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Transcript - Time Talks Ep 40 - Melancholy Joy Mixtape ft. carla joy bergman

Transcripts for Time Talks Ep 40 - Melancholy Joy Mixtape w ...

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

song, melancholy, music, joy, talking, people, melancholic, love, feel, listening, thought, big, play, life, hear, playlist, sad, carla, called, sole

SPEAKERS

Tracy Chapman, Pet Shop Boys, Holy Cole, Sade, Burial, Final Straw Podcast, Bobs Your Uncle, Sole, Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush, SBTRKT (feat. Sampha), Chris, carla, Andre 3000 - Me&My, Time me, Jason/Maudlin Magpie & produced by A Thousand Vows, chris, Juice WRLD, Nat King Cole., Organized Konfusion

chris time steele 00:04

Welcome to Episode 40 of the time talks podcast part of the channel zero network. This episode I'm joined by another channel zero network member. My wonderful friend carla bergman. carla is co-author of Joyful Militancy with Nick Montgomery. carla edited the book Radiant Voices and put together the Emma Talks series, and collaborated on the work Pandemic Solidarity. Along with being an author carla is a filmography checkout joyful threads productions. On top of that, check out the podcast carla collaborates on. There's the Silver Threads podcast and the Grounded Futures podcast. These links are in the show notes. For this episode, we had a conversation and put together a playlist on the topic of melancholy joy, sharing some of our stories and the ways we use music to navigate life and living. Thank you to Awareness for the music and here's a brief jingle from a fellow channeled zero network member.

Final Straw Podcast 00:59

The final straw is a weekly anarchist radio show. It's fucking awesome and you're never gonna hear me say fucking awesome on our show. Because we're FCC regulated, there's a black part of my heart that that just flutters when you when you talk like that. Talk, then more yelling. it's a weird sort of like nice thing in a way but also can get kind of crushing at times the finalstrawradio.noblogs.org

chris 01:32

I just wanted to begin and say that you're a wonderful writer, poet, curator, conductor, filmographer, author, revolutionary, Joyarchist, artist, kinetic thinker and so much more and just wanted to thank you for doing this Melancholy Joy Mixtape. I was wondering if you could kind of open with what you kind of frame what melancholy joy is? Because when you first mentioned it to me, just the phrase put together a lot of things that in a way that I like sad music and how sad music brought me relief, and how I've been attracted to two minor notes and all that and just the vibe so I really meant a lot to me when you mentioned it to me.

carla joy bergman 02:14

That's really nice. It's an honor to be here. Thank you. And I would repeat all that back to you, that you are too - kinetic thinker and Joyarchist, and all that.. thank you means a lot. I'm a bit nervecited as the My Little Pony say, Just give me a second. Yeah, if it's okay if I can give a little bit of a historical story around it because it like everything with me and always has this like, aha moment. So similar. I've always been attracted to sad music. And it was actually we have a radio station in Canada, that's, I guess, a public radio called CBC and did really good shows on it. And there was an episode on this idea of melancholy music, and so I was what's that? And of course, they talked about Joni Mitchell a lot, a Canadian sweetheart. And I was like, yeah, that's real. And they had said the person I can't even remember who was on probably a musician in Canada, but they said, you know, melancholy just means a thoughtful sadness. And I was like, Oh, yeah, that's what I am. I'm like, thoughtfully sad. But as time went on, I went through just stuff that was happening on the global like, collective grief 911 happened, some other stuff, some personal stuff. I really noticed that through all my sad periods of time, I always had a belly full of joy. Best way to describe it, I just, Joy's just really, really big in me. So I thought about a decade later, I I think I tried to create a handle on Twitter, melancholy joy, but I had done a few forums, online forums... And a part of it was because, I had a bit of a judgment that if you weren't melancholic, you weren't paying attention to the world, and but that you could still have a thriving life. So it has a kind of a political resonance to it like it will not even it went beyond music. The story moves into militant joy, because militant, to me is more has more power, I guess, or more collective power. It's more active than melancholy. But the pandemic hit again, or hit and melancholy really resurfaced in my life. Collectively, I could feel that collective grief. And I was just really attracted again to listen to melancholy joy music and, really listening to your album that you put out this year. reignited that again in me and I think that's why I said sent it to you because I was like, Oh, this is melancholy, joy, music, then your newest one that you've put out.

chris 04:44

Thank you so much. That's so kind. And I also see the phrase you use of melancholic hope. And that's a really powerful word too. And I think that's kind of what you find in the melancholy joy is this hope of kind of listening to sad music or music that helps you reflect and re energize yourself again, and there's a hope in melancholy, of just even being able to verbalize or feel that you're melancholic is the hope because you're able, then you're reflecting and saying, like, I'm sad, I have sadness and anger. And I'm able to work with those now, and kind of water those seeds to work through problems. And I think that's one thing that music does so well.

carla 05:30

Yeah, I love that. Nick Montgomery, who co wrote joyful militancy started talking about Empire and joy, and our book, using music as an example. And that Empire has this really loud music that's really loud and drowns everything else out. And when I started, when you asked me to do this show, I was like, Oh, I wonder how melancholy joy music fits into disrupting that, because one of the things that I added to the conversation was that it's, the problem is listening. It's not so much that it's louder. I think that we, all the other music or other sounds are the other ways of talking with each other is there, it’s present. And there's something about that melancholic hope, like you say that it's there. Like the possibilities are there, the seeds are there, and they just need us to water them, as you so graciously said to me once, that I loved. Yeah, so yeah, I love that.

chris 06:23

Yeah, what you say of how it's there. That's really, I feel the explanation and so hard to explain it with melancholy joy in those terms, like it's something that's there, it's something you can feel, and it's like a vibe, and joyful militancy. I really liked the quote from Glen Coulthard. When you mentioned you all had mentioned that he put his finger on something of sadness and anger and how they often stem from love. And just a little bit of this quote is: "I think that for the somber, melancholic militant, I get it, I understand it, how could you not be, and this is my point, the only way you respond to the world like that is because of some base sort of individual and collective self respect, some love for oneself and others, were the land that you are being violated in a profound way. This produces melancholy, anger, whatever, they're not separable." And I really thought that that whole quote is just powerful. And for anyone who has a book, it's on page 175. So there's no citation violations there.

