I had to be. I had this tiny living, breathing human being who was counting on me at the very least, to give him a life a notch above the shit show I had growing up. Not to mention parenting —which is basically wandless wizardry pulled directly from the asses of parents. It demands that your mini human grows up to be a better human than you.
Yeah, unpack that.
Take all your collective shit, figure it out, and then teach your mini to do it better —to BE better than you at love, kindness, respect for others (especially boys respecting girls), integrity, money, and to be fearless. All while giving them the comfort of knowing that you, mom, have it all figured out... even when that couldn't be farther from the truth.
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Top that with the pressures of working in the public eye
—which, while on a microscopic level compared to a full-on celebrity such as Taylor, is still very much a juggling act with none of the entourage to lighten the workload. Add to it the demands of working with national brands, and the unwavering ability for other bloggers to tear you down at any opportunity, or even worse, try to get close to you so they can raid your success like a Black Friday sale.
I found myself at the peak of my blogging career
but I was consumed by fear, AGAIN! Fear of shady AF bloggers and publicists, and so much to lose. And fear that now, thousands of people would have an opinion of me formed by jealous bloggers, and they didn’t even know who I really was. 
That’s when letting go of toxic people in my life became essential
—when, no matter who they were, or how I was tied to them, I had to realize that surrounding myself with the ones who lifted me took precedence over the ones who dragged me down. 
After all that..... I learned to give zero f***s about what people thought, or what they said behind my back. 
And I had to start caring about what made my heart happy, what made my family and friends smile, and what inspired me to do better. BE BETTER. Be the example of fearless, with the hope that I was lucky enough to stay that way. But I'm a vulnerable human made of heart and soul and sometimes people can still take the best from me.
I had to be fearless.
In August of 2017 when "Look What You Made Me Do” blessed my ears for the first time, I felt it pierce my skin and course through my veins. And to the very bones of this young 38-year-old Swiftie mom, I was shook AF! I sang, I danced and I drowned out the haters in the blogging world. She had a very clear message,
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She had zero f***s to give, Taylor broke the internet.
After watching the seemingly endless myriad of shade thrown at Taylor over the years, my heart erupted with happiness as her flawless first single from Reputation revealed one BADASS BITCH. And with every music video release of her new era, she became a mythical Goddess with bullshit evaporating superpowers. Like, I legit think she’s an actual unicorn. After all, she does ride a caticorn named Olivia.
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She got harder, she got smarter in the nick of time
One single post on my Facebook page praising her new era and new single she brought with it attracted a slew of hate speech, white people bashing, claims of Taylor ripping off Beyonce... I couldn’t believe the things I was reading from fellow bloggers. I even had a GLOBAL BRAND threaten my business relationship in their ambassador program because I stood up for Taylor and spoke out about the hate speech which was placed on my own personal Facebook page. But I stood by my words.
Fearless.
Over the following months into early 2018, and to the tune of, “This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things”, I, along with a slew of about 20 other bloggers, ended up taking down said global brand’s publicist who was using his budget and power to demean and sexually harass female bloggers (which would later reveal that blacklisting me was more about not buying into that bullshit rather than my voice on hate speech).
Zero f***s given to those haters.
Mythical Goddess with bullshit evaporating superpowers level officially achieved for Taylor, and even for me. Although I wouldn’t call myself a Goddess. That's all Tay. 🖤
She found love through the noise
And so did I. In November of 2017, I had approached the year anniversary of the greatest love I'd ever known. My last stop. And as the tracks played on, my heart was full. We both found happiness through a seemingly endless sea of anguish.
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Taylor is truly doing better than she ever was, and so am I.
Her resilience up against the media and the demands of the industry are perfectly fearless. And her decision to keep her beautifully growing relationship with Joe private is wise. I’ve spent the last year at home, which has been incredible. I’ve had a lot of time to think about what’s most important to me, what has shaped me into the mom, partner and entrepreneur that I am, and it all comes back to Taylor. That’s why it’s time for me to be fearless again and officially join the Swiftie universe.
I’ve spent 12 years fighting dragons with Taylor
and growing a canyon of respect and adoration for her charm, wit, business savvy, musical talent, feminism, compassion, tenacity, love for animals, and of course her lovely, lovely, words. I’ve raised my son from birth with her. There isn't a single day that is spent where Taylor doesn't exist in our lives. For 12 years straight.
That’s a long time to love someone who has no idea you exist.
I play her music videos and YouTube uploads just so I can feel like she’s with us. And so my son knows that she’s one of the finest examples of a human being in his lifetime. I use Taylor’s kindness to teach my son how to be considerate and give back to others while sharing her fearless story with him so she can be a positive role model in his life. Taylor has essentially been part of our family all along. 
