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nomunamuinmybrain · 3 years

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Work you out (M)

Pairing: Jungkook x Reader

Rating: M

Genre: Smut

Word Count: 2.4K

In collaboration with the lovely @alwaysdarkestbeforethedawn94

Disclaimer: if you are under the age of 18 please know that this contains heavy sexual themes and mature language.

Summary: Working for Hybe has been an experience. Being Jungkook’s manager is another story. His sharp eyes, firm jawline and snarky attitude was a deadly combination to begin with. The guy easily found his way to your heart and you simply couldn't take it anymore.

Thinking back to how I managed to land such an unimaginable employment opportunity must have been a miracle. Unquestionably, working for HYBE had so many benefits; I swore to never leave this place. Sure, I was a simple manager's assistant, but I was by the side of one of the managers that handled the most important talent in the stretch of South Korea, the entire globe to be honest, BTS. I was assigned the position of assistant to the manager of one of the guys, none other than Jeon Jungkook. I really couldn’t believe my luck. Not only was I a part of one of the most skyrocketing influential enterprises in the country, but I also had the chance to meet some of the most inspiring people in the whole world! Who would have thought?!

Did I have a crush on the guy by the end of my first month working here? Yes, but who wouldn't? He is the sweetest, always polite and courteous. I've met my share of self-boasting asshats; this industry is flooded with such. This guy is worth billions and he has remained ridiculously humble. Word got around about him being a wonderful young man and I could positively say he is so much more up close. Jungkook is ridiculously handsome that’s a given already, but his personality was the real deal-maker. He reminds me of a dark stormy thundery night where I cover myself with my favourite warm fluffy blanket starring out of the window a rich flavored hot chocolate in hand.

In general, I quite enjoy working at the company’s principled environment. Don’t get me wrong, nothing in this world is rainbows and butterflies, but overall, I can confidently say that it’s been a mainly positive experience. Thankfully, the department I am in is assembled by kind, funny people who like to get things done. There hasn’t been a day were I regretted coming here. As for my daily duties as an assistant, working for Jungkook meant keeping up with his appointments, helping him with anything at anytime, managing his schedule, making sure it matches with the other guys' and so much more. I was required to work around the clock and as a single independent woman in her late twenties who was trying to figure out the world around her that didn’t sound like such a bad idea, though I digress. Essentially, I was one of the employees responsible for pretty much anything and everything he needed. Our department was at his disposal 24/7 running around, living that busy life.

That's until the pandemic struck. That was the first time I thought to myself that this might be nature’s valiant plan to get back what man so forcefully took from her. Suddenly, everything was canceled; life got put on a hold. My dearest supervisor, Jungkook's manager, had to stay at home because he had kids. In fact, a lot of people had to stay at home. Abruptly, days became weeks and weeks became months. The desperation and frustration we were feeling was like nothing else ever experienced. Truthfully, it felt like something had been stolen from us and we could never get it back. In this manner, when the gears finally started grinding again I was assigned to be the on-site manager for Jungkook. That meant being in direct contact with him more so than before and of course, being responsible for a ton of other obligations.

Not going to lie, the first months were slightly awkward for both of us and understandably so. We both were used to very different working arrangements. I might have been working behind the scenes before, but now I had to step into the spotlight becoming his own personal shadow, and I am sure he wasn’t really comfortable with that. Taken into account the current situation everyone looked like a volcano ready to erupt.

Once, I happened to accidentally step in a not so common incident; maybe it was a circumstance I wasn’t supposed to witness. He was on the phone at the time, when I saw him. That’s why I decided it was best if I stayed behind the half closed door of the studio. I couldn’t hear what he was saying and it was none of my business after all, but I could tell by the minute I laid my eyes on him that something was wrong. Something had been bothering him; irritation written all over his face. He was pacing back and forth, phone still on his ear. He was clenching his fist so hard I wondered if his nails cut into his skin. He was breathing heavily, almost as if he would burst and his muscles grew tense.

Then, in an instant, it seemed that the call ended and as he was putting the phone in his pocket he slammed his fists down onto the table a loud bang echoing in the room. After some consideration, I knocked on the door to make my presence known and he sharply looked at me. Without having the chance to say anything to him he let out a loud growl and left the room leaving me dumbfounded and unaware by the door. Soon after that, he apologized for the way he acted confessing that he had an unfortunate falling out with one of his closest friends and at the time he couldn’t process what was happening. I would never forget that day. It was the day I came across a not so familiar side to him.

From that day forward, things miraculously became easier and Jungkook was way more relaxed around my presence, we joked around often and he even texted me to ask about a variety of things outside of regular working hours. We managed to develop a teasing relationship full of endless borderline flirtatious banter. He had this other side to him that only a selected few got the chance to know. Jeon Jungkook was indeed a comforting raging night, but he was also an infuriating playful mischievous brat when he wanted to be. This in all honesty, made him a hundred times more irresistible in my eyes.

Life was going on smoothly until Jungkook decided that taking after midnight trips to the gym was perfectly acceptable, insisting that I escort him instead of his bodyguard. I cursed every single time but I went anyway. Forty-five minutes after midnight he was lifting weights, unbothered. Taking secret short glances towards him I contemplated what I had done in my previous life to deserve this torment. Don’t get me wrong, I couldn’t care less about the late hour, but to have this view in front of my eyes was causing me both mental and physical pain. The guy was clearly sculpted by the gods. With his broad chest, muscular arms and thick thighs he could have anyone he ever wanted. He even sported an hourglass figure; He is insanely unreal. That’s the main reason why I decided to sit there preoccupied with a silly game on my phone to kill time until the suffering ended. I was barely hanging from a string at the verge of blowing off the barrier between my personal and professional life.

Out of the blue, with a loud grunt, he dropped the weights, drawing me out of my contemplation. He looked annoyed for whatever reason. He tried his best to seem nonchalant but it was obvious, in his beautiful stern eyes. Could he be craving for an audience? Abandoning every rational thought I had, I put my phone away, looked in his direction as I got up to get water. I smirked at his clear annoyance. Surely, we weren't supposed to interact with the artists this way but I am cranky and sleepy, and for the first time ever, he was being kind of an ass to me. Was I perhaps the reason behind his sudden personality change? The thought kept floating at the back of my mind.

This kept going on for about three weeks or so and I gave him nothing. His annoyance prominent in his expression, more and more as the weeks went by. He was hot but I am sure all he had been seeking was an audience given that he missed it, or so I thought. Thursday evening rolls around and I was particularly iffy tonight ‘because I was extremely frustrated, sexually. This one was making my situation worse, sporting a tight black tank top and skinny grey sweatpants which made him look like a treat. He could easily pass for a bodyguard with those broad well-built shoulders. As my eyes scanned his body I realized this was the first time his tatted sleeve was on display. I couldn’t help but let my eyes wander. By the time I was done his eyes were already fixed on mine and I turned away immediately, embarrassment written all over my face.

Seeking solace in the women’s bathroom I tried to extinguish this ravenous yearning. The feeling of cold water did nothing to help the burning desire that was building inside me. Without warning, a knock at the door was heard, his sweet angelic voice following "Are you okay?" he asked, the remnants of a smirk could be heard still. "Jungkook you cannot be here, I am okay. I'll be out in a minute." I exclaimed, as calm as I could. "It's been ten minutes. I can't continue unless you're there." He insisted, I heard him chuckle after that.

With that, it was now or never, I pushed the door’s handle and made my way outside rolling my eyes in the process and he caught that, quickly moving closer, clearly annoyed, jaw clenched, eyes taking in my features, making him look not quite intimidating but definitely interesting. No, it was my mistake. Not just interesting, he looked ravishing. "As I said, I'll be out in a minute. Then you can finish up" I argued. But he didn't budge, moving even closer, if that was even possible, he was almost a breath away. "I don't feel like working out anymore" he declared like a child whose toy was taken away from him. As if I chose to play heads or tails with my career, I poked the beast further, "What is it that you want to do then?" I asked making sure he heard the annoyance in my tone. Coming even closer, to the point where he was completely pressed up against me, "You" he uttered calmly yet authoritatively. Before I could process what he had just said his soft lips crushed mine with a vengeance, thirsty. Pulling my lip with his teeth, he kept planting kisses from my lips to my jaw trailing down to my neck and décolletage; a surprised panting left my lips.

It felt as if I had involuntarily awakened this beastly hunger within him. His kisses insatiable and his touch was possessive, "I've been thinking about this for so long" he confessed as he took my hoodie off. "Sitting there, not giving a word let alone a glimpse. If you think this is off-limits you're wrong" he growled pointing at himself. "I can guarantee that once we're done here you definitely won't be able to look at me, ever." As he said all that, he managed to get me in a compromising position against the sink, his slim waist in between my legs. He kept my gaze as he lowered his head between my thighs. Little shit kept giving me hickeys on the soft flesh of my inner thighs, so close to my now dripping core. He enjoyed tormenting me and it showed. I was helpless but oh, God was all of this hot. He licked a stripe over my soaked panties, "Oh baby, you smell delicious" and with one hand he took off my underwear completely.

He sank in my folds, letting a guttural moan that I felt vibrating through my core. Not being able to think about what was happening I let myself indulge in my carnal desire my hands tangled in between his luscious hair.

He loved food and I've watched him eat before, but this must be one of his favorites ‘cause he was doing his best not to let a drop go to waste; he acted like a man starved. His hands held me in place, thankfully, ‘cause everything was too much; nothing could stop me from shaking, feeling everything deep in my core, he was too much. He just had to be good at everything. He kept a torturous tempo, from sucking my clit to his sinful tongue penetrating me, and as tears gathered around my eyes he decided to add his slender fingers in bringing me closer to heaven than I've ever been. "That's it baby, let go. Let go for me" he exhaled and just like that I had the most intense climax. My limbs felt numb, my whole body felt like rubber.

Before I could register what was happening he was back at it, sucking my over stimulated clit, my thighs unconsciously closing around his head as oversensitivity hit. "One more, please, come on baby, you can do it" he begged. He kept pumping his fingers while sucking my clit, as if it was his only goal in life. My screams muffled through my own hand clamped on my mouth as I reached my high for a second time that night. I felt it take over me with such intensity I didn't register what had happened. He emerged from between my thighs, soaked from me squirting and with a proud look on his face he declared "Now I look like I had the workout of a lifetime".

He helped me get dressed and pulled me close for a soft peck. He must have noticed my concerned look because he wrapped his arms around me in a warm hug and said "Don't be scared about this, we can work it out. I really like you and I'd like you to stick around". Starring into his eyes, I nodded and he pulled me close for the sweetest kiss, trying to tame my bewildered hair. He helped me get dressed and got out the door first to make sure that no one was around. I waited for a moment and then I got a text.

#bts #bts fanfic #BTS jungkook #jungkook fanfic #jeon jungkook #jungkook x you #jungkook smut #bts smut #idolau #bts imagines #jungkook oneshot #bts one shot #bts text #jungkook text

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zkfanworkweek · 4 years

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ZFAW Fan Content Creator Interviews: HayleyNFoster

Hey everyone! We hope you’re all excited for ZFAW, and to honor (ha!) ZFAW’s commitment to supporting and celebrating fan content creators in the Zutara fandom, we’re going to be rolling out a series of interviews with well-known and widely-beloved content creators over the next few weeks. We’ve got artists and fanfiction authors, some names you recognize as well as a few phenomenal up-and-coming talents, and we can’t wait for you to meet them all!

For the second interview in this cycle, we have our best propaganda creator and this fandom’s hottest new artist/undisputed queen of the animatic, @hayleynfoster!

1. Tell us about how you came to ship Zutara. What does this ship mean to you?

When I was around 14 or 15 and caught Avatar: The Last Airbender on television, I was drawn in by the art style, the humor, and the wonderful characters. I caught the episodes out of order, and the first one I saw and wasn’t prepared to be sucked in by was The Waterbending Scroll. It intrigued me at that age, and the line “I’ll save you from the pirates” combined with the tension between Katara and Zuko in that whole scene was electrifying. I remember my teenage self thinking these two have so much chemistry! And when I saw a commercial on Nickelodeon that featured fanart submitted by fellow Avatar fans, I realized that I could do that to! So I set about making Zutara fanart for myself. I stumbled onto Youtube, practically in its infancy, and discovered that people set clips of Zuko and Katara set to music (And this was still in season 1 days… so people who made these amvs were the real mvps because they were able to make compelling narratives in their amvs with like practically nothing to work with!). The AMVs really spurred my interest in this couple, I remember distinctly one Zutara AMV using the Dido song White Flag utterly capturing my imagination. I found fandom shortly after, getting into deviantart and forums. But the ship really began to mean something to me when, as I was working on my drawings in the computer lab at school, a buoyant presence hovered over my shoulder noticing my Zutara art on the computer screen. The girl was someone I had never really talked to and had only seen from afar but she immediately started excitedly saying she shipped Zuko and Katara too! In this simple shared obsession, I made one of the best friends I’ve ever had and we’re still friends to this day. We would theorize and fangirl over Avatar like it was nobody’s business; we poured over bootleg San Diego Comic Con footage that showed spoilers for season 2 before it aired; we lost our freaking minds when we finally saw The Crossroads of Destiny. We had watch parties every week as Season 3 of A:TLA aired, and comforted each other when the show ended as it did (much ranting was shared). Those are some of my happiest memories from high school… all because this one pairing from this wonderful show. Even though Zutara didn’t happen, we still chat every now and then about it. Zutara will probably be a lifelong obsession, always bubbling under the surface. And without it, I would have never realized that animation was a viable career path. It really did inspire everything including the work I’m doing to this day in the animation industry. I owe a lot to this ship and to Avatar: the Last Airbender.

2. What inspires you to create zutara fanworks?

The resurgence of Avatar: The Last Airbender this year really helped sort of spark that dormant love I had for Zutara. The show’s ending still disappointed me on the rewatch, but Zuko and Katara’s relationship arc was as captivating as ever, so I turned to some fanfiction and looking at people’s pretty Zutara art and AMVs to just revel in fanon instead of getting to hung up on the actual ending of the show. But then I realized, with quarantine and my work load being pretty light, I had time to actually make all new Zutara art for myself, art I was never fully capable of making as a kid, but now could do with my 7 years of industry experience and just… life experience. And I was inspired to do some corrective animatics to satisfy my own desire for a different ending. I just really like exploring these two characters, doing different and interesting things with them, and frankly I’m inspired to make cute, fluffy, romantic art simply by virtue of living in a really sad and depressing world. Things are so crazy right now, creating art about two characters I love being in love, is comforting. And it helps to have inspiring music and amazing Zutara amvs to just sort of stir up my emotions and imagery in my head to make into animatics and art.