carla 07:27

Nope. You can also get the book for free online.

chris 07:32

Yeah, I wanted to. I really thought that that quote was, he added more to this conversation too.

carla 07:38

Thanks for finding it. I need to put his whole interview up. It's so incredible.

chris 07:43

That'd be awesome.

carla 07:44

Yeah, that's really good. Because we interviewed him, obviously, because he talks about resentment and anger so much. And it was, like affirmative theory. It includes anger and rage. It's not negation, right, like, negation something else. And so I, thank you for bringing him in. Because I think that's a really important distinction about where melancholy fits into the conversation right now. I worked really hard to not be a melancholic person. So it's like dang, it's back again.

chris 08:17

Well, yeah, I hope it's like a productive melancholy joy. I mean, that's what I wanted. That's what I really felt with this mixtape. And then it brings up deeper discussions on our end. And, feelings and, and just other reactions that I feel are productive in thinking deeper about society. And a lot of these things are produced from such a disgusting messed up society, at least with my picks that helped me find ways to navigate through these parts of society. So before we start, I was just going to just give a little intro on why I picked these, a whole foundation of how I picked them. And I just wanted to say that I framed how I picked my choices with assuming that there's a lot of nuances and and I'm sure that's why you picked yours as well, that they have nuances that they're not just the songs but they relate to life, your life and timeline. And I picked these songs for a few reasons. For one, they may sound like they're more melancholy songs, but they bring joy and solace. They are often songs I go to when I feel no more hope or little hope, songs I go to, to recharge, to recalibrate, to keep reminding myself that I'm not going to feel this way forever. And along with these choices, when I'm stressed I often find I get attached to a song and it becomes my crutch. I don't know if you're that way. They become my friend when I'm lonely and alienated, usually from work and ironically self imposed isolation that I often do unknowingly and then realize ...these were also songs that were some of my only friends during tough times that helped me build me back up again. Hopefully they can be tools for others and spark other discussions, another playlist like this.

carla 10:02

Oh, that's really beautiful. Thank you. Yeah, definitely some of that. For me the friend part for sure. The helping me move through like, I think melancholy is something that is imposed on us from the conditions of the world we're living in. And I think joy maybe is something that's within us that we can... Ursula Le Guin in the dispossessed talks about it as something that you can't control at all, It just will come in and do its thing and leave. I just really love that distinction. It was the seed for me thinking about joy differently. So yeah, when I think with my playlists, there's a couple things. I physically get affected when I'm sad. So my body gets, I get sick. I can't move. So for me, music has to have an element that makes me move. And I think that joy moves - when I move it moves with me or it moves first. I don't know what you know, is what comes first. But the music definitely, because thinking about like, part of whether it's collective or individually, like we try to find some harmony, and you think about that in terms of music, right? Like, what is that about? Like, what was that? What are we looking for ourselves, when we're not doing well, when were depleted and stagnated? and sad? Yeah, so I think that, that played like a role. I also thought about my personal journey in terms of finding freedom within myself. From stagnant music, what do you call it? First Family, our family of origin stuff that I needed to get away from some of those songs are about that and becoming a parent. I have like a definitely a theme of Don't tell me what to do. And I don't want to grow up. I think all of that kind of fits in. And it's kind of covering up Mushishi

chris 11:49

Yeah

carla 11:49

Because it's connected. I have a question for you before we maybe share playlists but I was rewatching Mushishi, maybe you can explain what Mushishi is after people need to but just google it. It's an animation. It's beautiful. Zen Buddhist healer Guy Ginko. But one of the episodes was about I think it's like the second or third one of the first season. I'm not gonna go into details of it because it's a small part of the story but Mushi comes in... mushi are these things that are not human, they are not fauna or flora, they're in between. And it comes into when there's no sound around. It burrows into the human's ears and eats their sound. I don't know if you remember that one. But, so it made me think about like, what is my sound? because I think this is connected to what music I'm drawn to. Because maybe that counterpoint or, or where's the harmony, from my sound to the sound from music. And in the show the woman who talks about it, her sound is lava, which is really intense sound to have to live with, holy. I asked my friend in Japan if it's a Japanese thing, and she said it's not but maybe regionally. I tried to find it, but there's probably not an English translation for it. But it feels pretty human. Like, I think it's pretty pan human probably that we can think about this. So I was thinking about like, my sound feels like if I feel into it, it's like the wind is collaborative. It's like the wind off of like a soft ocean, but it it has to go up into the trees too, like it's like this.woosh woosh. So when I thought about all the music I picked, I could hear it, I could feel it in it. So I'm curious if you've ever thought of that? Do you have a sound?

chris 13:34

That's an awesome question. I love the wind that you're talking about. The wind. I like wind in music. Sometimes I hear that a lot like Kate Bush's music, she creates these atmospheres. And a lot of her songs are about the mountain to go on top of the mountain. I would say a sound that I really resonate with is something I resonate most with is rain. So in a lot of my lyrics I'll use different words for rain like the typewriter rain tapped on the roof or the Fred Astaire rain or something like I'm always trying to get back to rain and I find it comforting and I live in a desert in so called Denver so we don't get a lot of rain. And, I also I like water too, sounds of water I find that calming, in Mushishi really has its soundtrack is very calming to the Anime. And I think it's the episode you're talking about when the mushi is in the pillow and going into people's ears, and the mushi turns into almost like conjis and it's dancing and going into people's ears or something. That one is so powerful. And one thing I really like about Ginko is he kind of does this mutual aid where he's going around town to town just helping people in educating and he's very introverted, he's not the most outwardly kindest person but Ginko has so much love in him. He just has a different way of his love language speaking.

carla 14:20

Yeah, everyone should watch Mushishi, or read the manga because they're equally as good if you need books.