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My son Gauge has a running joke that Taylor is the only person that can make me cry
(which happens more than I'm willing to admit). And it’s not because I’m weak, or on the verge of a mental breakdown (although I challenge you to try parenting, you might argue that), it’s because I truly love her like a best friend. When I see her happy it makes me happy, when I feel her sadness, it makes me sad. It’s visceral.
I don't believe the human connection is meant to be one-sided.
I feel in my heart, as weird as this may sound, that we will meet Taylor one day, even against all odds. Existing in the same lifetime as Taylor without at least trying to meet her doesn't feel right. I won't look at my son and teach him to let fear and doubt win, or that defying the odds is an impossible task.
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Over the years I’ve been a spectator to her outreach to fans. She’s invited them to sessions in her homes, sent them gifts, invited them backstage, surprised them in their homes, made hospital visits, and Lord knows what else she has up her sleeve. And it’s all been done with pure excitement and love for her Swifties. With each outreach she extends, tears of joy are shed for fellow Swifties, and a ray of hope inspires me.
So, I’m starting a personal blog
which tells a very personal story of all the dragons I’ve fought with Taylor over the years. From living in a car at 15 years old to getting invited to LA premieres for Walt Disney and Marvel films. And I'll have no apologies for the truths that will be told (but will change names for privacy). It will be very personal and some of it won’t be pretty. Because life isn’t always pretty.
Taylor is releasing another album this year... we hope,
and she’ll be on yet another tour in 2020. After 12 years I’m finally ready for it. I’ve given my son everything he could possibly want or need. I’ve bought him a beautiful home in Northern Georgia. He’s been able to travel the world and do things most adults haven’t even done. And I owe much of that to Taylor for giving me the strength to take major risks, the courage to face my demons, the balls to cut people out of my life who were toxic and the self-confidence to defy the odds and do things my way.
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2019 is our year to show @taylorswift how much we love her.
I’ll let the universe do the rest. Till then, I’ll be fighting dragons with her as I always have and writing my journal for her and anyone else who wants to read the memoirs of an OG Swiftie mom who keeps it real AF, full-on hair bun and all.
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Switching Lanes With St. Vincent
By Molly Young
January 22, 2019
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Jacket (men’s), $4,900, pants (men’s), $2,300, by Dior / Men shoes, by Christian Louboutin / Rings (throughout) by Cartier
On a cold recent night in Brooklyn, St. Vincent appeared onstage in a Saint Laurent smoking jacket to much clapping and hooting, gave the crowd a deadpan look, and said, “Without being reductive, I'd like to say that we haven't actually done anything yet.” Pause. “So let's do something.”
She launched into a cover of Lou Reed's “Perfect Day”: an arty torch-song version that made you really wonder whom she was thinking about when she sang it. This was the elusive chanteuse version of St. Vincent, at least 80 percent leg, with slicked-back hair and pale, pale skin. She belted, sipped from a tumbler of tequila (“Oh, Christ on a cracker, that's strong”), executed little feints and pounces, flung the mic cord away from herself like a filthy sock, and spat on the stage a bunch of times. Nine parts Judy Garland, one part GG Allin.
If the Garland-Allin combination suggests that St. Vincent is an acquired taste, she's one that has been acquired by a wide range of fans. The crowd in Brooklyn included young women with Haircuts in pastel fur and guys with beards of widely varying intentionality. There was a woman of at least 90 years and a Hasidic guy in a tall hat, which was too bad for whoever sat behind him. There were models, full nuclear families, and even a solitary frat bro. St. Vincent brings people together.
If you chart the career of Annie Clark, which is St. Vincent's civilian name, you will see what start-up founders and venture capitalists call “hockey-stick growth.” That is, a line that moves steadily in a northeast direction until it hits an “inflection point” and shoots steeply upward. It's called hockey-stick growth because…it looks like a hockey stick.
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Dress, by Balmain
The toe of the stick starts with Marry Me, Clark's debut solo album, which came out a decade ago and established a few things that would become essential St. Vincent traits: her ability to play a zillion instruments (she's credited on the album with everything from dulcimer to vibraphone), her highbrow streak (Shakespeare citations), her goofy streak (“Marry me!” is an Arrested Development bit), and her oceanic library of musical references (Kate Bush, Steve Reich, uh…D'Angelo!). The blade of the stick is her next four albums, one of them a collaboration with David Byrne, all of them confirming her presence as an enigma of indie pop and a guitar genius. The stick of the stick took a non-musical detour in 2016, when Clark was photographed canoodling with (now ex-) girlfriend Cara Delevingne at Taylor Swift's mansion, followed a few months later by pictures of Clark holding hands with Kristen Stewart. That brought her to the realm of mainstream paparazzi-pictures-in-the-Daily-Mail celebrity. Finally, the top of the stick is Masseduction, the 2017 album she co-produced with Jack Antonoff, which revealed St. Vincent to be not only experimental and beguiling but capable of turning out incorrigible bangers.