3. Be selfish - if you could request one fanwork based on your own art/fanfic, what would it be? What would you absolutely love to see someone create?

Ohhhh… Well, It’s always nice to have people write fanfiction that puts words to my animatics. I am not that great at coming up with dialog myself, so I’ve just chosen to indulge in visuals and emotions for my boards. But when I read things like RideBoldlyRide’s take on my Reunion Animatic, it makes me pretty giddy. (They finally have voices!) :) And this is the MOST selfish thing I could request, but I’m not shy about saying how much I love well done amvs, so I will literally kill for someone to make Zutara AMVs to songs I like… Like, most of AURORA’s songs but especially Exist for Love, Sunseeker by The Naked and Famous, Promises or Take Me by Aly & AJ, Adore You by Harry Styles, Human Enough by ONR, Never Let Me Go by Florence + The Machine, and/or Almost (Sweet Music) by Hozier just… I can see the AMVs so clearly to any of these songs in my head, but I don’t have the tools or skill set at my disposal to make a compelling fan video. When I was in high school, I originally thought I wanted to go into video editing simply because I loved making very crappy AMVs (they were so bad you guys), but I figured out being a storyboard artist was more in my wheelhouse. haha

4. Any words for people who are new to the fandom and/or nervous about sharing their work for the first time?

If you’re new to the Zutara fandom, just have a good time! Don’t waste too much time arguing with people over your shipping preferences. I wasted so much of my teen years having pointless shipping wars with people on DeviantArt, and I’m just so much happier nowadays because I’m just making Zutara art in my little corner of the internet, and honestly, in the politest of ways, I don’t give a shit if people don’t like my art or Zutara. haha I think that’s sort of a key thing for people thinking of posting creative works here in the fandom, just make art for yourself, satisfy your own desires for the pairing, get your creative sparks flying, and create just for the joy of creating. It’s always nice to get comments and such, but simply making the art should be what spurs you on, not the external validation. And have a good time, don’t worry too much - I say as someone who worries about EVERYTHING. But honestly, making art for A:TLA is some of the most relaxed I’ve been because I make it just for me. I’m lucky others seem to like it too!

5. What’s an idea for a fanwork that you have but haven't gotten around to making?

I have an idea for a second generation storyline with my Zutara kids that involves Kya (the eldest firebending daughter) falling in love with an airbender boy (tentatively named Gora in my headcanon who’s a bit of a rabble rouser and one of Aang’s kids he had with a Kyoshi Warrior), and then they start a socialist revolution in the Fire Nation in order to dismantle all of the hierarchical societies across the Avatar world… Together Kya and Gora Fan the Flames of revolution… ehhhhh... Get it?? Oh! Oh, and then Katara, who had put in legit liberal reforms in her time as Fire Lady listens to her daughter after resisting in the first part of the story, but then realizes she can actually play a part in the dissolution of the royalty and is also active in the revolution realizing that moderate liberal reforms are no substitute for a society free of serving royalty (which she had always been uncomfortable with but had rationalized with herself that she was doing good in her capacity as Fire Lady.) I just feel like there’s a lot of cool potential for discussing these ideas and also having some aspirational change in the Avatar world. lol For aesthetics and just happy fluffy times, I can indulge in Fire Lady and Fire Lord Zuko stuff, but really at the end of the day, I take issue with the structures in a society that have to exist for monarchies to exist. Soooo, I kind of want to do my own corrective story for that… if I ever have the time or guts. On a less ambitious note, I would love to do a Zutara sparring animatic to practice doing action, but I need a good story; I am not good at doing fights just for fighting’s sake. Those are just some things I have rattling around in my head.

6. Are you participating in ZFAW? If so want to give us a hint as to your plans?

Yes! The most I can say is I have one animatic almost finished and one that’s still being thumbnailed. The rest are probably going to be comics or emotive single pieces based on the fanfics I really like right now. :)

#interviews #zutara fanworks appreciation week #zfaw #hayleynfoster #zutara

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sweetdreamsjeff · 3 years

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Jeff Buckley- The Courage, The Strength, The Grace.

Posted on March 30, 2014 by musicmusingsandsuch

FEATURE:Jeff Buckley:📷The Courage, The Strength, The Grace.___________________________________________________________________________His majestic voice and entrancing songs have inspired legions of modern-day artists; a truly remarkable and singular human being. I investigate the incredible legacy of one of the music world’s greatest ever lights.___________________________________________________________________________IT is hard to believe that Grace was released twenty years ago now…I shall go into more depth about its release (and the year 1994) later on, but I guess that is the wonder of enduring music- it seems fresh and current, so long after its release. For me, Jeff Buckley (or Scottie Moorhead to give his birth name) is a unimpeachable icon- and my all-time music idol. Buckley is the musician that resonates most in my heart; a human I relate to and understand. Although he died seventeen years ago (this year), I still think about him every day: strange given we never even met. Watching and listening to various interviews, I always sit and sigh; his voice is so mellifluous and calming, it is hard not to become seduced. The way he spoke about music; his idols and influences; what it meant to him- it is something you do not hear often in the modern climate. In a capricious music industry, tastes and trends change; ‘idols’ are almost disposable, and fickleness mandates critical minds. Buckley seemed like a pure drop of sound in the ocean: few musicians have ever seemed so genuinely in awe of music and what it can do to a human being. When trying to distil the essence of Buckley into a single thought or semblance, it is impossible- vast and layered is his influence. I guess my opening paragraph is dedicated to one core responsibility: to offer thanks to the man. Buckley was-and is- the reason I picked up a pen (to write my first song). As a man (whom experienced much heartache and setback) his tenacity and focus is an awe-inspiring tapestry that has guided me past some tough times. His voice gives me shivers, and compels me to bend, mould and nurture my own- in quest for perfection that will never be realised. As a human, Buckley remains a relatable and down-to-earth figure whom resonates hugely with many; as a voice and musician (in my mind) he is untouchable. Many have tried to mimic and match the legend (I will touch more on this later), yet none have equalled him, and with good reason: his originality and talent are his and his alone. I know there will be some reading this- if any are reading at all- whom are familiar with Buckley’s back catalogue; some whom are intimately enamoured of his every move- and some unaware of the U.S. icon’s glorious- if brief- career. I shall do my best to fill in any blanks; reignite something in those (whom may have a dusty copy of Grace in their C.D. collection); as well as pay tribute to one of the most important- and underrated- musicians of the past twenty-or-so years.In November, 1966, Jeff Buckley arrived into the world. Born to Mary Guibert and Tim Buckley in California, the star-in-waiting’s embryonic years were fraught with upheaval as well as musical influence. Tim Buckley- for those unaware of his name- was a key name in the music world during the 1960s and ’70s. His albums were paragons of Folk purity, free jazz experimentation- as well as Sex Funk sweat. Buckley senior’s voice was a multi-octave instrument of pure force; something that scored some remarkable songs and fascinating movements. He went on to make nine (studio) albums, and inspire a wave of enamoured and inspired musicians- each impressed by Buckley’s fierce talent and prolific output. Although the quality of Buckley’s albums varied, and in spite of the fractious relationship between him and his son, you cannot deny: fathering Jeff Buckley was his greatest triumph. Tim Buckley died (from a heroin overdose) in 1975 (aged 28; Jeff Buckley was an eight-year-old at the time), and abandoned Jeff when he was a child. The bond between Jeff and Tim Buckley was non-existent; our feature-ee did not consider Tim to

be his dad at all. The Buckley household was awash with various genres and styles of music- peaking our icon’s mind from a tender age. The family (Jeff, his mum and step-dad Ron Moorhead) moved between various towns in Orange County- it was a nomadic and dislocated upbringing. The one stable constant in Buckley’s childhood years was music; from U.K. acts such as Queen, Led Zeppelin and The Who, through to U.S. legends such as Nina Simone and Kiss. Physical Graffiti (by Led Zeppelin) was the first L.P. Buckley bought (and fell in love with), and amidst a turbulent and anxious period of his life, music offered a sanctuary and safe haven. Buckley attended music school, yet considered it a huge waste of time- his talent was a birth right, and could not be taught or improved upon. Buckley’s instincts and upbringing enforced his music ideologies and ambitions, and it was the sounds he grew up on- not the teachings of any academy or college- that moulded the star. Buckley’s climb to prominence had humble beginnings. In his teenage years, the American played in various different bands- performing gigs in a range of hotels, bars and locations. Dividing his time between L.A. and New York, Buckley was initiated to new and fresh sounds and forms of music- yet in terms of performing, started out as a backing singer. One of Buckley’s first public appearances was signing at a tribute concert to his father (in New York in 1991), yet it was not until a few months later things started to really click- and begin an extraordinary trajectory. Collaborating with Gary Lucas, the two worked on songs (which would feature on Grace) including Mojo Pin and Grace. No longer was our hero a loner; no more was he a backing singer- he was finding his feet in the spotlight and starting to set tongues wagging. Towards late-1991/early-1992 a transformative (and elemental) period of Buckley’s life began: performing around Lower Manhattan and East Village in New York. It was not huge venues and arenas that were being charmed, but small and intimate cafes and bars. I shall expand more on Buckley’s interpretive talents and the importance of Sin-é (a small Irish café in East Village), but that moment and that tiny café seemed like Buckley (perhaps first) natural home. Buckley himself has some particular views on his itinerant travelogue: “Moving to the East coast from California was the most extreme and successful self-rescue operation I’d ever implemented. Otherwise I was going to rot from the inside. It was do or die. I’ve always done music, been in bands, but at the time I was staring at the walls, with no hope and no confidence”. It was here (in New York) that his formative moments were consecrated and gilded; it was here that many had the fortune of witnessing a young man, at the start of a wonderful career. A lot of various components and elements went into shaping and moulding a truly extraordinary musician.I shall take you inside Sin-é shortly, but want to give you some lead-in. Buckley did not merely rock up to the café one day, ready-made and complete- his influences and music collection was a vital composite. I have touched upon some of the acts which peaked Buckley’s (young) mind- but it only tells part of the tale. When many think of Buckley, it is perhaps his voice that is the most synonymous facet. To me, anyway, I feel that this is our hero’s calling card. Buckley’s voice is something that he worked hard to foster, yet also influenced and shaped by his musical heroes. In many interviews, Edith Piaf and Nina Simone have been cited as major idols. As well as Led Zeppelin (and Robert Plant), the likes of Morrissey and Van Morrison featured highly in Buckley’s regards- helped to add additional colour and imperialism to his treasured pipes. Diverse artists such as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Judy Garland, Bad Brains and Elton John were important too- the combination of all these disparate and wide-ranging musicians left their mark. When analysing Buckley’s voice in pure terms, it is hard to explain. There have been several artists (since his death) whom

have tried to evoke some of Buckley’s essence (I shall highlight this towards the end of the feature), yet in the early ’90s, Buckley gorgeous and rarefied tones were certainly not commonplace: few male vocalists had the same capacity or ability as our hero: He was a tenor capable of reaching a falsetto pitch. A tenor’s range in the bass clef spans middle C to high F. Jeff’s actual range was four octaves. A student from the University of Queensland studied Buckley’s voice; and came to the following conclusions: “Jeff Buckley was a light lyric tenor. His very different registers were blended marvellously. His chest, voice, and head voice were perfectly integrated. His falsetto was good, too, and his fluctuating between falsetto and head voice is something most singers are very jealous of. His tessitura (or comfortable singing range) was between E below middle C, which he often started verses on- (“Grace”, “Lover …”, “Last Goodbye”), and the notes D right above middle C and F# just above that- in most of his choruses. He also used his high A frequently. A typical lyric tenor tessitura. In other words, to the unacquainted, the same range as Pavarotti. Except, Jeff was very fond of the alto register, which he would exploit in falsetto, or coordinated head voice (a fuller, wailing type of voice). His lowest note was on a live version of “Dream Brother” (on the Australian Grace album pack- it must have been the weather!) and it was the second A below middle C — this is quite low for a high tenor voice. He loved to wail in head voice on the high E, which he did on half the songs on Grace, but mysteriously stopped doing them on Sketches. He could sing in an alto range quite effectively- check out “Strange Fruit” on the “Man in the Moon” session — breath-taking; or the Edith Piaf cover on Live at Sin-é”. Buckley never really mentioned his voice, and was always modest about its genius. As much as his idols helped to shade his tones, a natural ability and instinct made it what it was. Buckley explained by saying that “there is no ‘good’ singing, there’s only ‘present’ and ‘absent.’ That’s it—it’s the balls. Just the utter deathlessness, fearlessness… What really fuels your art is the courage to express yourself, and just, sometimes you get kicked in the nuts for it“. Before I open the doors of New York’s aforementioned Irish café, I want to mention Buckley’s song writing. In interviews- with self-deprecating humour- Buckley claimed he did not really know how to write songs- in a conventional manner. Often dreams and poems would influence songs and movements- our hero was not a fan of the traditional verse-chorus-verse structure. He was enamoured and impassioned by words; seeing song writing as a deeply personal thing. Buckley explained song writing, thus: “Your thought is your right, your art is your right. You are allowed to invent and explore your song. You are allowed to make it real through your concentration and hold onto your gift, man, and let go… I daydream thinking about great songwriters. I was brought up with all these different influences—Nina Simone, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Patti Smith—people who showed me music should be free, should be penetrating, should carry you“. The original semblances Buckley was compiling around 1991/2 were filled with romantic declaration, and paeans to cherished love. The young man was experimenting and finding what he had to offer as a songwriter. Buckley had views when it came to ‘sensitive’ song writing, and expressing himself this way: “Sensitivity isn’t about being wimpy. It’s about being so painfully aware that a flea landing on a dog is like a sonic boom As Buckley was ready to bring his songs to East Village, everything was going t change for him; as he saw it: “Just feeling is a subversive act. Expressing it is rebellious“.I am not sure what Sin-é looks like today- or whether it has been re-named- yet in 1993 (when Buckley recorded the songs that appeared on his Live at Sin-é E.P.)it was an intimate, homely and charming venue- small bit filled with character. Buckley would often