chris 15:08

So good. Yeah, I love it.

carla 15:11

Yeah. And I think, yeah, we could we could do a whole show on Ginko

chris 15:16

That would be great.

carla 15:17

Because, ok just real quick the thing I always tell people why they should watch it is because there's no there's no judgment on the mushi or on the person who has it. The only judgment really is the people who don't help the person who's not well, that's the only time I see Ginko get upset with somebody is when they've done the wrong thing in terms of helping somebody, like they've judged them or something. And we could just all embody a bit of that we'd have a better world. You know?

chris 15:42

Yeah, I love that. I love that interpretation.

carla 15:45

Also, I need to say because any of my friends who are listening in family, I need to respond and say that rain is like, my favorite thing in the world. I did a whole project called rain. It stood for radical art in nature.

chris 15:58

I love that

carla 16:02

Yeah. rain is and I live in a rainforest. So I get a lot of rain. Yeah. So much of my son's music, Zach's music has rain in it. I am with you on that one.

chris 16:12

That doesn't surprise me. We have so many commonalities.

carla 16:15

I know.

chris 16:16

So I'm gonna start with Bob's, Talk to the Birds by Bob's Your Uncle.

carla 16:22

Okay, so this came out in 1985. I was living in so called Victoria, which is like the capital of British Columbia. And I was 18 just going on 19 and I hung out at a punk bar. With all the punk bands that played there that came through No means No, Dagloabortions, a lot of local people, but also Black Flag came through and so on and so forth. And when Bob's your Uncle came through, it was so exciting. First of all, a woman front person was really quite rare. A woman of color was even more rare in punk. And they were just they talk about joy, but it was also about feeling alienated as young people and poor people. And so it had that melancholic energy to it. And I bought their tape and I had a little yellow Walkman and I played it so much that it died. And she's at she's went on Sook Yin Lee has gone on to be she was like a vj for Much Music, which is the Canadian version of MTV which was really big back, and she was in Shortbus the movie. Now she's on CBC and does other stuff but yeah, I talked to birds I still do. I still talk to the birds.

Bobs Your Uncle 17:35

SONG: Talk To The Birds

chris 21:12

I love that song. When I heard this song, it really made me think just like the rebelliousness of school at first. Kind of imagine the teacher and then ditching class and then getting your real class from talking to some birds, or your real education from leaving school and going into nature. Also thought of it as an overarching ideology as well.

carla 21:40

Oh, yeah, say more

chris 21:42

Or just, they'll tell you, they tell you to do this, they say do this. But usually everything that they tell you to do with an ideology or hegemony is some form of coercion to get you to start renting somewhere, because you need to have all of these things, but you have to sell your time and your body for money. And people will tell you, well, if you don't have enough money, ideology, and capitalism says well get two jobs, you know, and they are always telling you something that's going to lead to more coercion instead of any form of liberation.

carla 22:19

Yeah, they're really fun. People should look them up. They have this one song. If I knew baking a cake or something. It's probably a cover. If I knew you were coming I’d have baked a cake. You know that song?

chris 22:30

Oh, yeah.

carla 22:31

Yeah, they do it really well

chris 22:33

Anything else you want to add on that song?

carla 22:36

Oh, just I mean, I think like, the big thing was that they were just, it was just really great to encounter them during a time when punk was really important to me. But alongside that in a city that racism is really, really ramped. I was just everywhere, Victoria is very British. Like you cannot always tell the difference between the skinheads and the punks. So I don't know. They were just really great.

chris 23:02

That's awesome. Thank you for showing me their music. Okay, so this song is by Organized Konfusion. Who is Prince Poetry and Pharoahe Monch. And they're, they're an older group. And Pharoahe Monch has turned out to be one of my favorite lyricists when I got older. And Prince Poetry was amazing. And this song is probably one of my biggest go tos when just feeling down or, or depressed or existential. Yeah, that song is just really deep. And it talks about these two fetuses inside of their mother. And they're kind of just rapping about life.

Organized Konfusion 24:07

SONG Invetro

carla 24:33

I love that one really speaks to that power of the joy. You know? Despite everything, be curious and dream. I Love it. And it also makes me want to move, which is like my criteria for melancholy joy music.

Chris 27:44

It's a great beat. I love it. And one of the lines that when I was re listening to this song is by Prince poetry, he says, “overshadowed in darkness where curiosity is my light.” And I just love that bar so much. And it reminded me of our conversation. But like the deeper, like a deeper meaning to this song is I don't know, it just makes me think about mortality a lot. And when my mom was pregnant with me, she smoked. And the whole time I resonated with what Pharoahe Monch was talking about. And he was born with asthma, actually. And I think he struggles with that during shows but is an amazing performer. And then another thing is when my mom I think was about eight, nine months pregnant, she fell down the stairs. And she landed on her stomach. And she was bleeding profusely and she was crying. She's freaking out. She went to the hospital. And the doctor told her that her baby was dead, which was me. And she needed to have it removed. And she was just in shock. So she left the hospital and was like, oh, I'll deal with this tomorrow. And then when she went back to her own doctor, they were like, No, your baby's alive has a heartbeat. So it must have been knocked out or something. I don't know.

carla 29:15

Wow, that is beautiful.

chris 29:17

Yeah. crazy story.

carla 29:21

So my mom was told that I wasn't gonna I was dead too. I wasn't gonna live.

chris 29:26

Wow. And

carla 29:30

yeah. She didn't have an accident. I was like, it was just, it was a situation and during labor. And they had to make a decision to save her or me, they chose her because obviously she had four children.

chris 29:44

Wow. Amazing. Thank you for sharing that story. That's so powerful

carla 29:50

Well same, I guess we really needed to be here.