Masseduction made the case that Clark could be as much a pop star as someone like Sia or Nicki Minaj—a performer whose idiosyncrasies didn't have to be tamped down for mainstream success but could actually be amplified. The artist Bruce Nauman once said he made work that was like “going up the stairs in the dark and either having an extra stair that you didn't expect or not having one that you thought was going to be there.” The idea applies to Masseduction: Into the familiar form of a pop song Clark introduces surprising missteps, unexpected additions and subtractions. The album reached No. 10 on the Billboard 200. The David Bowie comparisons got louder.
This past fall, she released MassEducation (not quite the same title; note the addition of the letter a), which turned a dozen of the tracks into stripped-down piano songs. Although technically off duty after being on tour for nearly all of 2018, Clark has been performing the reduced songs here and there in small venues with her collaborator, the composer and pianist Thomas Bartlett. Whereas the Masseduction tour involved a lot of latex, neon, choreographed sex-robot dance moves, and LED screens, these recent shows have been comparatively austere. When she performed in Brooklyn, the stage was empty, aside from a piano and a side table. There were blue lights, a little piped-in fog for atmosphere, and that was it. It looked like an early-'90s magazine ad for premium liquor: art-directed, yes, but not to the degree that it Pinterested itself.
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Coat, (men’s) $8,475, by Versace / Shoes, by Christian Louboutin / Tights, by Wolford
The performance was similarly informal. Midway through one song, Clark forgot the lyrics and halted. “It takes a different energy to be performing [than] to sit in your sweatpants watching Babylon Berlin,” she said. “Wherever I am, I completely forget the past, and I'm like. ‘This is now.’ And sometimes this means forgetting song lyrics. So, if you will…tell me what the second fucking verse is.”
Clark has only a decade in the public eye behind her, but she's accomplished a good amount of shape-shifting. An openness to the full range of human expression, in fact, is kind of a requirement for being a St. Vincent fan. This is a person who has appeared in the front row at Chanel and also a person who played a gig dressed as a toilet, a person profiled in Vogue and on the cover of Guitar World.
The day before her Brooklyn show, I sat with Clark to find out what it's like to be utterly unstructured, time-wise, after a long stretch of knowing a year in advance that she had to be in, like, Denmark on July 4 and couldn't make plans with friends.
“I've been off tour now for three weeks,” she said. “When I say ‘off,’ I mean I didn't have to travel.”
This doesn't mean she hasn't traveled—she went to L.A. to get in the studio with Sleater-Kinney and also hopped down to Texas, where she grew up—just that she hasn't been contractually obligated to travel. What else did she do on her mini-vacation?
“I had the best weekend last weekend. I woke up and did hot Pilates, and then I got a bunch of new modular synths, and I set 'em up, and I spent ten hours with modular synths. Plugging things in. What happens when I do this? I'm unburdened by a full understanding of what's going on, so I'm very willing to experiment.”
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Coat, by Boss
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Jacket, and coat, by Boss / Necklace, by Cartier
Like a child?
“Exactly. Did you ever get those electronics kits as a kid for like 20 bucks from RadioShack? Where you connect this wire to that one and a light bulb turns on? It's very much like that.”
There's an element of chaos, she said, that makes synth noodling a neat way to stumble on melodies that she might not have consciously assembled. She played with the synths by herself all day. “I don't stop, necessarily,” she said, reflecting on what the idea of “vacation” means to someone for whom “job” and “things I love to do” happen to overlap more or less exactly. “I just get to do other things that are really fun. I'm in control of my time.” She had plans to see a show at the New Museum, read books, play music and see movies alone, always sitting on the aisle so she could make a quick escape if necessary. But she will probably keep working. St. Vincent doesn't have hobbies.
When it manifests in a person, this synergy between life and work is an almost physically perceptible quality, like having brown eyes or one leg or being beautiful. Like beauty, it's a result of luck, and a quality that can invoke total despair in people who aren't themselves allotted it. This isn't to say that Clark's career is a stroke of unearned fortune but that her skills and character and era and influences have collided into a perfect storm of realized talent. And to have talent and realize that talent and then be beloved by thousands for exactly the thing that is most special about you: Is there anything a person could possibly want more? Is this why Annie Clark glows? Or is it because she's super pale? Or was it because there was a sound coming through the window where we sat that sounded thrillingly familiar?