help serve coffees and clean up tables (after and before gigs) and seemed comfortable and ensconced within its safe walls. Buckley felt naturally secure here (“I could never be tired of New York“), and it was at Sin-é that his firmest early steps were made. I will mention Buckley’s vocal range later, but if you listen to the Live at Sin-é (Deluxe Edition), it is a hugely impressive collection of songs, that highlight just how staggering his voice is. Tracks from the likes of Van Morrison and Bob Dylan were reinterpreted and redefined by Buckley: each was given a unique stamp of authority. As exciting as it was to hear original words from the young master, it was his huge interpretive talents that were wooing audiences the most. I have provided a couple of links (at the foot of the feature), that go to show just how good he was. Tracks such as Sweet Thing and I Shall Be Released became tender and hugely evocative tales: imbued with a falsetto vocal of purity and clarity. Each night he played, there was a new set list; songs played previously were given a different take, and one would never hear the same performance two nights in a row. Buckley had his own with regards to his music, and singing: “Music comes from a very primal, twisted place. When a person sings, their body, their mouth, their eyes, their words, their voice says all these unspeakable things that you really can’t explain but that mean something anyway. People are completely transformed when they sing; people look like that when they sing or when they make love. But it’s a weird thing—at the end of the night I feel strange, because I feel I’ve told everybody all my secrets”. Given the fact that Buckley was performing in a café, it was obviously a very small location: making the overall sound that more personal and intimate. Each night, the young hero would be on the (tiny) stage: just him and a guitar. I cannot do full justice to how great the performances and recordings from this time are- and I wish I could have been there. The way Buckley employed his guitar as an additional vocal element; changed chords and direction mid note: making each track as mesmeric as possible. Buckley himself said: “It’s all about supporting the voice—any real guitar player should know that. Rhythm and melody are the king and queen and it’s all to support the voice—ask Keith Richards, ask Robert Johnson“. Original numbers (which would appear on Grace) such as Lover, You Should’ve Come Over, Last Goodbye and Mojo Pin were being worked on and witnessed for the first time. It is a shame that more modern-day performers do not take the route Buckley did: playing live at homely and character-filled locations, rather than bigger venues. Buckley himself understood the importance of where he was playing (“I like low stage volume. I want the idea and the sound of the idea to intoxicate—not the voltage“). Very soon, the young American was about to get his big break. Record label executives would watch his performances, and it was the eyes and ears of Columbia Records whom would get the signature of Jeff Buckley.📷“Grace is what matters. In anything. Especially life, especially growth, tragedy, pain, love, death. About people, that’s what matters. That’s a quality I admire very greatly. It keeps you from reaching for the gun too quickly; it keeps you from destroying things too foolishly; it sort of keeps you alive and keeps you open for more understanding“. It was Buckley’s debut- and only- L.P., Grace, that contained a lot of these elements and considerations. Joining together with new band recruits Mick Grøndahl, Matt Johnson and Michael Tighe, the quartet laid down the movements that formed the basis of one of the greatest albums of all time. Retreating to the heat and striking landscape of Woodstock, the sounds and sensations of Grace took shape. As well as recommending you seek out the album and enjoy every moment, I would say it is well worth watching a promotional documentary about the album (the first link under Interviews). It was clear how much making music meant to Buckley,

and how important it was. With producer Andy Wallace, a masterpiece was unveiled. Tracks such as Mojo Pin were based around dreams and psychedelic images; the title track is an epic song dedicated to true love- both containing Buckley’s mix of powerful belt and transcendent falsetto lines. One thing that struck me about the album is the maturity and range of Buckley’s lyrics. The title track was filled with evocative images and pain-ridden sacrifice (“And the rain is falling and i believe/My time has come/It reminds me of the pain/I might leave/Leave behind“). Mojo Pin blending emotional romantic sways as well as striking and detached images: “Precious, precious silver and gold and pearls in oyster’s flesh/Drop down we two to serve and pray to love/Born again from the rhythm screaming down from heaven/Ageless, ageless/I’m there in your arms“. Our hero was turning scribbled notes and verses into hugely emotive and stunning songs. Last Goodbye– perhaps his most effective track- defines what made Buckley whom he is: an impressive lyricist with a voice that brings every word to life. As well as being one of his most direct and memorable vocal performances, it also contains some of his most emotional and racked utterances (“Kiss me/Please kiss me/But kiss me out of desire, babe, and not consolation“). I shall go more into the vocal displays that augmented each track, but Grace demonstrated what a confident and talented songwriter Buckley was. It was the shared kinship and tightness of the entire band that added the colour and weight, but the strength of the lyrics and music was evident. It was obvious that Buckley would include some cover versions, and the likes of Lilac Wine were included: a song that Buckley wished he had written, and adored. That particular song- which has been performed by the likes of Nina Simone- was transformed into something that Buckley made his own. It was perhaps the lyrics of that track that Buckley connected to, and vibed from. When it came to his own words, Buckley had opinions on what made (great lyrics): “The thing is that I also like to have lyrics that are inclusive, that give you space to be inside them, to put your experience on to them, so that they can move through other moments“. The ‘inclusive’ nature of lyrics is perhaps an elemental focus when one looks at Buckley’s interpretive skills. He clearly identified with songs such as Lilac Wine, and found ways of making these tracks his own. I shall get onto one particular number soon, but want to mention a few more tracks. Lover, You Should’ve Come Over (a track moulded and shaped during the Sin-é regency) was Buckley longest track, yet one that was rife with scenery, fascinating characters and above all, pure declaration. The opening lines brought the listener right into the song: “Looking out the door I see the rain fall upon the funeral mourners/Parading in a wake of sad relations as their shoes fill up with water“. As it progresses, we see our hero parading the floor; hungry for his lover, but regretful, too (“And much too blind to see the damage he’s done“). As our hero waits in the rain, lonely and pining, the final words are unveiled: “Sweet lover, you should’ve come over/Oh, love well I’m waiting for you/Lover, you should’ve come over/Cause it’s not too late“. Eternal Life is an angry song that rallies against corrupt forces and men behind desks and masks, whilst the swan song Dream Brother are filled with lyrics that could have double meaning (“Don’t be like the one who made me so old/Don’t be like the one who left behind his name“). Before I complete my survey of Buckley’s 1994 masterpiece, I have to mention one song: Hallelujah. Originally written by Leonard Cohen (on his album Various Positions) it was owned by Buckley. This is the song that bring many to the wonders of Jeff Buckley- depressing, considering all the terrific work he has left behind. I suppose it is unsurprising that so many are in awe of Buckley’s rendition- it remains one of the greatest vocal performance of all time. Of course it was Leonard Cohen’s

spellbinding words that provide the basis, yet Buckley gave the song a lease that the original did not contain. In a sense it was a perfect marriage: pair phenomenal words with a voice capable of bringing them fully into life. According to producer Andy Wallace, Buckley took many runs at the song. Versions ranged from hard and angry, through to ‘manly’ renditions: the young artist endless sought to hit that ‘perfect rendition’. The definitive take that we hear on Grace is the result of several takes sewn together: the result is one of the defining songs of the ’90s. I have mixed feelings about the success of Hallelujah. I am ashamed that so many reality stars and ‘YouTubers’ have covered it- they have watered down and eradicated its potency. Buckley’s version is the definitive version, and the song requires no further reinterpretation. It is a shame, but I suppose inevitable, given the potency of our hero’s voice. In a way, mind, I am glad as no one has even a modicum of Buckley’s talent: no subsequent version has got even remotely close to Buckley’s take. You can listen to it and come to your own opinions, but it remains the focal point of an album filled with huge confident, nuance, wonder and intention. The reaction to the L.P. was a bit slow-burning, and initial sales were pretty slow. It is one of these albums that arrived at a difficult time. Grunge was still present, and the likes of Britpop were beginning in the U.K. Grace seems somewhat alien when matched against these diffident genres, and it took many years for people to truly latch onto, and appreciate the album. The likes of the U.K. and France took the album more to heart than Buckley’s native fans, and a lot of post-Grace touring took place here. The album’s purpose what to highlight what a force Buckley was, and what a talent the young man had become. Many- in its wake- were keen to see the master in the live domain- witnessing the songs first-hand.Buckley spent much of the next year and a half touring internationally to promote Grace. From the album’s release, he played in numerous countries, from Australia, to the UK (Glastonbury and the 1995 Meltdown Festival). Following Buckley’s Peyote Radio Theater tour, the band began a European tour on August 23, 1994, starting with performances in the U.K. and Ireland. The tour continued in Scandinavia and, throughout September, numerous concerts in Germany were played. The tour ended on September 22 with a concert in Paris. A gig on September 24 in New York dovetailed on to the end of the European tour and Buckley and band spent the next month relaxing and rehearsing. A tour of Canada and the U.S. began on October 19, 1994 at CBGB’s. The tour was far-reaching with concerts held on both east and west coasts of the U.S., and a number of performances in central and southern states. The tour ended two months later on December 18 at Maxwell’s in New Jersey. After another month of rest and rehearsal, the band commenced a second European tour, this time mainly for promotion purposes. The band began the tour in Dublin; Buckley has remained particularly popular in Ireland. The short tour largely consisted of promotional work in London and Paris. Touring recommenced in April with dates across the U.S. and Canada. During this period Buckley and the band notably played Metro in Chicago. Buckley’s Mystery White Boy tour, playing concerts in both Sydney and Melbourne, Australia, lasted between August 28 and September 6 and recordings of these performances were compiled and released on the live album Mystery White Boy. Buckley was so well received during these concerts that his album Grace went gold in Australia, selling over 35,000 copies. Between the two Oceania tours Buckley and the band took a break from touring. It was clear that Buckley meant a lot to people, and the demand was huge and consistent. After the consistent rigours of touring- which saw the young star tour relentless pretty much until early-1997- Buckley was keen to take a break, as well as work on new material.“Relentless, endless joy peaking into tears,

resting in calmness, a simmering beauty. If you let yourself listen with the whole of yourself, you will have the pure feeling of flight while firmly rooted to the ground“. This was a quote from Buckley, and perhaps summarised how he felt about music, and what it meant to him. I guess some of its beauty had been lost in the mesh of touring commitments, so our hero was eager to reconnect with music’s wonder. Buckley said it himself: “I don’t write my music for Sony. I write it for the people who are screaming down the road crying to a full-blast stereo“. Buckley wanted to give something to the fans; explore new territory- and put as much new and original material onto tape as possible. Buckley became interested in recording at Easley McCain Recording in Memphis. He rented a shotgun house there, of which he was so fond he contacted the owner about the possibility of buying it. Throughout this period, February 12 to May 26, 1997, Buckley played at Barristers’, a bar located in Memphis, underneath a parking garage in an alley off of Jefferson Avenue. He played numerous times in order to work through the new material in a live atmosphere, at first with the band then solo as part of a Monday night residency. The new atmosphere and scenery compelled Buckley, whom spend time alone writing new material. Most of the time Buckley was in Memphis alone (whilst his band remained back in New York). Buckley would send tapes back to the band, whom would listen and digest- keen to meet up with their frontman. All of this activity would result in the (posthumous) recordings that would feature on Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk. Ultimately I will have to mention Buckley’s death, and it is all the more tragic, given that our young hero was in such inspired mood. Buckley was reconnecting with music, and saw it as a curative and healing process: “My music is like a lowdown dreamy bit of the psyche. It’s part quagmire and part structure. The quagmire is important for things to grow in“. Ensconced within a tiny house in Memphis, Buckley would commit rough sketches to four-track; seeing what he could come up with. Our hero was a perfectionist, and would often be unhappy with songs. Tracks were recorded and scrapped, as Buckley continued to chase his ideals of perfection. If you listen to Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk, you can hear some of the completed cuts- as well as the rough demos- and Buckley never intended them to be heard. Grace was a pivotal moment, yet Buckley wasn’t to create an album that was original and different- to break away from his previous sound. Tracks were taken into the studio and recorded with (producer) Tom Verlaine: yet Buckley was dissatisfied with them. Our hero parted ways with Verlaine, and called Andy Wallace up- keen to start from scratch and try to regain the energy and enthusiasm he had during the recording of Grace. Perhaps it was expectation and market pressure that got to him; or the strains and fatigue from touring, but Buckley was restless and constantly questioning himself. He suffered from Bipolar Affective Disorder which would have effected his creative process and put stress and pressure on his shoulders, and it seemed that a lot of the magic of music had been lost. In spite of everything, in May, 1997- as Buckley’s band mates were due to fly to Memphis to start recording new material- our hero was in good mood; excited by a new lease of life. Unfortunately, Buckley’s new enthusiasm was to turn to tragedy. On the evening of May 29, 1997, went swimming in Wolf River Harbour, a slack water channel of the Mississippi river, while wearing boots, all of his clothing, and singing the chorus of the song Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin. Buckley had gone swimming there several times before. A roadie in Buckley’s band, Keith Foti, remained on shore. After moving a radio and guitar out of reach of the wake from a passing tugboat, Foti looked up to see that Buckley had vanished. Despite a determined rescue effort that night, Buckley remained missing. On June 4, two locals spotted his body in the Wolf