Chris 29:55

Yeah,

carla 29:55

or wanted to be here

chris 29:56

Alright, so I'm going to play the next song, which is Don't Give Up by Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush.

carla 30:03

I mean, first of all, that hug in the video, just the beauty of the like friendship that they have for each other and the intimacy that's just so pure. I tried to post it early on in the pandemic, because I was like, Who else needs to see this all the time? But I kept getting taken down because I didn't have rights to it. But, yeah, it's kind of like an ethos that's run through my life. I even had a campaign during the Thistle days that I went around to all the schools me my friend, I probably shouldn't say whatever, it doesn't matter. We had stickers that said, don't give up quit. Because to me, it's like part of not giving up is not giving up on yourself. And so that means you sometimes gotta quit a whole pile of things. Especially with young people I like to frame it that way. And yeah, this song just when I'm at my like, lowest lowest point I always go to it I mean, I Gabriel is just so important when I was a teen and Kate Bush especially later on... also other people who have performed it with it. I loved it too like Paula Cole, who was his backup singer for years and then went on to her own career. Yeah, just, it's just a it's a it's a love story about friendship. I think a lot of people think it's about a romantic relationship but I mean she she even talks about like what your your your friends we have you we got you, you know? Yeah, somebody on the brink helped remember that friends. It's so good.

Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush 31:30

SONG: Don't Give Up

37:22

Yeah, I love this song

chris 37:24

Yeah, I love this song and I really hadn't really heard it much until you had mentioned it to me. And I've been listening to it all week. And yeah, you're right. It's like a love story about friends. So cool and people need to hear those words don't give up but they also need to hear you worry too much. Just move on with it. So those messages

carla 37:48

Yeah, and on a personal trajectory like that last part. When Gabriel goes into the big reveal walking across the bridge like that. I listened to that probably on repeat when I was making the decision to leave my family behind. And like I would put it on my headphones and walk over these bridges. Like, act it out, I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it. So yeah, just like finding belonging. They talked about that in the song. It's so powerful. And what gets me is that it is still powerful, you know, after all these years, because it's speaking to our alienation from each other. And

chris 38:28

Yeah, that's how you know, it's, it's so real. I think another thing really cool about Kate Bush, and she actually incorporates her family a lot in her music. You know, her son was the one who encouraged her to go back into performing live again. And then she has him on her last live album. He's singing like three different songs with her. And I didn't know he was the one who made her start doing live shows again, and his voice is awesome, too.

carla 38:55

Thanks for sharing that I had no idea about that. And of course, as you know, I collaborate with my kids so that..my eldest had everything to do with helping you pick out this list.

chris 39:07

Exactly. It made me think about that.

carla 39:09

And that's really nice. And he's actually a huge Kate Bush fan bigger than me, so that's really nice. I wonder if he knows he probably does. Sole actually texted me the other day and said, it must be amazing to collaborate with your kid like, holy shit.

chris 39:26

This song is by Andre 3000 from OutKast, and he's taken a big hiatus, aside from doing features and stuff. He's been just learning to play the clarinet and diving into jazz more, but he came back and did this song, I believe with James Blake, who did the piano and the song is another song that I go to. It's a heartbreaking song called Me and My To Bury Your Parents.

Andre 3000 - Me&My 40:05

SONG: Me and My

carla 43:48

I had never heard that song until I saw your list and it's really sad. But also has this thread of like I can feel the light in it , and the joy. I mean, personally, it may not think about my parents, but it made me think about my eldest brother who died. Who was like my... there's the chorus of me and my and my and they don't say, he doesn't say anything else. Oh, yeah, that.

Chris 44:14

Yeah. And when you mentioned that, I noticed today that he goes, me and my mother. At the end, he goes, me and my mother, me and my father, me and my, me and, and then me as he ends it, and I had never noticed that breakdown until today. It was like, gave me goosebumps.

carla 44:36

Totally.

chris 44:37

Yeah, and it's such a heartbreaking song. But yeah, you're right. It has this joy in it. It has this nostalgic joy of even though, you know, he had to bury his parents. He has these memories and he has love with them. And as we talked about, time not being linear, so much. That's the beauty of nostalgia and the beauty of music that can conjure those time frames.

carla 45:01

You have an album called Newstalgia, did you come up with that?

chris 45:05

Like at the time I thought I did, but I don't know if I really did. Because I think there's even a producer or a rapper that goes by the name Newstalgia

carla 45:13

Right. Well, first of all, I heard it. And what I liked about it, I think there's an eagle right over my head. PS like, five inches. Okay, we talked about this a lot on this Silver Threads podcast, because I'm really interested in like, grabbing stuff from like, from the past and the future. But making sure we weave it into right now in the present. And newstalgia just captures that in a way that I hadn't really, I didn't have a word for it. I was just like, grab the thread from there and there and make a thing. And that's what I hear in the song. It's really great.

chris 45:56

Yeah, that was my exact thought with the album. I was like, I’m such a loser. I'm always like, with nostalgia. I'm always going towards it. It's like, but you have to love the present too. And I was like, what if I you know, the present could feel like nostalgia. If you were making those, those memories and those feelings and feeling them as nostalgia feels in the present. I feel there's a danger of just going to nostalgia all the time.

carla 46:24

Totally. Yeah.

chris 46:25

At least for me.

carla 46:26

Same, that's where depression links. lingers. Yeah.

chris 46:32

Okay, we're going to go to Fast Car by Tracy Chapman

carla 46:36

We won't play this whole song.. cry. Well, first of all, Tracy Chapman is like, where I really learned my politics. You know, like, you know, I grew up in around a lot of punk music and stuff, but I have a joke where like, there's sex pistol anarchism, and then there's anarchism, right? Or anti authoritarianism or whatever. Anyways, Tracy is like her music just educated me in a way that the other punk didn't - she's just incredible. I saw her live. It was like the best thing ever, outside... And this song as someone who grew up pretty poor in a dysfunctional home and when I met my partner like it's just our song just everything about it. And you know, it is our trajectory like if he could just like give me the foundation I will take us places kind of thing and even after it's been moving together over 30 years and we still like hear it and go it's feels like yesterday, but we had to take this leap of faith together and run away or run towards joy in our life and yeah, it's just I think it's like a pinnacle melancholy joy song because it's a lot of loss wrapped up in it but it's also about freedom and liberation and finding your way.