“Is Amy Sedaris running by?” Clark asked, her spine straightening. A man with a boom mic was visible on the sidewalk outside. Another guy in a baseball cap issued instructions to someone beyond the window. Someone said “Action!” and a figure in vampire makeup and a clown wig streaked across the sidewalk. Someone said “Cut!” and Clark zipped over for a look. It was, in fact, Amy Sedaris, her clown wig bobbing in the 44-degree breeze. The mic operator was gagging with laughter. It seemed like a good omen, this sighting, like the New York City version of Groundhog Day: If an Amy Sedaris streaks across your sight line in vampire makeup, spring will arrive early.
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Blazer (men’s) $1,125, by Paul Smith
Another thing Clark does when off tour is absorb all the input that she misses when she's locked into performance mode. On a Monday afternoon, she met artist Lisa Yuskavage at an exhibition of her paintings at the David Zwirner gallery in Chelsea. Yuskavage was part of a mini-boom of figurative painting in the '90s, turning out portraits of Penthouse centerfolds and giant-jugged babes with Rembrandt-esque skill. It made sense that Clark wanted to meet her: Both women make art about the inner lives of female figures, both are sorcerers of technique, both are theatrical but introspective, both have incendiary style. The gallery was a white cube, skylit, with paintings around the perimeter. Yuskavage and Clark wandered through at a pace exclusive to walking tours of cultural spaces, which is to say a few steps every 10 to 15 seconds with pauses between for the proper amount of motionless appreciation.
The paintings were small, all about the size of a human head, and featured a lot of nipples, tufted pudenda, tan lines, majestic asses, and protruding tongues. “I like the idea of possessing something by painting it,” Yuskavage said. “That's the way I understand the world. Like a dog licking something.”
Clark looked at the works with the expression people make when they're meditating. She was wearing elfin boots, black pants, and a shirt with a print that I can only describe as “funky”—“funky” being an adjective that looks good on very few people, St. Vincent being one of them—and sipped from a cup of espresso furnished by a gallery minion. After she finished the drink, there was a moment when she looked blankly at the saucer, unsure what to do with it, and then stuck it in the breast pocket of her funky shirt for the rest of the tour.
A painting called Sweetpuss featured a bubble-butted blonde in beaded panties with nipples so upwardly erect they actually resembled little boners. Yuskavage based the underwear on a pair of real underwear that she'd constructed herself from colored balls and string. “I've got the beaded panties if you ever need 'em,” she said to Clark. “They might fit you. They're tiny.”
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Earrings, by Erickson Beamon
“I'm picturing you going to the Garment District,” Clark said.
“There was a lot of going to the Garment District.”
As they completed their lap around the white cube, Clark interjected with questions—what year was this? were you considering getting into film? how long did these sittings take? what does “mise-en-scène” mean?—but mainly listened. And she is a good listener: an inquisitive head tilter, an encouraging nodder, a non-fidgeter, a maker of eye contact. She found analogues between painting and music. When Yuskavage mourned the death of lead white paint (due to its poisonous qualities, although, as the artist pointed out, “It's not that big a deal to not get lead poisoning; just don't eat the paint”), Clark compared it to recording's transition from tape to digital.
“Back in the day, if you wanted to hear something really reverberant”—she clapped; it reverberated—“you'd have to be in a room like this and record it, or make a reverb chamber,” Clark said. “Now we have digital plug-ins where you can say, ‘Oh, I want the acoustic resonance of the Sistine Chapel.’ Great. Somebody's gone and sampled that and created an algorithm that sounds like you're in the Sistine Chapel.”
Lately, she said, she's been way more into devices that betray their imperfections. That are slightly out of tune, or capable of messing up, or less forgiving of human intervention. “Air moving through a room,” Clark said. “That's what's interesting to me.”
They kept pacing. The paintings on the wall evolved. Conversation turned to what happens when you grow as an artist and people respond by flipping out.
“I always find it interesting when someone wants you to go back to ‘when you were good,’ ” Yuskavage said. “This is why we liked you.”
“I can't think of anybody where I go, ‘What's great about that artist is their consistency, ” Clark said. “Anything that stays the same for too long dies. It fails to capture people's imagination.”
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Coat (mens), $1,150, by Acne Studios
They were identifying a problem with fans, of course, not with themselves. It was an implicit identification, because performers aren't permitted to critique their audiences, and it was definitely the artistic equivalent of a First World problem—an issue that arises only when you're so resplendent with talent that you not only nail something enough to attract adoration but nail it hard enough to get personally bored and move on—but it was still valid. They were talking about the kind of fan who clings to a specific tree when he or she could be roaming through a whole forest. In St. Vincent's case, a forest of prog-rock thickets and jazzy roots and orchestral brambles and mournful-ballad underlayers, all of it sprouting and molting under a prodigious pop canopy. They were talking about the strange phenomenon of people getting mad at you for surprising them. Even if the surprise is great.