River near a riverboat, and he was brought to land. It is typical of Buckley that he went into the river- he was a romantic that was impulsive; yet it was a move that cost the music world a true great. I shall not go into more detail, but in my conclusion will state why Buckley’s death hit me hard. Just when our hero was on the precipice of a second L.P., he died- at the tender age of 30. Luckily, a lot of the studio versions and rough takes have been released (on Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk). The quality varies- not surprising as our hero was still working on the songs- yet there are clear glimpses of where Buckley was heading. The overall sound was harder and heavier, evident in tracks such as Nightmares by the Sea and Witches Rave’. Buckley wanted to move away from the pure ethereal aspect and beauty of Grace and inject some elementary grit and force. Amongst the harder numbers, soulful gems such as Everybody Here Wants You and Opened Once remained; trippy swirls like New Year’s Prayer were delightful, and- one of my favourite songs from this period- Vancouver showed how Buckley’s song writing has developed. It is perhaps ironic that the dozen or so ‘professionally-recorded’ tracks would have made a terrific album- yet Buckley was not satisfied enough to take that leap. That makes Buckley’s death even more potent: just how good would have Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk been? It is well worth seeking out the album, and hearing our hero’s intentions- and imagine what could have been.“The only way to really make it—anywhere—is to put every bit of your being into the thing that only you can provide. The only angle is the art that you choose, that only you can provide. And to do that, you have to be quiet for a long time and find out what you bring forth. You have to know what’s in yourself—all your eccentricities, all your banalities, the full flavor of your woe and your joy. What does it look like? What does it feel like? What makes it different from everybody else’s? It’s totally subjective. You’re just given the task of bringing it up“. Buckley’s words, music and beauty still resonates with many- nearly seventeen years after his death. Birthday celebrations and tribute concerts are held each year (in November), with fans and musicians remembering Buckley’s brilliance and legacy. Tribute concerts and events take place regularly, with new acts all keen to pay homage and keep his legacy alive. It seems that- even after his death- many cannot (and will not) forget what the man gave to the music world. In New York, an annual tribute concert is held, and I am sure that this will be taking place for decades to come. In spite of having a brief career, it is clear how much the music means- and how hard it resonates.When asked if he (Buckley) had any advice to new musicians starting out, he stated this: “I have no advice for anybody; except to, you know, be awake enough to see where you are at any given time, and how that is beautiful, and has poetry inside. Even places you hate“. To Buckley, music was the most important thing. He did not want to be remembered as a human (he did but it was secondary to the music); the songs and his musical memories were most important. Songwriting, to him, was a calling and something that defined his life. He said that “songs come out of poems, and sometimes poems come out of dreams“. The U.S. dreamer gave the world a hell of a lot of beauty, and changed the music world forever. Before I give my personal thoughts (and sum up), just think about the legacy he has left. As well as the live recordings, Grace and various other tracks, we have the interviews- both recorded and written- that inspired a wave of musicians and artists. Thom Yorke said that The Bends (by Radiohead) would not have sounded like it did- and have been as good- were it not for Buckley. Radiohead watched Buckley perform in 1994, and following a particular mesmeric performance, Yorke was overcome. He rushed to the studio, and without anyone else, laid down a vocal take (that actually is the album version we hear)

of Fake Plastic Trees. Such was the effect that Buckley’s music had; that it hit musicians and fans that hard. The softer and purer moments of The Bends was inspired directly by Buckley- that album, to me, is the greatest ever recorded. New and upcoming artists incorporate elements of Buckley’s voice and artistry, with musicians such as Matt Bellamy counting our hero to be amongst their all-time greatest icons. The greatest legacy the man can have, is for his music to be remembered and kept alive. If you have never heard any of his music; or have not visited it for a while, take the time to do so. I not writing it to be sad and to use this as a late obituary or eulogy; more to pay respects to a hugely inspirational figure. Because of Buckley, I picked up pen and paper and decided to write music. Listening to his voice reduced me to- and still does- goosebumps, and he is my music idol for so many reasons. As a human, he was down-to-earth, sensitive and beautiful. His speaking voice was a whispered and entrancing instrument, and the way he talked about music was infectious. Buckley was jocular and witty; upbeat and playful. He has a tragic and affected side; he was mysterious and alone, but as much as anything: he was Jeff Buckley. There was no fakery or sob story; no tinsel or scandal- it was just a young man trying to bring his music to as many people as possible. For me- being 30-years-old- feel more inspired by Buckley more than ever. By my age, the man had recorded everything we have heard from him, and covered so much ground. Being someone trapped inside a crappy life, in a place I do not want to be, I am always looking for the back door- to escape and be somewhere else. As a songwriter, I need to overcome nerves, financial poverty and depression (as well as procrastination) and make a move: whatever the outcome. The man compelled me to start writing music and to want to become a good a songwriter and singer as possible. Buckley was brave and bold; he moved between cities and took huge personal risks to make his music. For me, he defines what it is to be truly inspirational: do what you need to do, no matter what. I wish I could be more like him, as I hate myself for being trapped in a rut; for being in a stressful environment that I hate (more than I can say). Perhaps revisiting his music will spark an idea in my brain (I hope it does), but as much as anything I want to say thanks. Buckley is my hero and has made me into a better songwriter, and someone whom wants to follow dreams; and f*** ‘real life’ and all the boring stressy crap that comes with being ‘ordinary’. I guess you cannot ask for more from a human being: that is why I am writing this. Of course one cannot ignore Buckley’s voice, as it seems to be what he is more synonymous for. I am obsessed by the voice, and strive to reach to Buckley’s levels: knowing I perhaps never will. The year 1997 was so sad, because it was the year that a huge musical force was taken away. It was a senseless death, and I cannot do anything about it. It makes me sad thinking about it; how upsetting it must have been for his band (and family); what could have been. I guess it is not worth dwelling on the past, but celebrating what Buckley gave the world: the music, the influence and the beauty. He is someone we will never see the likes of again and was a true original. We are lucky for having him in the world, and his music and songs will remain long after we have all gone. As much as anything, listen to his music; hear the man talk in interviews, and don’t feel sad: feel compelled to change. If you are stuck in a rut, in misery; in a place you do not want to be; then get out- move on and be what you want to be. Buckley proved that lifer can be cruel and indiscriminate, and I guess it is pointless feeling regretful and trapped inside boxes you do not want to be in. I guarantee that, when you listen to his songs again (and again), it will compel change and something special: it has for me, indeed. I will leave you with some sagacious words, from the man himself (with regards to

his own music): “I try to make my music joyful—it makes me joyful—to feel the music soar through the body“. Wherever you are and whatever you are doing- just listen to his music. Do not do so for the sake of things or because it’s apropos: do it because it is joyful. After all…IT is what he would have wanted.___________________________________________________________________________📷Ten Essential Jeff Buckley Recordings:Calling You- Live at Sin-é (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJk3RErKtmI)The Way Young Lovers Do- Live at Sin-é (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kPUT_1d4dA)Grace- Grace (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZSTTEoHVxo)Last Goodbye- Grace (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8II4oKMvudk)Hallelujah- Grace (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIF4_Sm-rgQ)Everybody Here Wants You- Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQN_OmIboNo)Vancouver- Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0_pFAh6cbw)Satisfied Mind- Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCU3HXNGaAw)We All Fall in Love Sometimes- Live Radio Performance (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYGZ4M-dXls)Dido’s Lament- Meltdown Festival, 1995 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y11AMsuh6Ls)Interviews:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gd_3IYzGfHkhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gip77qGXWT4https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFuWNMMP-twhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1nRrJ7QT9cFurther Reading:Officialhttp://www.jeffbuckley.com/pages/Twitterhttps://twitter.com/JeffBuckleyFacebookhttps://www.facebook.com/JeffBuckleyYouTubehttps://www.youtube.com/user/jeffbuckleyVEVO/videos

#Jeff Buckley #Jeff Buckley- The Courage #The Strength #The Grace #jeffbuckley

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ecoamerica · 2 months

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youtube

Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared

The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!

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ts1989fanatic · 4 years

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Taylor Swift is the millennial Bruce Springsteen.

If there were any doubts about this, they should have been dispelled by her latest release: the haunting Folklore, which filters the exact kinds of story-songs Springsteen excels at through Swift’s modern, orchestral-pop aesthetic. The album has been one of the best-received of her career, but then, the response to essentially everything she’s produced since her 2010 album Speak Now has involved critics grudgingly being dragged toward having respect for her skills.

The overlaps between millennial Swift (30 and born in 1989) and baby boomer Springsteen (70 and born in 1949) — both of whom are among the best songwriters alive right now — are considerable beyond their songwriting prowess. But comparisons, by necessity, must start there.

Both musicians love songs about a kind of white Americana that’s never really existed but that the central characters of which feel compelled to chase anyway. They use those songs to tell stories about those people and the places they live. They’re terrifically good at wordplay. Both are fascinated by the ways that adolescence and memories of adolescence continue to have incredible power for adults. Both are amazing at crafting bridges that take already good songs to another level. And both write songs featuring fictional people whose lives are sketched in via tiny, intimate details that stand in for their whole selves.

For example: The opening lines to Springsteen’s “Thunder Road” (“The screen door slams / Mary’s dress waves / Like a vision she dances across the porch / as the radio plays”) tell you everything about that woman and the man observing her.

Similarly, the opening lines of Swift’s “All Too Well” (“I walked through the door with you, the air was cold / but something ‘bout it felt like home somehow and I / left my scarf there at your sister’s house / and you still got it in your drawer even now”) tell you everything about this doomed relationship and the nostalgia both people involved in it still feel, compressed into a tiny little stanza.

Springsteen released “Thunder Road” when he was 25; Swift released “All Too Well” when she was 22. Both songs continue to stand as touchstones for who the artists were at that point in their lives.

But leave this comparison aside for a moment. What’s most interesting about drawing this connection are the ways in which the overlap between Springsteen and Swift’s styles can tell us about how our culture treats art made by men versus art made by women — and art made by baby boomers versus art made by millennials.

Springsteen and Swift each entered the music industry as young wunderkinds with lots to prove. Springsteen’s first album — the loose and rambling Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. — was released when he was just 23. He had been playing in bands all around New Jersey for most of his teens, and signed a record deal with Columbia Records at 22.

He was expected to become an acoustic folk singer in the vein of Bob Dylan, at a time when the music industry was uniquely preoccupied with finding the “next” Bob Dylan. Springsteen quickly flaunted those expectations, assembling a group of musicians who would go on to be known as the E Street Band, in the name of creating a sound that captured a massive, orchestral blast of rock. Springsteen would finally perfect this sound on his third album, 1975’s Born to Run, and he’s been a global superstar ever since, even decades after reaching his pinnacle with 1984’s Born in the USA.

Swift’s rise was slightly more meteoric. She released her debut album, Taylor Swift, when she was just 16, and it featured songs that she had written as a freshman in high school. Swift broke into the industry via country music, and her country-ish second album, 2008’s Fearless, won her the Grammy for Album of the Year.

Just as Springsteen shirked folk in the name of rock, Swift’s sound quickly shifted away from the girl-with-a-guitar country archetype and more toward pop. By her fourth album, 2012’s Red, she had largely left country music behind.

(A fun game: If you line up Swift and Springsteen’s album releases roughly by how old they were when they recorded them, you’ll find surprisingly similar career trajectories. For instance, Born to Run and Swift’s 2014 album 1989 were released when their respective artists were 25. Both broke the artists through to even wider acclaim than they had before.)

Yet the two artists’ backgrounds are quite different, which may explain the different ways in which they’ve understood American political divides. Springsteen grew up in a blue-collar family in New Jersey, while Swift is the daughter of a former Merrill Lynch stockbroker who could afford to move the entire family to Nashville, Tennessee, when his daughter showed a talent for songwriting.

Springsteen’s songs have always reflected growing up in a world where poverty is just a lost paycheck away, even as he’s become incredibly rich. Swift has no such perspective. Her songs take place largely in a wistful world where money is rarely an object. And the artists came of age in very different political climates, too.

But the political divide has narrowed in recent years. Swift has taken a recent turn toward more political topics — particularly social justice issues involving the mistreatment of women and LGBTQ rights. That turn stems from her struggles to differentiate herself as an artist in an industry that routinely turns young, beautiful women into disposable products, wringing out of them a few years of hit singles and then tossing them aside. Her embrace of the ways her growing sense of (extremely white) feminism helped her attain more artistic control over her image has slowly but surely led to a greater understanding of the yawning disparities inherent to the US. She is more tapped into the ways that power is unequally distributed throughout American society and increasingly speaks out to that effect. (She’s still pretty lousy at confronting class issues, though.)

But even with all of their similarities as songwriters and increasing similarities as explicitly political artists — and even with all of the awards they have won and records they have sold — there’s still a knee-jerk insistence that Swift is either too self-obsessed or too much a creation of the music industry, while Springsteen went from being rock’s heir apparent to an elder statesman with only a few bumps along the way. And the reasons for that disparity go well beyond any artistic differences or similarities they might possess.

The most obvious difference between the reception of Springsteen and Swift is also the most obvious difference between the two of them as people: He is a man, and she is a woman.

Swift didn’t exactly discourage listeners from constantly parsing her lyrics to figure out which of her famous exes she was singing about early in her career; she even hid hints in her liner notes to help fans decode her clues. But the degree to which she was written off, for years, as a fundamentally unserious and self-involved artist reflects the ways in which domestic and romantic concerns are written off as unimportant when women talk about them.

By comparison, Springsteen has so many songs about teenage boys crushing on teenage girls, but few people try to figure out who he’s talking about when he mentions the almost mythical “Mary” in songs throughout his career. Perhaps it’s because he wasn’t dating famous people as a teenager, and perhaps because it’s sadly still too common to think a man singing about an adolescent crush has more artistic merit than a woman doing the same thing.

Even in the wake of Folklore’s release, many corners of the music-discussing internet insist upon talking about the album more in terms of Swift’s male collaborators — namely Aaron Dessner of The National and Justin Vernon (a.k.a. Bon Iver), both indie-rock royalty — than in terms of her own talents, even when, say, Dessner does a whole interview with Pitchfork talking extensively about Swift’s preternatural songwriting talents. The idea that Taylor Swift has somehow been “created” by someone is one that seems to persist, regardless of how much control she has over her own image.

But the ways in which people doubt Swift’s talent, or her control over her image, reflect larger questions about how baby boomers remade pop culture in their image versus how millennials continue to do.

Baby boomers were born into the era of radio’s dominance over American airwaves, and television entered their lives during their childhoods. The presence of these mass media influenced how much pop culture boomers could be exposed to, pushing into hyperdrive the artistic loop of influence becoming creation. American popular art exploded and proliferated as a result.

Whether that explosion led to the rise of rock and pop music or the invention of the cinematic blockbuster, baby boomers took the popular forms their parents adored and accelerated them toward something more raucous and purely entertaining.

The dominant new medium of millennials’ lives was the internet, which arrived when we were still very young. And a major element of internet culture is remix culture. From the earliest days of the “information superhighway,” jokes that mashed up disparate elements of pop culture — now we’d call them memes — were incredibly common, because the central idea of the internet has always been many people iterating on an idea rather than one person releasing that idea into the world.

Inherent to this kind of remixing is the idea of transforming something, often something disreputable, into something else. Thus, many of the greatest millennial artists work in forms that have previously been written off as unworthy — like, say, pop music — because the gatekeepers in those areas weren’t as likely to be aging baby boomers whose taste was ossifying. (This progression is not all that dissimilar from what the boomers did to the popular culture they were born into.)

Millennial artists grew up amid the splintering of the monoculture and, therefore, feel less of an obligation toward it than older generations might. When all you’ve known are niches, it’s better to try to find a niche that appeals to you and explore it as much as possible, then hope enough people come along for the ride.

Swift’s eagerness to collaborate with other artists who really excite her isn’t a uniquely millennial trait: Artists have been doing this since artists have existed. That she is only too happy to spread that credit around (even as her increasingly well-known “voice memos” that show her coming up with the central ideas behind her songs center her authorship first and foremost) is a testament to how millennial artists feel comfortable with both celebrating their influences and revealing how their art gets built, brick by brick, often thanks to the work of other people.

This is not to say that all baby boomer or millennial artists operate exactly the same way as Springsteen or Swift. Both artists write music that is equal parts heartbreaking and fun, evocative, and ephemeral. They’re constantly searching for their version of an America that does not exist, while not forgetting to make sure that we all have some fun in the one that does.