Tracy Chapman 48:37

SONG Fast Car

chris 52:00

I love that song. The way that she goes from narration to heart so effortlessly is just amazing. I love the lyrics so much. And I was wondering when you said that, along with punk because I know you have a history with the punk scene, the different branches that Tracy Chapman gave you maybe with like a political vocabulary or outlook?

carla 52:26

Right, I mean, I guess it was just, you know, to borrow the phrase intersectionality I mean, that it had also had especially to that album, like it had a lot about forgiveness on it and love. And yeah, finding the path towards liberation versus just always in fighting against or negation. And that was something I really needed. You know, early on, when my brother was into punk, I used to say, I don't know how you can listen to this. It's just all negative. And like, No wonder you're depressed all the time. Like, you know, I listened to The Police instead. This is like 77/78. So finding her like she had that kind of like, you know, things are bad. Call things what they were, she was, you know, obviously, pointing out the horrors of the world. But within this framework of a container of like love and kindness, forgiveness, that was really beautiful. Like the other song on the album, though. Chris, my partner, when I met him he had played on the guitar. Three of the songs he played and sang.

chris 53:35

No way. That's awesome.That's so cool.

carla 53:40

I don't know. What about you?

chris 53:42

When I first heard this song, it really brought out a lot of the just the stories that you don't often hear about, of a really just class issues. And of course, race and white supremacy tied into these. But when you hear the the one that really resonates with me is the man who was drinking becauses his body, he felt had no more use, but his he was much too young for how his body looked... that's so powerful, just that, that phrasing of the way that she took it. And it really just made me think of when I worked in the Union. I worked in the stagehands Union for a while, right before COVID or year before COVID. And I was on the carpet duty which was a horrible thing. So I would lay miles of carpet a day in the convention centers for Comic Cons and stuff. And these guys that I worked with that had been there for years, they could only be comfortable when they were laying carpet when they were trying to walk out to the light rail station, it brought them horrible pain to walk and they had their legs had so much arthritis and stuff and these guys weren't even that old. It really, that lyric really resonated with me when I heard this again.

carla 54:56

Yeah, yeah, the working class stuff was really. It's a big part of why that song works for us.

chris 55:03

Do you want to add on this?

carla 55:06

Just that it had the theme of finding belonging again, which was like oh, there's that that's probably what's underneath all of my play song

chris 55:14

this story behind this song too, that you shared. So I'm gonna play the next song is miserabilism by Pet Shop Boys

Pet Shop Boys 58:12

SONG: Miserabilism

chris 59:20

The way I got into this song was actually when I started working from home during COVID. I've been laid off from my other job, and I started at the call center job I was talking about. And this was like a hellacious job in between calls which was usually only about 20 seconds. I would throw on I was like I'm gonna try to get through all these discographies of people I like, and I was like I was going through Pet Shop Boys, I had never heard the song it was on some B-side and I was like this song is amazing. It's because I've always thought that the whole Disney narrative has messed up so many people of this capitalist thing of working hard. There's someone for everyone you'll find love, all these things. They create a golden, a gold plated lust. That is a form of what they call love, and dusted with capitalism or something like that. And when he's talking about just that life will be disappointing and all these things and not having expectations. It's just so well said and comforting. I found, especially while working in a call center.

carla 1:00:25

Yeah, thanks for sharing that story and re-listening to that and hadn’t listened to it years, but there was a line in it. I think, I hope, it's in it. Oh, my gosh, it made me think: I wonder if this was some seeds around the melancholy thing of being like wearing it as a badge of honor because it there's that line where just for the sake of it, make sure you're always frowning It shows the world you're got substance and depth. Like I was quite judging of you if people were not melancholy. I was like, You can't be paying, you're just not paying attention. How many people are suffering?

chris 1:00:58

Yeah, that's actually yeah, that's the third verse. Yeah, it's it's one of my favorite lines, because it's just it's funny for one, but then yeah, it's kind of deep too. And it's like, there's a lot of people who, and I know there's so much to you know, different neuro divergence of sometimes people who smile the most are actually very depressed. I just like how he plays with this whole thing of you have to show that if you see someone frowning, they understand this philosophy of miserabilism. There's no happy endings just a message to depress and it's so funny and true.

carla 1:01:35

And it has a beat that makes you move so that the joy can move. Yeah, they always said the great dancy beats. Okay, so now we're going to Nat King Cole. Song Nature Boy. Oh, I didn't have the song on my first playlist. I think first one, I sent to you didn't have this. I do have it on the large original one. But I was on a walk with Zach and he reminded me that I sing the song all the time. When I am not doing well. And also because like love was like the thing like you centering everything in love is what actually got you healthy. It's not It's not about the negative and fighting back and Don't tell me what to do and don't want to do this and I don't want to it was all about actually more affirmative and really big fan of Moulin Rouge, seen it more than I want to admit and including seeing it in San Francisco at the Castro with everyone's with a sing along. So the song is just incredible and because there is the melancholic energy throughout it but you know, the message is so short and so quick, but it's everything.

Nat King Cole. 1:02:44

SONG: Nature Boy

chris 1:05:10

I think that is just such good advice, this song and I wish I would have heard this when I was young. The the message is so powerful. Oh, you were speaking of the Moulin Rouge

carla 1:05:36

Actually been there I haven't been inside but I've seen it outside of Paris - that's really good to know. Have you not seen the movie?

chris 1:05:45

I'm not in a long time. I haven't No.

carla 1:05:48

Yeah, it's we have a joke in our family that it's actually Christian that is actually the character not Ewan McGregor but the joke is a Ewan McGregor gave me a call tomorrow that I dumped the whole family. But it's it's really that character just heartache, and so beautiful.

chris 1:06:09

Love it. And this is the most common song that you you actually verbalize when you're stressed out?

carla 1:06:16

Yeah. that's one of those things I didn't even know I did it can reflect people you live with reflect back to you did this thing

chris 1:06:25

I love that your kid collaborated and got this song on here and then got this song into my into my heart in my mind. Okay, so I'm going to now play Sade - When Am I Going To Make a Living?