Molly Young is a writer living in New York City. She wrote about Donatella Versace in the April 2018 issue of GQ.
A version of this story originally appeared in the February 2019 issue with the title "Switching Lanes With St. Vincent."
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prxttypeony · 2 years
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I can definitely imagine that it took very long to get all those flower hybrids. Its so amazing!! 🌼🌻🌸
And I'm glad that you like my ideas. 😊 But again, your island is really pretty. 💙💗
I can totally understand that you would be nervous to meet anyone famous. Famous people usually did amazing things, which made them well known. But they are still people. Being famous is just a social construct. So I think in the end they are not that different from other people. They just did things that were special. Not trying to be rude or anything, just a thought. Of course they are very cool for all the things they did. 😊
And I like your choice too. If I could meet Franz Marc I would also liked to let him know that people respect his artworks now, and that they are worth a lot of money. I've read a book about him. When he had his first artworks publicly displayed people spit at his paintings and told him this was not art. That must have been very hard for him.
And it was not just him a lot of painter were treated badly while they were alive and now their artworks are worth millions. I just hope they know, that their art gets the respect they deserve now. Same goes for scientist who's ideas weren't believed in their time.
Thank you for your kind words. 💙💗 This means so much. Mimi is back home know. They didn't have to do the surgery yet. She was able to empty at least a bit of her stomach and colon.
... And half of the people who work there were scared to go near her because she bit everyone who came near her. 😅 She gets very angry when someone tries to pick her up. 😅
But for the moment she is okay. We have to see how the next days go.
But thank you so much for always asking about Mimi, that is so, so nice. 💗💗💗
Where would you like to be in 10 years? What would you like to do? How do you imagine your life?
Hope you are alright and that you have a wonderful day. 💗💙🌼✨🌠
I love writing with you so much. It always makes me happy. 💫💙
-Sonja 🪐
Don't worry, I get what you mean, you're not being rude at all! It's just that I'm already intimidated by meeting new people in general, but knowing that they've accomplished amazing things just compounds the feeling of shyness 😖
Wow, I could never even imagine doing something so cruel to something a person put their heart and passion into 😢 People can be so cruel sometimes 😞 It's a noble wish to want to meet and inform him of the love his art gets now ☺️
Yes, I definitely agree. I feel like artists bring so much joy to everyone's lives through whichever creative mediums they use (music, painting etc) but they rarely get the recognition or gratefulness for it - especially in the past. And gosh, don't even get me started on how many women used to get their scientific achievements cast aside or had the credit given to men instead - it's infuriating 😖
Oh I'm so glad that Mimi is making positive progress 🥺💕 She must be a very tough little gal! I admit, I had a little giggle at the thought of a little bunny terrorising an entire vet clinic 😅 At least if she's being cheeky like that then it means she's probably feeling at least a little better ☺️ I'm glad she's home now and I'll continue to keep my fingers crossed for a full recovery for the little bun soon! Please pass on some pets and snuggles to her for me 💕 And I know how distressing it can be to have one of your pets be unwell so I think it's important to make sure you (and her) are coping okay ❤️ if she's important to you, then she is to me too ☺️
Oh gosh ummm well ideally I'd like to have figured out what I want to do with my career and either have a good job I like or be studying what I like. I also very much dream of meeting and marrying the love of my life, whoever they may end up being, and maybe having kids and definitely pets. Overall, I just want to be living a quiet, comfortable life, surrounded by warm and loving family and friends. I unfortunately still do struggle a lot with my mental health a lot so sometimes I struggle to see myself having any future at all. But I'm working on it and being surrounded by all the wonderful people (like you) that I am definitely helps ☺️
What about you? Do you have any aspirations you'd like to complete in 10 years?