The impulse they share to tell stories about average Americans searching for meaning amid a crumbling world is a natural one for artists in the US. Yet Springsteen has so often been celebrated for doing just that, his rugged vision of a fading nation and talent for making national crises deeply personal treated as authentic and brilliant.

By comparison, Swift is often derided for how she digs into the ways personal apocalypses visit themselves onto the rest of reality, making her something like Springsteen’s inverse. The struggles she faces are deeply rooted in biases against women, the genre of music she operates in, and her generation. It’s worth reexamining the notions that drive this disparity in the two artists’ reception, if nothing else.

Perhaps we take Springsteen more seriously than Swift because he’s a man, or because all the great rockers of his generation have been venerated by time and nostalgia, or because his influences were men like Chuck Berry and Woody Guthrie instead of Shania Twain, Patsy Cline, and a litany of contemporary collaborators. But one of art’s great pleasures is finding the ways in which artists of different generations talk about the same topics across the span of years.

Bruce Springsteen and Taylor Swift craft their impeccable story-songs utilizing the tropes of very different musical genres. But they’re equally good at crafting songs built to both sing loudly on the freeway and accompany a flood of tears in the wake of some new heartache. Different as they might be, Springsteen and Swift are always talking about the same thing — all of the ways that every new day, no matter how promising, carries within it the potential to bring about the end of the world all over again. Until then, though, let’s sing about it.

ts1989fanatic all of that just to Tell us something swifties have known for years, the music industry is sexist and misogynistic DUH!!!

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iamanathemadevice · 4 years

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“Mank”

Official Trailer

This film is not due to be on general release until December in America, so it was a privilege to be able to see it early here in Brisbane.

The plot is as simple as the narrative is not. Herman Manciewicz (Gary Oldman), aka ‘Mank’, is hired by Orson Welles (played by one Tom Burke) to write the script of Welles’s new movie, Citizen Kane, a thinly disguised commentary on the newspaper magnate, William Randolph Hearst. He has agreed to forego credit as part of his contract, but when the script is done, asks for it anyway. Welles angrily agrees, and both men share an Oscar for the screenplay - the only Oscar awarded to the movie.

To dispose of the most important matter first, Tom is barely in the film, despite the importance of his character to the existence of the movie. He does all right for the minute he’s on screen, and the additional thirty seconds or so of his voice acting, but his casting bewildered both of us, since he was a poor physical fit for the heavily built Welles, and his accent and voice didn’t resemble Welles either. He was one of a number of Brits playing Americans in the film, and while his American accent has improved quite a lot since he recorded Brothers for the BBC, there must be dozens of actual American actors who could have done this better.

I have now spent more time talking about Tom Burke than he appears in the film.

However, if you can bear to watch a film that does not make best use of our Tom, you will find it very much worth your while. You needn’t know the smallest thing about Hearst or Citizen Kane or Orson Welles to follow and enjoy this movie, as all the context and background is given in considerable detail through a series of flashbacks. It’s a love song to the Golden Age of Hollywood, an indictment of the power of vested interests in the movie and newspaper industries to manipulate politics, and a fairly unflinching look at Mank himself. It is not an unbiased one, though, as Orson Welles is somewhat unfairly villainised and his real work on the Citizen Kane script minimised. It is unashamedly told from Mank’s point of view, and Mank’s opinion was that he was the sole auteur of the script, and so that is what David Fincher, using his father Jack’s screenplay, presents in his film.

I’m not a fan of Fincher’s films per se, but this movie is a stunning work of art. Lovingly imitating the sounds and feel of films of that period, especially that of Citizen Kane, the attention to detail is quite incredible and effective. The script takes a little while to warm up, but once it does, it really flies, and all through it, Gary Oldman grabs your attention and never lets go, dominating each scene and delivering a performance that never feels like caricature or mere imitation. (I can’t stand Gary Oldman as a person so this admission is grudging but deserved.) Mank is a raging drunk, a gambling addict, often callous and unkind, author of his own misfortunes and of his long-suffering wife, played by Tuppence Middleton (excellent in this as she always is.) But he’s also clever, witty, talented, and generous, and his relationships with people like Hearst’s longtime mistress, Marion Davies, Hearst himself (for a while), his brother, and others in the industry as shown in the film explain why his friends remained loyal for long despite being exasperated with him.

Oldman is supported by a splendid cast. Amanda Seyfried as Davies is a standout performance, showing Davies and fragile and brave. Lily Collins as Manciewicz’s amanuensis during his recovery from a broken leg and the writing of the Kane script is initially wary, finally entirely on his side as a support and a friend. Charles Dance as Hearst is refined and worldly and cruel as only he can play it, and Ben Kingsley’s son Frederick is brilliant as the enfant terrible Irving Thalberg who died young, leaving a huge legacy of wonderful movies. Legendary MGM boss, Louis B Mayer (Arliss Howard), is a hard, driven, and morally compromised man determined to defeat communism and socialism in California at all costs (and those costs are high). Other Hollywood legends like Chaplin, Garbo, Gable, and Lombard, are seen but not heard, or heard briefly but brightly, like Sid Perelman, David O. Selznick, and George S Kaufman who, along with Mank, wrote for MGM.

There are plenty of resonances with the media and politics of today in those of 1930′s California, but Fincher doesn’t dwell too hard on the equivalences, letting the facts speak for themselves. All through it, Mankiewicz is a sharply dry observer, attempting to speak the truth in an industry which depends on convincing the audience that King Kong really was ten stories high and Fay Wray was a virgin at the age of forty.

Fincher is a notorious perfectionist, demanding over a hundred takes of his actors, and refusing to compromise even if he has to wait twenty years for a studio to allow him to film Mank in black and white as he insisted it had to be. The wait has proved worth it. Highly recommended.

#mank #herman manciewicz #tom burke #david fincher

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creamysupply · 3 years

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CreamSupply UK:

According to a paper issued by government in May of 2020, the United Kingdom is the 11th largest milk producer worldwide, with milk representing 16.9% of the country's overall agricultural production in 2018. Aside from a projected drop this year, the industry has enjoyed excellent revenue growth over the last five years.

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industrytrends2021 · 3 years

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Nematicides Market: Analysis, Strategic Assessment, Trend Outlook And Business Opportunities 2021 - 2027 | Top Players- Bayer AG, BASF SE, Syngenta Crop Protection AG, Dow

To understand the market in depth, Nematicides Market research report is the perfect solution. With the specific base year and the historic year, estimations and calculations are performed in the report. This global market research report studies the market at regional and global level by considering major geographical areas. This Nematicides report is generated with the combination of best industry insight, practical solutions, talent solutions and latest technology. The analysis and forecasting of market data using best statistical and coherent models, market share analysis and key trend analysis are the major accomplishing factors in this market report.

Nematicides report provides complete background analysis of the Nematicides industry which includes an assessment of the parental market. All the statistical and numerical data, which is calculated with the most established tools such as SWOT analysis, is represented with the help of graphs and charts for the best user experience and clear understanding. Market segmentation analyses the usage of the product with respect to its applications, end user or with respect to geography. Nematicides Market research report is the most relevant, exclusive, reasonable and admirable market research report depending upon the business needs.

Nematicides market is estimated to be valued to reach USD 1.90 billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 3.60% in the forecast period of 2020 to 2027 and this creates opportunity for the leading nematicides market to grow into a very diversifying manner. Data Bridge Market Research report on nematicides market provides analysis and insights regarding the various factors expected to be prevalent throughout the forecasted period while providing their impacts on the market’s growth.

The report also emphasizes the initiatives undertaken by the companies operating in the market including product innovation, product launches, and technological development to help their organization offer more effective products in the market. It also studies notable business events, including corporate deals, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, partnerships, product launches, and brand promotions.

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The report also inspects the financial standing of the leading companies, which includes gross profit, revenue generation, sales volume, sales revenue, manufacturing cost, individual growth rate, and other financial ratios.

The market is predicted to witness significant growth over the forecast period, owing to the growing consumer awareness about the benefits of Nematicides. The increase in disposable income across the key geographies has also impacted the market positively. Moreover, factors like urbanization, high population growth, and a growing middle-class population with higher disposable income are also forecasted to drive market growth.

According to the research report, one of the key challenges that might hinder the market growth is the presence of counter fit products. The market is witnessing the entry of a surging number of alternative products that use inferior ingredients.

Nematicides Market Country Level Analysis:

The countries covered in the Nematicides Market report are U.S., Canada, Mexico in North America, Germany, Poland, Ireland, Italy, U.K., France, Spain, Netherland, Belgium, Switzerland, Turkey, Russia, Rest of Europe in Europe, Japan, China, India, South Korea, New Zealand, Vietnam, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Rest of Asia-Pacific (APAC) in Asia-Pacific (APAC), Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Rest of South America as a part of South America, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait, South Africa, Rest of Middle East and Africa (MEA) as a part of Middle East and Africa (MEA).

Check Table of Contents of This Report @ https://www.databridgemarketresearch.com/toc/?dbmr=global-nematicides-market

Leading Nematicides manufacturers/companies operating at both regional and global levels:

Bayer AG, BASF SE, Syngenta Crop Protection AG, Dow, FMC Corporation., Sumitomo Chemical Co., Ltd., Monsanto Company, NufarmCA, ADAMA India Private Limited., AMVAC Chemical Corporation, Brandt, Inc., among other domestic and global players.

Key factors influencing market growth:

New application developments and product designs.

Falling prices of the Nematicides

Strict government norms along with administrative support and R&D subsidization.

Geographic expansion by major market players as well as new entrants.

Reasons for purchasing this Report from Data Bridge Market Research

Data Bridge Market Research relies on industry-wide databases for both regional and global authentic data, which enables the team to decipher the precise trends and existing scenario in the market.

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#Nematicides Market

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noutizil123 · 3 years

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Mauritius Businesses in East

Ayurvedic Wellness Shop

Ayurvedic cosmetics and products, ayurvedic massage, therapies and facial

Ayurvedic Wellness Shop - Nou Ti Zil

www.noutizil.mu

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ClubLife FlacqClubLife, your new Sports Centre in the East

ClubLife is a Sports Centre in Flacq and offers your with Foot-5 and Archery. It also includes its Gym (ClubLife), at Flacq, Coeur de Ville.

We are here to offer you an amazing foot-5 experience, within a reasonable budget accessible for people in the East. We hope you will be enjoying it!

We are also innovating with Archery, which is an amazing skilful sports, enhancing not only the health and precision, but also self-esteem and team spirit.

4 Floodlit 5-a Side Courts – Quality Changing Facilities – Comfortable Lounge For Post-Match Refreshments

ClubLife, your new Sports Centre in the East ClubLife is a Sports Centre in Flacq and offers your with Foot-5 and…

ClubLife Flacq - Nou Ti Zil

www.noutizil.mu

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Dr. Bruno Cheong Hospital

Introduction

Flacq Hospital is situated in the East of Mauritius at Centre de Flacq in the district of Flacq. It provides services for the Health Region 3 for a population of 170,000 inhabitants covering essentially the district of Flacq under the directorate of a Regional Health Director (RHD).

The Regional Health Director is also responsible for the Primary Health Care of the region which is provided through:

24 Community Health Centres 4 Area Health Centres 1 mediclinic

which are spread throughput the Health Region 3.

Historical Background

After the First World War, a high increase of tuberculosis and pulmonary diseases was witnessed and the Central Police Station in the East was converted into a District hospital in 1922.Flacq Hospital had then 78 beds divided into 2 male wards, 1 female ward, 1 Paediatric ward, 1 Gynaecological ward and a department of Accident and Emergency managed by Dr Limberty and two other colleagues.

In July 1983, the then Prime Minister laid the foundation stone for an X-ray department.

In August 1983, a minor surgery service was opened.

In February 1997, it was upgraded into a Regional Hospital and a Medical Ward and a Paediatric Warda medical ward and a Paediatric ward were inaugurated in the new hospital complex.

The following units were then added: Gynecology & Obstetrics, General Surgery, Orthopedic Surgery and Anaesthesiology Unit.

In 2000, SAMU services were started. (Emergency Medical Services)

In Feb 2000, an Intensive Care Unit was inaugurated.

In July 2010, 24-Hour Cardiology services were started.

Services provided:

Ancillary Departments

Medical Laboratory Services

Blood Bank

X-Ray

Physiotherapy

Occupational Therapy

Centralised Health Records Department

Central Sterile Supplies Department

Laundry Unit

Catering Unit

Procurement & Supply Unit

Energy Services Unit

Administrative Services:

TitleNameEmail addressRegional Health DirectorDr (Mrs) S. [email protected] SuperintendentDr J. SaubaRegional Health Services AdministratorMr. R. Seetul [email protected]. Senior Health Records OfficerMrs S.K [email protected]

The SAMU Project, a specialised emergency service. Phone 114

General Medicine

General Surgical

Orthopaedic

Paediatrics

Neonatal Nursery

Gynecology and Obstetrics

Psychiatry

Endocrinilogy

SAMU services — (Emergency Medical Unit)

Physical Medicine OPD

Chest diseases Outpatient Clinic

NCD Secretariat

NCD Services (Non Communicable Diseases)

Skin diseases OutPatient Clinic

ENT Clinic OutPatient Clinic

Ophthalmology OutPatient Clinic

Accident and Emergency Dept.

Dental facilities

Haemodyalisis Unit

Ayurvedic Outpatient Clinic

Speech Therapy Unit

Nutrition Unit

Medical Social Worker

Introduction Flacq Hospital is situated in the East of Mauritius at Centre de Flacq in the district of Flacq.It…

Dr. Bruno Cheong Hospital - Nou Ti Zil

www.noutizil.mu

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Farmbasket

Farm Basket is your solution for a weekly supply of healthy vegetables with the least amount of pesticide. We provide freshly harvested fruits and vegetables from sustainable farm. We deliver to your door.

Farm Basket is your solution for a weekly supply of healthy vegetables with the least amount of pesticide. We provide…

Farmbasket - Nou Ti Zil

www.noutizil.mu

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Krams Tech Software ServicesABOUT US

We have a simple mission: To develop software solutions that we can be proud of.

We’re a small versatile team consisting of developers, designers, architects and project managers all of whom make up Krams Tech. Working closely with clients over the years, we aspire to develop robust solutions that will resist the ever-changing nature of the software industry. Using cutting edge technologies and applying our dynamic approach, we ensure that every solution is bespoke and tailor-made. This enables us to build fully working software in a matter of weeks — not months.

By following an Agile approach to every project we undertake, we build software the way it’s meant to be built: incrementally and responsive to changing requirements. We deliver value to the client from very early on in the project’s lifecycle.