Sade 1:07:20

SONG: When Am I Going To Make a Living?

chris 1:09:56

So aside from this, it has been an amazing song, and I am a big Sade fan, when I was in high school, I stopped playing basketball, and for the school, and I broke my knee and had surgery and then to play basketball. So I started working at the hospital. And I was working at Rose Medical Hospital in Denver. And they had this free jukebox in the cafeteria. And this was one of the albums that was on there. And there was this this woman who I worked with in the cafeteria and in the kitchen and she showed me this song. And she was kind of like my real teacher, she was teaching me through Sade. She was saying, she would always tell me the line that the waste your body and soul if you allow them, and she was an older Black woman from the south, and she was like a mentor to me, she was like you need to do good in school, would talk to me about getting out of there getting out of the kitchen, if I could. So I was a pot washer, was probably there till I was 19, so probably about five years. And the jukebox had all kinds of other annoying albums. And this was the one that was great. I remember they had a Who let the Dogs Out by the Bahama Men, and it was a single, and this one cook he put in the code like six times to drive people crazy. And then we'd have to unplug the jukebox. But I really just learned a lot from this song. This song just has such a powerful message.

Carla 1:11:14

I love that story. Holy moly. Is that like layers? Yeah, she's amazing, big on the playlist of me, choosing joy over sorrow, really, at that time in 2001. And listen to her a lot. This song is really important for me too, because I was in the restaurant business for years. It's like generational, like my grandmother owned restaurants. And I was really good at it. And I was in Toronto and I was the the owner wanted me to open a restaurant with him in Vancouver and be partners and I was listening not to the song, but to some part of my playlists and other people and just like I'm gonna not be working class anymore which is a joke ,because you can't actually say you're not going to do anymore. But I decided that I had a retirement party. And I've never turned back. I've never worked in a restaurant since I was 35, I think it's just a really important message in there is just an important nuance because people like capitalists, what's that shit line of like, do what you love, the money will follow bullshit. But there's the thing with like working class folks that we do to ourselves where we don't we don't believe in ourselves and I love that in this line. But in that line in the song I think yeah, there's just a nuance in it that it's not about playing the capitalist game, but it's about believing in yourself so that you can find thriving. Yeah, thanks for picking it.

chris 1:12:49

Yeah. I love that. Thanks for adding that. We're doing the Holly Cole version. So this next song is I Don't Want to Grow Up

Holy Cole 1:13:26

SONG: I Don't Want To Grow Up

carla 1:17:00

Yeah, so this song has played a factor, since I was a teenager because the Ramones did it first, much more upbeat, funnier version. Really, I think, the perfect version for a teen to listen to, really resonated. I have fought so called adultism all my life in terms of the rigidity that I seen the suffering and whatever that meant. And then fast forward bunch of years, just after I gave birth to Zach my oldest son in 94. That's around when she came out with this album, she covered a bunch of Tom Waits songs. Which is funny because Tom Waits version is actually the one that resonates the most with me now because it feels so playful and he's older and I don't know I just relate to him more I think but this was really I was really stuck with what does it mean to not want to grow up in this way but be a parent and i just yeah, I listened to it often and with you know, my baby on my on my chest, thinking about it didn't give in didn't grow up in that way.

chris 1:18:09

I love those threads that you put through it. Yeah, I do. I think the Ramones is the the you know the most playful and then Tom Waits is kind of the middle, which Tom Waits is what Tom Waits is so good at, of being melancholy and playful and funny at the same time. And then Holly Cole just really brings out, takes takes away that sarcasm and you really just feel the the rawness of the lyrics, which is why I love this version it's Yeah, it's so powerful, but still resilient at the same time.

carla 1:18:40

Totally. Yeah. Tom Waits. Exactly. And I originally picked his version because it is melancholic joy. But the story is better.

chris 1:18:48

No, yeah, thank you for something that all together. We messed around and made a really good playlist.

carla 1:18:54

Yes. Totally fun. It was Yeah, melancholy joy.

chris 1:18:59

So I'm going to play the track Legends by Juice WRLD who recently passed away rest in peace Juice Wrld

Juice WRLD 1:19:06

SONG: Legends

chris 1:22:15

You can hear Juice WRLD’s, his heart and his music and his his soul and just the vulnerability of mostly Juice WRLD's music is so powerful and his voice the the beats that he uses too. And I really just resonate to the song because I don't know if it goes back to when my mom was smoking when she was pregnant, but my lungs, they they collapse randomly and actually collapsed four times one right when I turned 18, just back to back and then I had up surgeries. And the top lobes of my lungs had to be removed. And I was going in and out of the hospital for probably about a year or two. So I was always on dilaudid in the hospital, just messed up my head so bad. And then they would give me like percocets and all this. And, you know, it's essentially like battling with addiction of pain pills, just because I was depressed. But I didn't think I was I think that was the scariest thing. It just was like, Oh yeah, I'll take one because I have all these and I have a little bit of pain. And then it was turning into, you know, a hole to dig down that that was a dangerous hole. And I really just relate to what, what Juice WRLD’s talking about in this on top of this. And the things that he struggled with. I know there was another artist that was lost who had a similar vulnerability to their lyrics was Lil Peep. Couple years ago, too. It's just had this amazing way of writing too. And the lyrics that really resonate with me in the song is that I usually have an answer to the question but this time I'm going to be quiet. Ain't nothing like the feeling of uncertainty that eeriness of silence. And so powerful. When I work with a lot of youth in high schools, I know a lot of them relate to juice wrld too, because they're going in school at this time that's worried about school shootings, worried about climate change. So many existential things are already heavy on top of just being in high school, those feelings at the time. So there's just a lot of intersections and things that collide with this song and why I relate to it.

carla 1:24:25

Thanks for sharing about your story and being vulnerable. I am so sorry. That's a lot to contend with. Glad you

chris 1:24:32

Thank you.

carla 1:24:34

Yeah, music really helps, right?

chris 1:24:37

Yeah.

carla 1:24:38

I love that song, too. I actually had the same quote pulled out so not surprisingly, I just yeah, I had shared the list with Zach today. And he was blown away that the song was on it. And he was like, Oh, it's just too sad. Lil Peep and they're all dead...Yeah. But yeah, the love for each other, though that comes through in the song. Like about, you know, like the music will live on it's one of the things that writers die to like I'm like, I'm so grateful that I still have their their words to carry me, carry generations, not just me. I really like that in that too. Yeah.

chris 1:25:17

Yeah, and like one beautiful thing about art is that it literally saves lives. And I know that this song saves lives every day. And that's another thing of just beautiful art.

carla 1:25:30

Yeah. yeah

chris 1:25:31

Okay, so this next track is better by Burial. The new song is Untrue.