I'm so glad you think so 💕 I always very much look forward to seeing your messages too 🌻 They're like a little, warm ray of sunshine 🦋
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juliusshjr533-blog · 4 years
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commercial cleaning companies near me: 10 Things I Wish I'd Known Earlier
If your air conditioner is far more than eight a long time outdated, repair is probably not well worth the expense, until it’s a straightforward difficulty like debris clogging the condenser unit or a worn enthusiast belt. These thermostats are starting to be extra subtle with a lot more features and selections to healthy a wide range of life and air treatment demands. Maintenance agreements are charge-helpful and can conserve you thousands of dollars in mend expenses. Dirty air filters can improve utilization of energy which success in accelerated power payments. Dirty filters block right air movement, which triggers the unit to operate more durable than it must. I identified as Lewisville Air Conditioning to schedule a assistance simply call. Our Lewisville HVAC specialists guide the way in making use of the latest technology and electricity conserving products to expertly diagnose and fix any difficulties even though carrying out our element to guard the surroundings and help you save you dollars on your monthly utility expenditures. Yelp end users haven’t questioned any issues but about Lewisville Air Conditioning & Heating. Even described my hesitancy simply because of the YELP rating. My a/c not too long ago start out to make a terrible sounds that intended anything had to be improper even while it continued to blow cold air.
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So You've Bought local restoration companies ... Now What?
Often, a specific space or place of the residence is hotter in the summertime or cooler in the winter, which can cause an imbalance that would make your HVAC method do the job more durable than it must. Windows still left open, doorways that are not properly sealed, forgetting to change your thermostat down, lack of insulation, cooling unused rooms, and other faults can make issues for your air problem procedure and very well as increase your strength expenses. Learn how to use the AC to improve success and lower down on expenses with these three tips. Therefore, you will have to usually appear in advance to opportunity costs and look at them to the low costs of instant AC repair service. Hence, for the sake of their health and fitness, you will have to avail Air Conditioner Repair Service Colorado Springs CO to deal with the inefficient ducts. Air flow requirements: HVAC models should present acceptable air flow to decreased the risk of respiratory infections and troubles. There are distinctive sorts of HVAC devices.
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For all those who reside in Southampton and Philadelphia in general, the Pennsylvania summers can grow to be really hot and this is when you will need to have your air conditioner the most. Need an once-a-year tune up? If you are searching for support with heating and air conditioning products and services, mend, installation, maintenance, and tune up in Flower Mound, TX, get to out to us currently! Lifetime’z Heating & Air Conditioning gives Flower Mound, TX Air Conditioning and Heating Products and services, Repair, Installation, Maintenance, and Tune Up. To avert this, the instant that you suspect that your air conditioner is need to have of maintenance, you ought to instantly request out and call a educated qualified to deal with your mend. If your process will not turn on, it is time to make contact with a repair service assistance. The rationale for this is that if the ducts are blocked with dust or other particles then it can be harder for the heat to go via the process.
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Cleaning the fan blades lessens sound and boosts the lifestyle of the unit. An more mature device normally tends to make a lot more sound than a newer just one. Therefore, a larger sized device is expected for a more substantial place. Your heating and air unit will only provide the air to the set temperature that is within just the very same room. Air conditioning devices with a warmth pump is a central air conditioning as very well as heating method. The method that is concerned in cleaning air conditioning and heating plans often provides allergens, particles, dust, and mildew, so it is incredibly clever to have a pro crystal clear the duct strategies that are linked to these programs. Find out the variety of chemical dependent procedure that air Duct Company is producing use when cleansing ducts and vents of your property. You can use your property vacuum to clean ducts and vents. One of the best causes supplied by people for continuing to use moveable AC models and noisy air conditioners in individual area home windows is the avoidance of a noisy, messy venture in the household or professional ecosystem.
How to Solve Issues With drain cleaning companies near me
3. Application of biocides to get rid of germs everywhere inside of the ductwork or HVAC components. 2. Duct cleansing and sensitisation will get rid of any micro organism or germs from your ducts. Germs: Germs and viruses may perhaps probably exist inside of your ducts, supported by humidity, heat temperatures, and substances that microorganisms feed on. Sometimes you can take away mould from metallic ducts, but plastic ducts will need substitute to take out all mildew. However, need to your program be in will need of air conditioning maintenance throughout the summer, ABC Heating & Air Conditioning’s rapid, responsive professionals will get you again up and managing in no time. However, are you aware of the simple fact that cleansing of ducts on a common basis is crucial for wellbeing of your spouse and children? There are a lot of overall health positive aspects of cleansing the air ducts in your house or place of work on a periodical foundation. Heating vent cleansing also has several rewards to support rid the mold. All of our guide service techs are NATE-licensed in heating and air conditioning repair and are competent to resolve almost any major model or products.