Our Process

We like to work hand in hand with our clients to ensure the project is a success. We’ll be there for you every step of the way providing guidance, support and reassurance.

OUR SERVICES

We can help you build great products at competitive rates. While we do not see ourselves solely as code monkeys, below are some of the services that we offer.

Development

We aspire to build and deliver best-in-class software for each of our clients irrespective of the complexities and challenges at hand.

Design

Let our team of designers wow you with sleek, modern designs to give your product a head start.

Support

Faulty software is money down the drain. We can fix and maintain your existing solutions as well as offer competitive maintenance packages on ideas we develop together.

E-commerce Solutions

Get to market quickly and easily with our various e-commerce platforms. Gain an unfair advantage over your competitors.

Project Rescue

Whether you have an existing project which has stalled or you need additional resources to see it through, we are here to help.

Consultancy

Need an extra pair of hands? We have a pool of great talent at our disposal.

ABOUT US We have a simple mission: To develop software solutions that we can be proud of. We're a small versatile team…

Krams Tech Software Services - Nou Ti Zil

www.noutizil.mu

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#Mauritius Business Directory #Mauritius local search #Online Business directories #.#business listing sites Mauritius #local business listing Mauritius #Advertise Your Business Online Mauritius #business provider Mauritius #Mauritius

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oncexinxmyxdreams · 3 years

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OC Profile Laurie Venkman as an adult (The Real Ghostbusters.)

Bio

Name: Laurie Macy Venkman.

Age: 25. (as of the February 2009, approaching the 25th Anniversary since Ghostbusters was founded.)

Ethnicity: Caucasian with family roots running in Irish, Welsh, Dutch, French, English and German.

Species: Human.

Height: 5'7".

Weight: 155 pounds.

Hair color: Dark brown.

Hair style: Thick, shaggy hair falls a little past her shoulders. She has layers with wispy bangs. Keeps hair pulled into a ponytail for work and loves to style it for special occasions.

Eye color: Deep cornflower blue.

Birthday: September 13th, 1983.

Gender: Female.

Sexual Orientation: Straight. She’s guy crazy, but she’s waiting for the right one.

Powers (if any): No.

Distinguishing features (if any): Has a turned up nose like Peter's. Has defined cupid bow lips like her mom, but Peter's smile. Has mom’s round shape of face. Laurie has two tattoos out of memory/respect for her parents. One on her left outer bicep that says “Proton Princess” in Peter’s handwriting. Second one is at the lower, inner right arm of a heart with her mom’s initials inside.

Blood Type: A-

Clothing

Day to day outfit: When she’s off-duty, Laurie prefers straight leg jeans for most of her attire. She likes blouses and simple tees: those are usually graphic like rock bands, Ghostbusters merchandise or even raglan tees. She has some favorites that have sarcastic sayings and one that says “I got it from Dad.” She has cool calf boots, cute deck shoes and classic hightop converses.

Pajamas/What they wear to bed: Favorite pajamas are comfy black leggings and a black nightshirt. (It has a cat on it and says "to-do list: sleep."

Formal Clothes: Chic dresses in 80s-90s style. She loves the velvet/metallic fabrics for these and wearing black stylish pumps.

Work/School uniform: Work attire is a black jumpsuit with dark purple trim. She prefers those colors to help her blend in more with the shadows when she hunts. She does have doc martin’s for her boots, but she prefers wearing her converses since they’re more flexible for running. She has extra pockets inside her jumpsuit for trinkets like a nail file to pick locks etc.

Other (glasses, jewelry, etc): Has a black square digital watch. Wears a silver brushed metal ring that was a gift to her from a ghost she helped as one of her first solo missions. (She wears it on her right middle finger which symbolizes responsibility and balance.) She has four ear piercings: three normal lobe piercings and then industrial ones in the upper ear cartilage. While she has plenty earrings to choose, her favorite earrings are three simple gold hoops and industrial earrings are silver barbells with “diamond” studs. Loves having painted fingernails; usually in different purple shades.

Health

Physical Illnesses: Overcame pneumonia at the age of 3. Suffers from hay fever like Peter. Now gets strong cases of flu when sick, but otherwise she's fine.

Mental Illnesses or disorders: She’s been guessed to have a learning disorder, but still no official diagnosis. Some have guessed ADD and Dyscalculia.

Medications?: Just regular vitamins.

Addictions (Drugs, alcohol?): No addictions. She likes to drink, her favorite cocktail being a White Russian, but she's careful. She’s never tried drugs.

General Health: Fine enough considering that she works out every day, but she's got a big appetite. Being an inverted triangle body type, she carries weight in upper half: Measurements are 40-30-38. Her legs are the most toned part of her body, strong arms, broad shoulders and a size 12, but looks for bigger size shirts since she’s top heavy. Happy with her shape.

Life/Preferences:

Likes: Fashion, sleeping, eating, cars, and motorcycles. She loves listening to her favorite music while mouthing the lyrics and dancing.

Dislikes: Criminals, yogurt (that isn’t soft serve or frozen) and people doubting her since she’s not a college graduate. The one thing she despises the most is inaccuracy about The Ghostbusters. (She really hates the sequel they made.)

Career: Becomes a Ghostbuster and runs the business.

Hobbies/Talents: Hobby of making a bucket list, motorcycle riding and electric guitar. (Guitar was her mom’s.) Terrific hand-eye coordination so that she rarely misses a target with archery at camp, ghostbusting and when she played baseball in high school as pitcher. It did take a lot of practicing though.

Habits (good or bad): Chews on toothpicks or sucker sticks (similar to when she'd chew her pacifier as a toddler.)

Family: Mom is Claire Teague who passed away when she was 16 months old. Though she’s been long gone, Laurie keeps her memory alive. Dad is, the one and only, Dr. Peter Venkman: Laurie's role model. On maternal side, Arnold and Ruth Teague are her grandparents and Aunt Caroline. By now, her grandparents have passed and Caroline lives out of the USA. Paternal side has her grandfather, Jim Venkman, but he's dragged Laurie into cons and she's fed up with him. She met her great uncle Alf once, but didn't like him that well. She's curious of her deceased grandma Lydia Venkman.

Friends: First best friends are from elementary school: Lindsay McKellips and Leslie Cantu. They call themselves “The L Girls.” Lindsay goes onto serve in the Air Force and Leslie becomes a teacher overseas. Close guy friends are family members of the Ghostbusters. Derek Lovejoy who's the son of Ray's cousin Sam. He's 20 and is training to be a veterinarian. Craig Reynolds who's one of Winston's nephews. Craig is 32 and a civil engineer who keeps an eye on Laurie when necessary. Ross Melnitz who's Janine's youngest nephew. He's 23 and does secretarial work for Ghostbusters while being in the field when required. Laurie considers him her closest friend since he knows all her ups and downs best. (Ross's original last name was Irwin until his parents divorced and he legally changed to his mom's maiden name as she did.)

Romantic/Love Interest(s): Had some boyfriends, but she’s not in a hurry for marriage and not ready to lose her virginity. (She went through a relationship where she almost did, but left the guy when she realized he was toxic.) She enjoys being single while still being flirty. She had one boyfriend that cheated with a girl who turned out to be Ross’s girlfriend and Laurie was furious with both of them. She doesn’t know it, but she and Ross will fall in love one day. So one day, she’ll be Laurie Melnitz.

Pets: Her cat Punxsutawney or usually called Punx for short. He was a present for Laurie when she was 10 and they have a tight bond. He’s revealed later to be a Class 4 shapeshifter, but isn’t disposed. For one, he imprinted on Laurie the one time she was at the animal shelter though she wasn't aware of it. Secondly, he’s not found to be a threat. Finally, he prefers to stay in his cat form which is an Abyssinian breed. He’ll only change if he finds Laurie in danger. During a presentation at a convention, he transformed into a terror dog.

Social Status: The only social status that matters to Laurie is that she’s Peter Venkman’s daughter. She doesn’t feel like she’s in his or the other Ghostbusters shadow. She’s not bothered if people say “Oh you’re that one ghostbuster’s kid” etc. because she’s proud of her dad.

Favorite Food: New York Reuben Sandwiches (add barbecue potato chips, some grapes, a pickle, two vanilla Hostess zingers along with cherry coke and there’s her ideal lunch.) She loves other foods as well which is a contrast to the picky eater she was as a child.

Favorite Color: Tie between purple and black.

Favorite genre of music: 80′s Rock/New Wave like Journey and Duran Duran. Her ipod nano is just a huge playlist of 80s classics.

Favorite movie genre: Fantasies. She grew up loving the scary 80s kid movies. Her favorite movie is The Secret of Nihm.

Favorite Animal: Now its cats, but still has soft spots for sea lions and rabbits.

Degree of Education: High school graduate. Her grades weren’t high enough to get her into college. (She feels a bit ashamed about it though Peter’s proud of her for overcoming her difficulties with school.)

What language(s) can they speak?: Besides English, she has rudimentary skill in French and Latin which she learned after becoming a ghostbuster. Usually calls on Egon for languages she can’t understand.

Can they cook?: She can cook and she can eat!

Personality:

Positive Traits: Loyal, witty, fun-loving, resourceful, and affectionate.

Negative Traits: Defiant, impulsive, cocky, impatient and has a foul mouth.

Archetype: The Warrior (Merida from Brave or Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games.)

Way they interact with others: Depends on who’s talking to her. She’s friendly to those she cares for even with her sarcasm, but if someone’s insulting, she’ll be blunt and rude right back.

Way of speaking: Okay just like before, voice inspiration. Lilliana Mumy. When she’s not voicing Leni from The Loud House, she has great acting range of sweet, serious and sarcastic.

Introvert or Extrovert?: Became more extroverted as she grew up and a little bit of an adrenaline junkie. She’s an ESTP...like her dad.

Backstory Life

Laurie was a true surprise since Claire, her mom, was told she'd never have children due to PCOS. However, the surprise was joyful and Claire loved her daughter more than anything. After Claire’s death, Laurie stayed with her grandparents, but eventually met Peter. As conflicted as he was with realizing he was a father, Laurie grew easily attached to him and he grew to love her as if he’d been there since her birth. After her grandma passed away. Laurie would be dropped off at the firehouse for days or weeks to the point she wanted to stay there. Peter and the Ghostbusters wanted her to, but she was under custody of her grandparents. Arnold despised Peter and refused to give up custody for Laurie’s wellbeing even though he didn’t care for her. (Winston predicted pride would be that man’s downfall if he wasn’t careful.) There was even a point where Arnold only fed her yogurt which she grows to hate. At age 3, Laurie becomes critically ill with pneumonia due to her grandfather’s negligence (Its revealed he died from alcoholism and died in his house while Laurie was sick in her room.) Peter was in tears at the thought of losing her, especially since his own mother died from the same illness. When she’s cured, Laurie is finally allowed to live with Peter, which was what she hoped for. As she grows, she becomes more confident and less introverted by the time she’s a teen.

Life Goals

Laurie has one particular goal as an adult. That is to find the one who killed her mom. Since Claire died in the mid 80′s, DNA evidence was still in its infancy and the case was closed. However, Laurie isn’t a quitter until all options are futile. Its not just her mom’s case because Laurie has encountered ghosts of people who were killed, even children, and she can’t stand a criminal being free. Her first Ghostbusting mission was capturing and eventually helping a ghost who was murdered. So he’s the one who gave her the silver ring which she keeps as a promise to never forget those who died too soon.

#the real ghostbusters #laurie venkman #fanfic #fanfiction #peter venkman #there's going to be a case where the ghostbusters go forward in time and see her grown up so hence the year 2009 mentioned #been a year since i became a fan of this show!#OC

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thefalse9 · 5 years

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Spurs Sack Mauricio Pochettino, Descent Into Mediocrity Inevitable.

-K

Wooo, boy. It’s been a while since I typed one of these up and got ye olde Tumblr fingers working, so let’s see if I still got it, shall we?

Yesterday, reports came out of North London that Tottenham Hotspur had done the unthinkable and sacked Mauricio Pochettino after the better part of a decade with a club, raising the profile of the lesser of the London clubs to the point that they were actively competing and thriving in the Champions League spots while becoming part of the Premier League’s “Big Six”. Pochettino modeled a team of overachieving players that lacked the profile and pedigree of World Class players (yes, I’m including Harry Kane and Dele Alli in that too), and he brought them up a level due to industrious coaching, a pragmatic strategy that involved outpacing on the wings, constant pressing, and a dedication to work ethic and perseverance.

Football operates in cycles. It’s become a bit of a trope in coaching cicles and within the industry, but many have identified the third year as fatal, the moment when a critical mass of players tire of the techniques and idiosyncrasies of their manager, when one or the other has to change. Managers, like Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United are/were able to sustain their success for so long because they were ruthless in refreshing their squads. Pochettino was never afforded that luxury by those above him, ownership refusing to give him the backing or the financial breathing room to refresh the squad or re-invent the team in a way better suited for results. Put quite bluntly, Pochettino was hamstrung by an owner in Daniel Levy who refused to invest in the squad, handed a shoestring budget and told to rub shit together real tight and make diamonds. For the better part of six years, he did.

It’s also not like Pochettino was naive to the issues that had befallen Tottenham. He had identified the problem. He knew it was not just about building a good squad and letting it run. For two years he has been urging rejuvenation but when it came this summer with three signings, two of whom have struggled with injury, it was too little too late. What has happened to Tottenham this season – 14th in the table after three wins in 12 games – is the price of last season when they did not make a single senior signing. It’s the result of a notoriously stingy owner not giving Pochettino the ability to refresh and renew his squad, a dogged insistence of the board to make due with what they have and refuse to invest in the team in manners which would benefit the club on the field; worrying far too much about the wage bill and the debts of player wages when Champions League football was seemingly at the grasp.

Even with all that working against him, this was a man who led this team to consecutive finishes within the Top 4 of the Premier League. Worse yet, this was a team that had made the Champions League final 6 months ago without having made a single new singing or reinforcement to the team. He was told, essentially, to perform a coaching masterclass to get the best possible result out of his club, and he did. Once the players grew complacent, most notably Christian Eriksen, ownership and the board turned on him and decided that it was pragmatic and ideally to fire a manager who had lifted the team from mediocrity into a bonafide top club in Europe. To fire a manager based on those circumstances is madness. To replace him with someone like Jose Mourinho? That’s downright criminal. I’ll get to Jose in a moment, however. More on that in a bit, but let’s really drill home the point on the Argentine.