Burial 1:25:35

SONG: Untrue

carla 1:31:15

Feelings, feelings and saw because you girl, man Yeah, there's like many stories for this. I think probably why I I think probably why I chose it is in 2017 I got really sick and was in bed for about eight months. I love to dance. It's how I like how I move through being sad, and I couldn't dance. So I kind of came up with this plan that if I put a record on and laid on the floor, like on the hardwood floor, I would feel the vibrations of the music. And my body would get my Vegas nerve activated. Move. And Zach put on this and yeah, it just became like a healing theme song. Especially Untrue. And then during the pandemic, it just, you know, that feeling of being in quarantine and stuff and being stuck at home like, had a similar feeling even though I could physically dance. So, you know, I just listened to it every day. And I mean, we have all of Burial's stuff. But this is the one that I go to. And then I think I shared this with you. But Mark Fisher writes about a story about him writing this this particular song with his mom and him being really sad. I think if their dog his dog just died or something. And he wrote something, and his mom didn't like it and told him to like, just go make some tea and fuck everybody and do his work, find his passion or whatever. I can't remember the exact quote. It's really good. And that just made me love it even more, because he immediately went and wrote this song Untrue, and she loved it.

chris 1:33:02

And then it turned to be his breakout hit right?

carla 1:33:04

Yes.

chris 1:33:06

I love his story so much I had never known until you told me it's so cool. So when you started using the song kind of as a ritual for healing Did you notice a big difference right away?

carla 1:33:18

Yes. Sorry, the wind

chris 1:33:19

It’s fine. This episode is featuring the wind.

carla 1:33:23

Yes. Which is our sound?

chris 1:33:25

Yeah. It's a form of music. I mean, I first heard Burial, it was on a Thom Yorke remix and I just love the haunting syntha but it's still dancey and some my favorite type of music, a reason why I love the new wave so much and Trance and some EDM and stuff like that. I love that this pick is on the playlist. So next we're going to a Channel Zero Network friend, Tim who is Sole and the song is called Last Earth.

Sole 1:34:08

SONG: Last Earth

chris 1:36:22

So, for one, Sole is one of my favorite lyricists, one of my favorite writers, I don't know how many albums Sole has, it's gotta be, it's in the 20s it may be in the 30s, a prolific writer. And the reason I like this song is it has a melancholy joy to it. It's a lot of Sole's music does, but this is more of a dancey beat. It has William Ryan Fritch, from Sole and the Skyrider band singing with him. Just the beginning bars, so cool, I might be dead, but no flies on me. And he lived in Denver for a while. And we would often go to protests together. And I remember one day we were at one of these protests and he disappeared and he was arrested, kind of just for stepping off the curb for a second you know, the average blocking traffic or something. And the line all up in the cell talking FTP, is just so funny to me, but so Sole at the same time, and so true. And the just the way that he gets into other topics too, he says that's a bad trip, like when whites cross the sea, talking about colonialism, questioning dogma, which is something he does so well with his the way that he intervenes with anarchy and anarchism. And the course to the planet Earth, you don't belong to anyone, we will undo the feudal age. And then he always gets into little sci fi tangents as well like talking about the simulation theory or are we in a projection, and then the playfulness of Sole as well that sometimes he dreams he's flying through space to sees other just all these images of liberation will talking about desecration at the same time, which is I find inspiring and comforting and reflective.

carla 1:38:07

Thanks for putting the song on. I hadn't heard it. Already adore Tim/Sole. So I had pulled out similar lines as you but I'm the one in the chorus that we will die trying, I love so much because I mean that's that willingness, you know? I think like in all my social media bios I just wrote, I try... because I think that's like the least we, I mean, it's the most we can do actually. And I think isn't there like a Rebecca Solnit told me this, like, it's actually what an essayist is, like somebody who writes political stuff for the world is at the ideas you try. So just really gravitates to that, so hearing that in the song with that, with those lyrics, I was like, that's the point. That's the whole entire point is to try.

chris 1:38:53

It really reminds me of the whole, Sole always did the whole détournement of Guy Debord and kind of see this in three parts. So the first one being 50 cent, Get Rich or Die Trying. And then Dead Prez, they kind of did a détournement and they said Get Free or Die Trying and then Sole, kind of Sole is in that vein very much with his music of or we will die trying

carla 1:39:16

Nice connection. Nice weaving. took what I said, no grounding and grounded it Thank you.

chris 1:39:27

No way. I didn't even think of it. until you brought it up. So yeah, that's the beauty of collaboration. Oh, you're so nice. You picked our song for the last song, which is I've always loved the monsters by by me, Jason/Maudlin Magpie & produced by A Thousand Vows

Time (me), Jason/Maudlin Magpie & produced by A Thousand Vows 1:39:58

SONG: I've Always Loved the Monsters

carla 1:43:26

So I wanted to pick something on the larger playlist too I also just picked something that just came out from Kinnie Starr... I just really wanted to bring it current. I listen to this song more than I'd like to admit it.. thank you so much for creating it both of you. It just. Yeah, it does bring that melancholy joy because it roots me into like a lot of things. I mean, almost every line, it's something that I've like, pondered or thought about, not in the exact same way or not in the same poetic way. But one of the things I'm really trying to figure out is like how to get out of my head and be more present so that I can just live more of a thriving life and so much of my work was about like creating thriving environments and containers for people but then I overworked myself and didn't thrive myself. Then there's just you have that in there and, and on the one hand like, like, the Jason's melody, like, it's kind of this counter to it because it's it's like this dilemma that I have around like more thought is like, takes me way out of presence, but yet your thoughts do untangle it all for me. So anyway, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna put your lyrics back to you.