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This may perhaps direct to severe well being related challenges, our central heater duct cleansing provider will get your fresh air by professionally cleansing your ductworks. Installing a central home air conditioning procedure will guide to far better living working experience. There are also well being benefits to using these models, which include the much better air high-quality that arrives with temperature managed cooling over operating supporters. Accurate Products Selection - When it arrives to electrical power-successful, value efficient air conditioning, products harmony can make or break the bank. Pests acquiring their way into your air conditioning and heating system can lead to a large amount of inconveniences and threats. These oily contaminants that are remaining behind can trigger your carpet to dull and fade. The electric power of our industrial vacuum cleaners eliminate any dust left driving, leaving you with a thoroughly clean air duct and cleaner air in your house. Although frequent vacuuming can take out dry soil and particles from your carpeting, it leaves behind oily soils and particles that are made from cooking vapors, animals, and dirt tracked in from outside the house the household.
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Air duct cleaning can clear away at minimum 6 lbs of dust from your household or workplace. Particular resources is demanded to examine out everywhere you go a beneficial indication of contamination is if the detail is poofs of dust emanating from air source vents-then it is time and power to speak to in a really expert. When the HVAC technician does a routine maintenance verify, he will tighten each and every ingredient, examination each and every electrical link, make certain the motor has the right amount of money of voltage and he will look at the system's firebox for any cracks or holes. While the place will inevitably interesting down, it often can take a lengthy time and can be inefficient. When it transpires, the air conditioner is not capable to interesting down the air as effectively as it should really. Well drilling products is applied to https://en.search.wordpress.com/?src=organic&q=air duct bore small holes straight down from 100' to 400' deep. Undersized air conditioning products may perhaps not have the capacity to fulfill the thermostat placing, especially in serious weather ailments. Products that is oversized will normally short cycle, which generates surplus indoor humidity and lowers over-all performance.
Mold: Humidity is frequently latest inside of an air conditioning approach. Make past any doubt that household furniture or different blocks don't square wind present all over radiators, convectors or air admissions and diffusers. Ask about our recent financing specials from Wells Fargo or click on on the financing purposes under. Extreme dust can outcome in indoor allergy symptoms given that it accumulates inside of the course of action. These particles develop up inside the ducts and cut down the efficiency of the program and the quality of the indoor air. Your heating ducts are dependable for trying to keep your households heat in winters and your liked ones harmless with good quality indoor air. This will support boost the health and nicely-being of your cherished types as very well as the efficiency and lifespan of the HVAC technique. There is scientific evidence that publicity to air pollutant sales opportunities to persistent health and fitness concerns. Many persons do not know that there homes also have dust particles in it.
Soiled blowers, cooling coils, and warmth exchangers can receive dust also. Indoor air is full of dust particles, pollen, pet dander, and other airborne microorganisms. Long story shorter now we have awesome air after days of sizzling steam. Response time on Yelp was fast and was pleasantly surprised they ended up equipped to appear out in a couple of days of setting the appointment in particular in the course of this previous heat wave we had! Best is to choose it to a mechanic and be well prepared to shell out some bucks for the mend. MCM Heating & Air Conditioning is the oldest HVAC repair service business in Cooke County, and for really fantastic explanation. Clean air ducts guidance incorporate to air pollution-free indoor air also to heating and cooling method effectiveness. However, unclean ecosystem brought on by poor air high-quality may perhaps add chance. However, do not check out the reset button additional than the moment. Are you seeking to get rid of your molds and also save you some far more time and cash? We've bought a ton of online discount codes that are best for your price tag brackets. Got you contemplating of setting up your personal air conditioner?
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The Real Estate Investing Strategy I'd Recommend to Newbies (as a Seasoned Investor)
After having a real estate license for close to 30 years and having worked hundreds of real estate deals, as well as specializing in investment real estate, Ive been fortunate enough to see people from all walks of life and incomes deal with just about all aspects of real estate. Ive pretty much come to the conclusion that the decisions one makes with real estate, especially first-time home buyers, are very critical. A few minor tweaks in the strategy and order in which they do things with their real estate can have a monumental impact on their overall investing career. Recently, a young, single, 23-year-old guy in my Investor Relations Department began looking for his first rental property. I agreed to help him on his way to building a nice real estate portfolio by showing him some of the strategies that Ive employed and lessons that Ive learned while becoming a multimillionaire on a modest salary. For someone looking to buy that first investment property, in most cases, it still makes sense to utilize FHA owner-occupied financing if at all possible. FHA Owner-Occupied Now, I know what some of you may be thinking: FHA is the most expensive way to buy, especially with MIP (Mortgage Insurance Premium). Isnt 5 percent down on a conventional mortgage better? Well, not really, and heres why. With FHA, they not only allow seller assists, as do most mortgages, but you can purchase with as little as a 3 percent down payment. You are also able to count up to 90 percent of the current rents (as opposed to 75 percent with conventional mortgages), provided that they have a one-year lease agreement signed, and theyll count this towards the buyers monthly income. This can dramatically increase ones buying power, especially since you can purchase up to a four-unit dwelling with FHA financing. Keep in mind, you can normally only have one FHA mortgage at any given time.