Looking back now, it is hard not to wonder if perhaps Pochettino saw something like coming; maybe the writing was on the wall as far back as May of 2019 and Pochettino saw signs of this happening sooner rather than later. Maybe he saw this as the eventual outcome of his tenure, perhaps not to this scale, or with this immediacy, but perhaps the Argentine knew enough then to wonder if the Champions League Final in Madrid had actually signified if not the high point of his time at Spurs, then certainly the end of the road; the end of the aforementioned cycle.

Let’s not knock the merits of his accomplishments either. Pochettino had arrived in London in 2014, fresh from 18 months in which he had gained a treasure trove of admirers for his work at Southampton. He found, in Tottenham, a team that had finished sixth the season before, its campaign so devoid of meaning and mired in mediocrity, that in its final home game, its manager, Tim Sherwood, had invited a fan to sit in his place on the bench, “for the banter.” A Premier League club had legitimately sat a fan on the bench “for the banter”. It’s so damn Spursy that it hurts.

Back then, Spurs then occupied a very specific place in English soccer’s landscape:they were a powerhouse that was simultaneously a joke; a team that could be relied upon to fail in new and innovative and often hilarious ways; one of a handful, along with the Evertons and West Hams of the world, that saw a place in the Champions League as a hope more than an expectation. Spurs was then and is now the sixth-richest team in England. Sherwood’s Spurs then, had finished par for the course and met expectations. Mediocre to a fault, as was/is the Spurs way.

Pochettino took that team and transformed it completely. He mounted two serious challenges for the Premier League title, in 2016 and 2017, missing out first to the miracle of Leicester City and then the more status-quo triumph of Chelsea. Over that two-year period, no other team took as many points as Tottenham. Not Liverpool, not Manchester City.

Pochettino prioritized youth whenever he could, turning Harry Kane into England’s leading forward — and the national team captain — and nurturing the likes of Dele Alli and Harry Winks. He managed to compete when Spurs had to play its home games at Wembley Stadium while its White Hart Lane stadium was demolished and a new, space-age home was constructed next door, dealing with delays to the stadium, an inability of the ownership group to find them a place to train and uncertainty regarding the future of the stadium and skyrocketing building costs that Pochettino would inevitably be hindered by; the cost of the stadium and the debt of construction cost precluding Spurs to make an investment in the actual team due to a debt their still paying off when it comes to the building of their new stadium.

In the end, the Argentine took Spurs to the Champions League final for the first time a few weeks after the stadium opened; the two events seemingly proof that the club was now part of Europe’s elite, both in terms of infrastructure and horizon. Ownership can take credit for some of that infrastructure, but much of the success, much of Tottenham’s new reality, is down to Pochettino and what he was able to coerce from the magician’s hat and out of the players at his disposal.

He was less concerned by the players he wanted to sign than the ones he needed to lose; several members of his team were coming to the end of their contracts, and to an extent to the end of the natural cycle in football. “Four years is a long time in football,” Pochettino said last year. He wanted not so much new faces as a fresh feel, a sense that another cycle was beginning.

Spurs was always unwilling to provide him that. The reality is that Tottenahm inhabits a very different reality now than the Tottenham that Pochettino had inhertied. Elite clubs do not have time for rebuilds, renewals or refreshment of squads, for better or worse. They are averse to risk. Tottenham has loan obligations to meet and a stadium to pay off. It needs to be in the Champions League; it needs to be winning games; it needs to be filling its seats and luxury boxes and restaurants with fans scenting glory. It no longer has time to wait, and impatience, right or wrong, became the new status quo. Loyalty and prior results be damned.

And all of that is down to Pochettino. The club he leaves is fundamentally different from the one he found — almost unrecognizable, in fact. It is a club that does not see the Champions League as an ambition so much as a requirement. It is a club that cannot indulge a slump, a club that cannot wait for a team to become good. It will be no solace at all to Pochettino now, but it is true: The best measure of the work he has done, of all that he has achieved, is the circumstances of his departure. The ultimate proof of his success is his demise. In short, he raised his club to an elite level and was sacked because they wouldn’t give him the time to rebuild or restructure the club to the new level he had achieved. Pochettino, for better or worse, was a victim of own success.

Thus, we finally come to what comes next. Jose Mourinho was hired by Tottenham in light of Pochettino’s dismissal and you can’t help but feel that for a team that was hellbent on not giving funding to a manager or a team that was reluctant to working through a cycle, hiring Jose Mourinho is a move lacking of direction and developed solely out of desperation. Mourinho was a talented manager and a gifted analyst, but the jury is still out on whether the game itself has passed him by as a manager.

Mourinho has his trophies and his success, but recent history has not been kind to the “Special One” as along with his ego and his bravado, and intermittent success comes multiple reports of Mourinho falling out with ownership over a lack of funding provided to get new transfer targets and a near obsessive approach to fighting with ownership when he does not get the financial backing to implement his system with his players. Considering Pochettino is for all intents and purposes a better manager, and considering he was fired after being told to work with nothing and a budget that consisted of a paperclip and a piece of gum, time will tell if anything will be different with Mourinho at the helm. If Spurs are suddenly willing to spend with Mourinho at the helm when they were steadfast against giving Pochettino the ability to bring in reinforcements? It would come across as hypocritical to a mind-blowing degree.

That isn’t to say that Mourinho won’t be successful. As he does everywhere he goes, Mourinho will install a defensive system that will grind out victories over the course of this season and bring the team up from the depths of the bottom of the table. Next season, the team will flourish and be in the thick of the Champions League spots. Come the third season however, as Mourinho has proven, Jose will be looking for reinforcements, will have outstayed his welcome and his training ground methods, which are decidedly more intense and demanding than those of Pochettino will have grown thin. If Pochettino, who for all accounts was a “player’s message” need to change a message, how can we count on the message of a manager who was known to have been combative with Zlatan Ibrahimovic, known to have dust-ups with Sergio Ramos at Real Madrid and put forth ultimatums regarding Paul Pogba at Manchester United?

Future aside, Tottenham have fired Mauricio Pochettino, for reasons only they can justify. Over 6 years, he brought the team to a level of success that had been foreign to the club. By refusing to give him the opportunity to renew or refesh the club in the mold of the new reality that had become their norm - that of an elite club -, Pochettino was done a disservice and Tottenham returned to their roots - that of the mediocre club punching above their weight and finding new and innovative ways to fail.

#tottenham #tottenham hotspur #mauricio pochettino #pochettino #tottenham spurs #spurs

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thecooksjournal · 4 years

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For the Love of Food

So where does my love of food come from? I firmly believe that my passion for all things food related and my willingness to try almost anything stems from my childhood and my family upbringing. My much loved Nan and Grandad must take most of the credit as from a very early age I was introduced to a wide variety of home-grown and home-cooked foods. My Grandad was an avid gardener growing a whole manner of fruit and vegetables in his garden. He showed me the delights of growing runner beans, cabbage and cauliflower along with a whole range of soft fruit ranging from English plums to gooseberries. My Nan like my Grandad was old school so everything in the kitchen was made from scratch using what was grown in the garden. I can still remember watching her cook and learning how to make pastry and cakes from basic ingredients.

Some of my fondest memories as a child are of the big family meals we had at their house at 218, London Road Waterlooville (sadly now demolished). At various times during the school holidays my cousins, uncles and aunties would all come to stay. This would be a big event for me as we would have fantastic traditional roast dinners with all the trimmings and yes if you didn’t eat your vegetables you most definitely wouldn’t get any dessert! To be honest I wasn’t a fussy eater even as a kid. As I recall it was only Brussels sprouts and Stilton cheese that I could have quite happily avoided throughout those formative years. The only real problem I had at these family meals was whether I could finish my meal and get to that last roast potato before my cousin Glen, who despite being younger than me could always match me for appetite. My much missed Mum carried on the tradition set by her parents and although home-cooking has changed a lot over the years she has always instilled the same values in me to experiment and try everything at least once.

My Mum worked as a waitress in a local café called The Black Cat Café. I can remember going to work with her on one occasion and being allowed to watch what went on in the kitchen. My clearest memory here is one of the veg prep guys giving me a raw carrot to try. I had always eaten carrots from my Grandad’s garden but cannot recall eating them raw so this was a new experience. Even now I can still taste that distinct flavour which was somewhat of an epiphany moment for me. Like eating your first oyster or you first taste of true caviar this was a profound moment for me.

Another early food memory is also somewhat unusual. My Nan and Grandad lived in a big house next to a petrol station. The station had one of the first vending machines I can remember on the forecourt next to where the air and water could be found. This particular vending machine dispensed milk shake. My particular favourite was a raspberry milk shake which became a firm favourite with me so much so that if ever I had any money this would be my first purchase. The petrol station is still there but the machine has long gone but the taste of this milk shake still lingers in my senses. Every so often if I taste very fresh raspberries I get transported back in time to this very happy period in my life.

Food always seems to give me happy memories so it is probably no surprise that I followed my nose 9and stomach) into the industry. I began my adventure by training as a Chef at Highbury College in Cosham. At the time I started there I was a fresh faced sixteen year old. The catering facility at Highbury was only a year old and at the time regarded as one of the best places to learn the trade in the UK. I studied there for three years from 1981 to 1984 and was as proud as anything to emerge with my Diploma in Professional Cookery. If my family gave me my love of food then the lecturers and college definitely fed my addiction. It was one of the happiest times of my life and I am forever grateful to all my lecturers and fellow students who taught me so much that stood me in good stead for later life. I would heartily recommend to anyone thinking of studying catering to go ahead and do it. Even if you never cook professionally after you leave, the skills you learn there will be with you for life.

I can still remember my first day at college as one of the new influx of PCD (Professional Cookery Diploma) students. We were all resplendent in a blizzard of spotless white jackets and blue checked trousers, wearing our new uniforms with pride for the very first time. Our aprons were trailing down to the floor and our starched hats were pointing proudly to the ceiling, we really must have been quite a sight. Over the years our aprons shortened until eventually they were folded into nothing more than miniskirts that just about covered our crutches; while the starched Mohawk-like hats were replaced by neat uniform disposable paper ones. We had finally come of age and were ready to launch our talents onto an unsuspecting world. Looking back it was hard work and frightening at times but honestly worth every second and an experience I would do all over again if I had the chance. It was the days before politically correctness had reared its head so it was a harsh environment for a young teenager.

Saying that the harshness was nothing to what I found when working in a professional kitchen. For a short while I was able to work as a Commis in The Café Royal, Claridge's, Langans Brasserie and Simpson's in the Strand. Working as a Chef in London was fresh, exciting and frightening. Working as a Commis you were on of the lowest ranked employees only one up from the pot wash. You were treated with disdain and generally verbally and sometimes physically abused. Nowadays this sounds horrific but it was pretty standard at the time in the industry. London tended to amplify this somewhat but wherever you worked in the UK it was pretty much the same. This harsh treatment either broke you or made you stronger. The restaurant trade has always been pretty transient so to survive you had to be strong. As a Commis you had to prove yourself before you were let anywhere near a stove. Although I was a qualified chef I spent 6 months peeling and turning potatoes, turning mushrooms and preparing the mise en place ready for service. I can remember many occasions when my julienne of carrot or my bruinoise of vegetables was unceremoniously thrown in the bin because it was not perfect. Through sheer persistence I managed to survive and once I gained the trust of the brigade I was able to watch and learn from the more senior Chefs. As time went on I was allowed to do more and more in the kitchen until I was welcomed as one of the team. I still have very fond memories of the loud punk music played prior to service and the sense of belonging I felt as part of the team. Outside of work we played hard and in London this could be very hard but I had a lot of fun and learnt a great deal.

My experience in London was for a relatively short time but it is an experience that has left its mark on me both personally and professionally. To this day I have a strange affinity with London and simply love the old school restaurants there. My career took me back down to the South Coast and away to sea working front of house for a change before ending up as a Food Buyer procuring high end products for the cruise industry. I have never forgotten my roots and although my time in the front line was brief I still regard it as one of the best experiences of my life. I am indebted to my college lecturers who got me the placements and hopefully I have paid my dues to the industry.

At home I still cook every day and still get that same sense of enjoyment I felt at 16. I genuinely love food and will try just about anything if I feel it is something that I might enjoy. I am frequently asked what is the best meal I have ever eaten. I have been lucky enough after nearly 40 years in the industry to have eaten in a lot of top restaurants and to have had the opportunity to try a myriad of dishes across the world. I have tried many unusual dishes and as a Food Buyer had the opportunity to taste many new and innovative ingredients before they reach the trade.

It therefore can come of something of a surprise when I reveal my favourite meal is not only very simple but from a most unusual food outlet. The location was Hong Kong International Airport around 2005 in restaurant which if my memory serves me correct was situated upstairs on Level 8 of the main concourse above the various check in desks. The restaurant itself is very simple, quite large but very unassuming. It was early morning and I was catching a flight back to the UK. I was not particularly hungry so I was just looking for something light before my flight was ready to board.

I opted to go for a simple Prawn Foo Yung. The picture above is exactly what was presented to me. You cannot see it on the picture as the colours are pretty subdued but the scrambled egg was almost orange in colour. To this day it is the freshest egg I have ever eaten. For such a simple dish the flavours were exceptional and taught me that to have a great dish sometimes simplicity is really the best. As long as you use good quality ingredients less really is more. Sometimes the most complex recipes containing multiple ingredients are no better than a single ingredient prepared well.

Life can quite easily be compared to food Choose your friends and your ingredients carefully and you will find that good friends and good ingredients can give you much happiness. As a Chef I can give you no better advice than love your life and love your food.

#food #Food Blog #food porn #chef #dish #cook #cooking #catering

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obsessedwithbbandsuju · 4 years

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Too Late for Regrets

Jiyong paused. Tried to put the stopper on his feelings before they could burst and tear its way through his veins, making his heart sink and his stomach clench, but as usual – it didn’t work. The envy burned and seethed throughout his body, and he had to put a hand on the counter to steady himself. Fuck, he thought. Fuck fuck fuck fuck.

Pairing: Kwon Jiyong/Son Taeyeon

Warnings: Angst, mentions of depression & identity crisis

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kimchijeon: a Korean food primarily made with sliced kimchi, flour batter and sometimes other vegetables

oppa: a term used by a female to refer to a male, older than her, that she is close to

sunbaenim: a term used by a junior to refer to a senior in the industry

sshi: a Korean honorific used when the speaker is relatively unfamiliar with the object of their words, usually regardless of age

___

Taeyeon looked beautiful. Her long hair, newly freed of any coloring and back to its natural shade of sleek black, was pulled back into a hasty ponytail, inky strands falling out to frame her delicate cheeks and forehead. Her face was free of any makeup, its natural beauty stunning underneath his kitchen light, big dark brown eyes gleaming, pale pink lips pursed and fine black eyebrows pulled together in concentration as she perused the recipe she’d brought over to his apartment to cook for him.