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Related: The Achievable 5-Step Process For Getting That First Property Under Your Belt So, instead of my guy buying, say, a $100,000 single-family rental property FHA, he could possibly buy a $200,000 quadraplex, live in one unit, and count 90 percent of the $750/month per unit rent of the other three units toward his monthly income, enabling him to live in this building almost completely free. This will enable him to buy the next property in a year or two much more easily, since hell be able to save up more money that would have been spent on higher housing expenses. Just think, hell have almost double the write-offs because you cant depreciate your primary residence nor write off any repairs or maintenance. Buying the Second Property When it comes to buying the second property, if he rents out his apartment (the fourth unit of the quadraplex) that would help him pay the second propertys mortgage, thus enabling him to save even more money for the third property, which he could purchase owner-occupied a year or two later. The best thing you can do here is to buy conventional, owner-occupied with 5 percent down payment and utilize another seller assist. The trick here is to only buy a house where the mortgage payment is less than rent. By purchasing these first several properties owner-occupied, hell get much more favorable interest rates and terms, such as lower down payment requirements. Also, if he keeps all of the properties hes ever lived in without selling any of them, he would not be wasting the past settlement costs hes already spent. (See Plan to Sell Your Primary Residence? STOPAnd Consider This First.) Errors in Judgment A big error in judgment when young and starting out in real estate is buying as much house as possible in the best area possible (usually to impress family and friends), with the highest payment possible (usually one thats much higher than rent). By doing this, its much harder to save for the next property. Often, the investor then has to sell this owner-occupied property prior to buying the next one since it doesnt make sense as a rental. Even if the person is doing well later in life and their accountant is telling them they should buy an investment property for the write-offs, now its going to cost them big timebecausethey already could have had an investment property if they had used the right buying strategy when starting out to really accelerate their real estate investing portfolio. Let Me Illustrate Lets say you bought a $100,000 property owner-occupied, with a 5 percent down payment on a 30-year mortgage of $95,000 (4.5 percent interest, with approximately $3,000/year in taxes and $700/year in homeowners insurance). With a monthly payment of around $789.68 or so toward the mortgage, it rents for $1,000/month and you live there for five years before renting it out. With this strategy, you acquired the property owner-occupied with a great rate and little down, and youre five years into your 30-year loan before making it a rental property. If you waited until later in life to get a property (not owner-occupied), now youll need a 25 to 30 percent down payment, youll pay a higher investor interest rate, and youll have around 8 percent in closing costs. In this scenario, you would need a whopping $38,000 to purchase an average $100,000 SFR ($663.011 monthly PITI), as opposed to approximately $13,000 on a conventional, owner-occupied deal. Now you might say, Yeah, Ill have more cash flow since I put more money down. But the truth is, your yield went down. Lets look at the numbers FHA owner occupied 5% down payment: $210.32/mo. cash flow x 12 mos. = $2,524/yr. $13,000 total invested = 19% return before expenses (i.e., management, maintenance, and vacancies, etc.) Conventional mortgage non-owner occupied 30% down payment: $336.99/mo. cash flow x 12 mos. = $4,044/yr. $38,000 total invested = 10.6% return before expenses As long as youre cash flowing, the less money that you put down, the higher your yield.
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Related: Newbies: These 3 Simple Steps Will Prepare You For Your First Deal Strategy So, although buying a property FHA owner-occupied may not be the cheapest way to own, as far as monthly payment, it can be a great strategy for the first property, especially if its a multi-unit (less than four units). When starting out, it can cost the buyer the least amount of capital up front, and by counting 90 percent of the rents, it can also enable the investor to catapult into a much more valuable property. FHA can have other advantages as well since their underwriting can be more lenient, and their front-end and back-end ratios are much easier (for example, 29 percent versus 28 percent on the front-end ratio and 41 percent versus 36 percent on the back-end ratios). FHA will also send an inspector out who may require additional repairs to be completed. This may enable the buyer to get more work done prior to closing, and its usually paid for by the seller. Also, it puts pressure on the seller to accept the FHA appraisal, even if it comes in low, since the seller has to use this appraisal for up to six months if a future buyer is FHA/VA. So, if youre a newbie real estate investor looking to buy your first investment property, maybe it makes sense to purchase owner-occupied with FHA financing, too. [ Editors note: Were republishing this article to help out our newer members. ]
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Newbies, are you using this strategy? If youre a seasoned investor, what advice would you give to someone just starting out? Lets talk in the comments section below. https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/2015/10/01/real-estate-strategy-newbies/
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