“God knows – well, I know, at least – that you need to take better care of your meals.”

“Look who’s talking,” he arched his eyebrows at her, ignoring the thu-thump of his heart in his chest. Stop it. That’s over with. Don’t go there, Jiyong. Don’t. “Between the two of us, you’re the one who works twenty-four seven.”

“While that may be true, I dedicate part of that twenty-four hours times seven days a week to make sure you eat like a human being,” Taeyeon replied, placing the groceries in her hand on the kitchen counter and shuffling away and down the hallway to wash her hands.

Jiyong was sure she didn’t know just how much those words had affected him.

“That’s an odd recipe for kimchijeon,” he commented, having taken a glance at it while she was washing her hands. Jiyong wasn’t much of a cook, that was no secret, but he was also pretty sure that he’d never seen anyone add spring onions to the list of ingredients for that particular dish. And that wasn’t even touching on the scallops and the shrimp.

“Oh.” Taeyeon sounded distracted and didn’t look up from the recipe, but she answered him. “That’s because Jungsoo-oppa and I spent two hours coming up with and trying it out.”

Jiyong paused. Tried to put the stopper on his feelings before they could burst and tear their way through his veins, making his heart sink and his stomach clench, but as usual – it didn’t work. The envy burned and seethed throughout his body, and he had to put a hand on the counter to steady himself. Fuck, he thought. Fuck fuck fuck fuck.

Why? Why couldn’t he just quit this? Why couldn’t he stop feeling so ridiculously jealous over every male friend that she had? He knew about her solidarity with Heechul-sunbaenim. He knew that she considered Eunhyuk-sunbaenim a close companion. He was aware that she enjoyed Taemin-sshi’s company. He knew about her prior relationship with Leeteuk-sunbaenim, and how they’d managed to remain good friends years after their breakup, just like Jiyong had managed to make up with and retain his friendship with her after their breakup. She had male friends, and he understood that. Accepted that. He had female friends too, and there was nothing more between him and those women than friendship. So why?

Why couldn’t he lay off pining after a woman whom he’d mutually broken up with years ago? Why did he have to realize several years too late that he’d never fallen out of love with her like he thought he had when they split? Why did he still have to be so, so in love with her?

Jiyong remembered their decision to break up, ending their two-year relationship that had lasted from 2011 to 2013. He remembered their long conversation, stretching on for hours, and, at its end, their conclusion that they didn’t love each other anymore, that their relationship was going nowhere and was never going to go anywhere, left to fade into obscurity and maybe even bitterness. They’d wanted to avoid that. They’d thought it would be better to just end it cleanly, and Jiyong had had no regrets at the time. It had hurt, of course it had, but he thought he was doing what was best for himself. That he would soon be resenting her if they kept going like this, and that hadn’t been something that he had wanted.

Now, though, he was older. He had been dragged through scandals, watched his friends being dragged through scandals, gone to the military, lost a member. He knew himself better now, and deciding to break up with Taeyeon… that was a mistake. He should have held on to her. He should have pleaded with her to stay with him, done a better job to straighten out their relationship, put more effort into salvaging what they’d had.

Because Jiyong didn’t not love her. He had never stopped loving her, had never gotten over her. But back then, he had been young, and his doubts had been eating him from the inside out. He had begun to wonder who he was, if he was really this famous and talented and charismatic star that so many people seemed to place on a pedestal, or if he was just an ordinary human like anyone else who eagerly clawed his way into public spotlight and found himself unprepared for what he thought he’d wanted. Which one was it? How could he possibly live up to the expectations that the world seemed to place on him? Or, he had wondered, was he just being dramatic? Was he just deluding himself into thinking that he was so respected, when the truth was that he was just another cheap and disposable piece of entertainment for the media, to fuss over as a distraction from their own lives?

And he knew Taeyeon had faced similar thoughts. They might have stopped dating, but Jiyong still considered her the person who understood him the most. And he considered himself the person who understood her the most. If nothing else, he was confident of that, because when they talked, when he looked at her, he felt like he was staring into a slightly distorted mirror, so very like him in a way that no one else could manage, while not quite him. Not quite completely.

It wasn’t that he had stopped loving Taeyeon. It was that he had stopped loving himself, and he couldn’t find inside him the confidence to keep being with her, not when he felt so hollow and unfulfilled inside. And he didn’t know for sure – maybe he was being presumptuous – but he believed sincerely that it was the same for Taeyeon.

It had all just… hurt. It had all just hurt so much that they decided to let each other go. He had been wandering aimlessly, so confused and so dissatisfied with everything and everyone that he gave up. On himself. On her. On them.

And now, he regretted it. Thinking of it now, they were happy together. Maybe they weren’t happy with themselves, not totally, but they had been happy with each other.

If only he had recognized that back then. If only he had decided to fight for the two of them.

But it was all pointless now, anyway. The two of them, they had come too far to return to those times. They were too afraid, too fragile, too tenuously held together to risk going back ever again.

It was too late for regrets now.

#bigbang #bigbang scenarios #bigbang imagines #kwon jiyong #kwon jiyong scenarios #kwon jiyong imagines #my writing #bigbang reactions #kwon jiyong reactions

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trading-strategies-news · 4 years

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Seeking Alpha: 3 Fortress REITs To Own During The New Era Of Physical Distancing.

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4339929-3-fortress-reits-to-own-during-new-era-of-physical-distancing?utm_source=news.google.com&utm_medium=referral

Consider investing in only the highest-quality companies with the best balance sheets and great management teams.

It’s a strategy that has worked very well for Warren Buffett and his followers over the years.

We believe that our three A-rated picks will eventually generate sound price appreciation as their underlying business models are all built to last.

There’s a line from the classic film Princess Bride that goes, “Goodbye, boys! Have fun storming the castle!”

It’s a satirical line from a satirical movie, with one character turning to another to ask, “Think it’ll work?”

The response is, “It would take a miracle.”

If you’ve seen the movie even just once, you can probably easily envision the whole scene, including the joviality at the start of the very brief conversation and the sardonic certainty at the end. (If you haven’t, you’ll just have to take my word for it.)

But the truth is that castle storming back in the day was supposed to be a long shot. Only extreme levels of planning, plotting, and resources could pull them down.

They were built to be fortresses, strategically designed with features such as:

Arrowslits – Holes up high in the structures from which archers could let their weapons loose while remaining largely protected.

Keeps – Towers that rose as high up as possible to give great views of whatever might be coming.

Moats – Water-filled trenches that armies couldn’t easily cross unless a bridge was procured.

Portcullises – Heavy metal gates to protect main entrances.

Barbicans – Fortresses outside of the fortress designed to be the first line of defense.

Really, that last word, “defense,” sums up their strategy. The lords who commissioned them took every precaution possible to protected what was theirs.

Source

A Model Worth Following

Dr. Dan Spencer, author of The Castle at War in Medieval England and Wales, writes on Military History Now:

“In their day, medieval castles represented the state-of-art in military engineering.

“Erected by kinds and feudal lords during what we now commonly call the Middle Ages, these foreboding strongholds… were defensive in nature, being skillfully designed to resist attacks by armies many times larger than those manning its parapets.

“But of course, a castle was only ever as strong as its weakest point. As such, great efforts were made by builders to ensure that their castles could withstand an enemy onslaught.”

Some of them did a phenomenal job of it too, as evidenced by their still-standing structures today. Google “castles to visit today” or some such thing, and you’ll no doubt find plenty of places around the world.

Of course, considering how land invasions aren’t nearly as popular as they used to be, castles are admittedly a little passé. They’re great to bring in tourist revenue, it’s true. But they don’t present the same awe-inspiring military deterrent now that planes and bombs and battleships exist.

Even so, that doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate the concept they were built on. Warren Buffett certainly does, has, and no doubt will. He’s long-since been promising a “financial fortress” for investors in his Berkshire Hathaway(NYSE:BRK.A) (NYSE:BRK.B) fund.

By that, he means he invests in only the highest-quality companies with the best balance sheets and great management teams.

It’s a strategy that’s worked very well for him and his followers over the years. And it’s one I’ve seen significant success in as well.

Source

The Value of a Properly Fortified Fortress

For the record, I know about the news story currently circulating on most major financial sites: “Warren Buffett’s ‘Fortress’ Is Breached by Coronavirus-Related Shutdowns.” It starts out:

“Even as market watchers await Warren Buffett’s splashy move to seize on fallout from the current crisis, his Berkshire Hathaway Inc. hasn’t been spared by the pandemic.

“Coronavirus-related shutdowns across the U.S. have hit Berkshire units from See’s Candies and a shoemaker to industrial behemoth Precision Castparts. That could leave a few scars on the conglomerate…

“Buffett’s business partner, Charlie Munger, put it bluntly. ‘We’ve got a few businesses, small ones, we won’t reopen when this is over,’ he told The Wall Street Journal without naming the units.”

But here’s the thing. Fortresses don’t promise they’ll never get cracked by a battering ram or chipped by flying projectiles. As the article above – and every single castle throughout history – indicates, damage can be done.

For that matter, they don’t even promise they can withstand absolutely everything that comes their way. Nothing can, as proven by Krak des Chevaliers, an epic, all-but-invincible Crusader castle in Syria, that was surrendered, not by force, but by siege and, perhaps, a forged letter.

They only have the best chances around, which is why Bloomberg acknowledged:

“To be sure, Buffett’s promise that Berkshire will ‘forever remain a financial fortress’ hasn’t been broken yet. The company reported a $128 billion cash pile at the end of last year, as well as a stock portfolio valued at more than $248 billion.

Besides, “Some of its biggest revenue generators remain on solid footing.” And its similarly solid footing we’re looking for today through our own “revenue generators” in the REIT sector.

The companies below have plenty of cash on hand with significant chances of making plenty more cash in the future.

Here’s what they have to say for themselves.

Source: iREIT

3 A-Rated REITs We’re Buying Today

One of the good things about being a financial writer in the REIT sector is that we have tons or research at our disposal. This includes data from Seeking Alpha, Sentieo, FAST Graphs, and the wide world of Google. It’s very useful to have all of this information because it provides us with the most actionable intelligence to support our buy-hold-sell recommendations.

Given the latest COVID-19 risks we have carefully evaluated our entire REIT spectrum in order to model the impacts related to rent collection and future earnings. Accordingly, there are a number of REITs that we have downgraded to either Speculative, Hold, or Sell as we anticipate future dividend cuts and or suspensions.

We’re all living in unprecedented times and while strong balance sheets are essential to any business operation, we consider cash flow the primary test as it relates to dividend sustainability. That being said, we decided to focus the content today on three A-rated REITs that support our Buy or Strong Buy recommendation.

These three REITs appear on our list because we believe their dividend is safe and that the shares can be purchased at a reasonable margin of safety. We recently downgraded Simon Property (SPG) to a Spec Buy, and we plan to address this name in a detailed article later this week.

Our first pick on the list is Public Storage (PSA), a self-storage REIT whose capital structure is nearly bulletproof because it utilizes perpetual preferreds instead of debt (no refinancing risk). Its business model is one that is consistent through business cycles and its management has shown themselves to be immensely talented.

PSA is unique in the REIT industry (actually, virtually unique compared to any company) in that its capital structure is overwhelmingly comprised of common and preferred stock - debt is a measly 3%. PSA is the largest REIT issuer of preferred stock and has mastered its use in the capital structure. It’s this use that has created the fortress known as their balance sheet.

Income investors often recognize the security and performance available with the purchase of PSA, but are often turned away by the low dividend yield. However, thanks to the Covid-19 inspired pullback, PSA’s dividend yield is now 4.3% with a P/FFO handle of 17.4x.

To be clear, we don’t view PSA as a Strong Buy today, but we’re glad we included shares in the Cash Is King portfolio (just a Buy). We like the business model, and while the summer months could be challenging with lease-up (due to stay at home rules) we have a high degree of certainty that customers will continue to use storage in the weeks and months ahead.

Source: FAST Graphs

Our next fortress pick is Realty Income (O), the monthly paying bellwether that has become the staple for many retirees and income-oriented investors.

The primary reason that O has sold off (-31.9% total return year-to-date) is because of the company’s exposure to theaters (6.7%) and gyms (7%). Given the elevated risk of tenant defaults, specifically bankruptcies, it’s likely that certain stores may close, and Realty Income’s payout ratio could narrow.

We believe that Realty Income’s payout ratio – which is in the low 80s now – is adequate to handle the short-term shock to earnings. Essentially, we’d agree with the CEO’s optimism when he said that, “We feel very good about our liquidity situation: our ability to continue to pay the dividend and grow the dividend.”

Importantly, we also feel comfortable that Realty Income has an impressive A-rated balance sheet. The company is the only net lease REIT with an A-rated balance sheet and has protected its fortress balance sheet by strengthening its liquidity position by drawing down $1.2 billion (bringing the cash balance to $1.25 billion). There’s around $1.2 billion of capacity remaining on the $3 billion revolver (with an accordion of another $1 billion).

It’s important to recognize that Realty Income has around 50% of investment-grade rated tenants and we believe this investment policy (focusing on quality) will pay dividends during the next few months. Realty Income also has the least exposure to private equity-backed tenants and this provides us with a higher degree of confidence that Realty Income’s tenant base will keep paying rent.

Furthermore, and I cannot emphasize this enough, Realty Income is the most diversified net lease REIT and while certain sectors (like theaters and gyms) could put temporary pressure on the payout ratio, Realty Income is in the best position (of all net lease REITs) to weather the storms.

Shares are now yielding 5.7% with a P/FFO multiple of 14.8x (-30% below normal range). We are maintaining a Strong Buy at this time.

Source: FAST Graphs

Our final fortress pick is Federal Realty (FRT), one of just two shopping center REITs on our buy list.

FRT’s balance sheet is by far one of the strongest in its industry, as illustrated by its (1) net debt to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) of 5.5x, its fixed-charge coverage ratio of 4.2x, its weighted-average debt maturity of ~10 years (near the top of the sector) and its weighted average interest rate of 3.8%.

FRT ended 2019 with over $127 million in cash on its balance sheet – up from just $64 million a year ago and management said it has no outstanding balance on a recently expanded $1 billion credit facility.

While FRT is known for its retail exposure, it's important to remind readers that the company has diversified its business model to include a variety of profit centers including:

Residential – 11%

Office – 9%

Fitness, health, beauty – 9%

Discount Apparel – 9%

Full-service restaurant – 9%

Full-service apparel – 8%

Grocery – 7%

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