chris 1:44:37

I love that. Thank you, it's an honor that you feel that way. And to just give a little bit of context to this song is I had, I believe I've told you the story, but I had recorded this song, and this song talks about death like a lot of my songs which I get made fun of for. I had recorded this song. and it even says the one one day years hard will be beating the the next it might not be. And literally the next day, I got in a horrific car accident, almost died and had internal bleeding and stuff. And then my mind didn’t work that well for a while. It's such a severe concussion. And when I kind of came back to and I was able to write again and work on this album, I wanted to redo this verse, the song and Jason was like, no, that you recorded that. It's like, it almost was your last recording. Like you have to keep it. It's crazy. It's eerie. And maybe he's kind of a macabre person for wanting to keep it like it was but it was a good idea. But then I found out later that he actually wrote the chorus when I was injured pretty much, and he said he was kind of talking about how my mind is it always like can make a lot of connections and goes places so I was like wow, I never knew the chorus had to actually do with me and that he was worried about me when I was injured, so it kind of made, ties the song more together.

carla 1:46:04

Wow, that is probably what I've like it just has such it's so affectual like it's kinetic. Like I feel it in every way and also like I do a lot of work with my ancestral stuff and you just you cover it all like yeah my my sights.. What is it, my thoughts steal my sight? Oh man. Yeah, my daily. I apologize to my kids and my partner for that.. Yeah. Thanks for sharing that story. And I'm so glad you survived that accident. Yeah. And not to mention the title because we both love monsters.

chris 1:46:42

Yeah, no, definitely. That was that was the other thing of yeah, always, always love the Yeah, the monsters are not always the heroes of the stories or what's really strange is this last track that I picked by SBTRKT featuring sampha trials of the past is a song that actually was one of the ways I healed after my car accident. I didn't even think about how these lined up. I was I never took a day off of teaching after the car accident, which was a really dumb idea because I was throwing up after a lecture, anytime I use my my brain even if I read a text message, it would make me nauseous. And I was stubborn and took place in this debate I had already said I would go to on fracking, which I was glad I did because the fracking debate was horrible. And I threw up after that too. But this was a song that I would always listen to on the light rail. And it brought me peace and it made me feel free.

SBTRKT (feat. Sampha) 1:47:45

SONG: Trials of the Past

carla 1:51:15

I really like the songs, how does it help?

chris 1:51:19

Back to that thing where you say like it's just there, that vibe of this melancholy joy. For one, it's just the beats. I love this like tube synths in the minors in it and then some - Sampha's voice, it's just so soulful, and so calming and poetic. But when I would be on the light rail, and I was trying to get to like the front or the back of the car, and I stand up, and then I would pretend I was flying. And I didn't feel good, you know, because I couldn't really think, so I feel kind of weird too. I felt spacey. So I actually felt like I was flying above the light rail while listening to this over and over again for about a month. And then I love the second verse where he says I was always floating around the city, going with the flow without ever knowing where I want to be. So I got into crazy situations. And a loyal soldier who acts who acts who acts but never asks, that was my favorite line. And I just love that. And I know you and me, we really resonate about talking about questioning and questions.

carla 1:52:23

I really liked flying on my back, the looking down. Really, really related to that I think it has like it had this sense of like astral projection or something in it. I think there's some kind of like, beyond this physical realm. I mean, that's the joy. I think I pulled from it out of that.yeah

chris 1:52:44

Yeah, it reminds me of your story about Burial a little bit too, about how you were trying to get the nerve nerve activated going and like that form of dancing. And we had talked about in an email before this on other topics of what music is and music and ableism. And I was telling you about a friend I have who's a non hearing friend, and they told me, they were explaining to me about going to shows and that they enjoy going to shows where they can just feel the bass and the bass in their chest. And just the vibes of the energy of a show and all of those things. And just those things to consider when people are talking about music and ableism and all those things that tie in, and how music is part of everyone's realities.

carla 1:53:32

Yeah, thanks for bringing that up. It's really important. That's the thing like rhythm. Yeah, even a non hearing person they can feel it in their body. And I think that's really important because that's like I shared that quote. It's Zach's favorite quote the one about like that sound is you can't have music without sound but you can have sound without music and so therefore sound is more important. But it makes me think about that just opening up what sound is and how how we experience it and in even like a harmonic way or harmony way, like that's probably a whole other conversation that I'm probably not the best person to have it with because I don't really understand music, but just even the western narrow version of what music is versus the east. Just continues on the white supremist hegemonic road even what constitutes music.

chris 1:54:24

Yeah, like always trying to categorize and break things into binaries that are not necessarily. Going back to what you were saying about how you enjoy dance. And that's a way that you're able to express, just yeah, the music of that and just the rhythm of movement

carla 1:54:42

Even separating that in the West.

chris 1:54:47

I love that bird

carla 1:54:48

A little music

chris 1:54:51

And is a perfect book end because that's how we started it with talking to the birds.

carla 1:54:55

Yes. Nice. Nice. Did you want to say anything about your larger list before we wrap it up?

chris 1:55:03

Like the ones that I really picked on my extra was a song that I really grew up listening to which was Respiration by Blackstar. It's talking about the city and the beat by Hi Tek is really contemplated and I love like the poetry of Mos Def (Yasiin Bey). I had Prince on there, which we're both big Prince fans, I have a lot of jazz that was on there like Archie Shepp, big Tom Waits fan like you were talking about. So I had stuff from nighthawks at the diner, which was, you know, kind of a play into our newest album Nighthawks at McCoys, Stevie Wonder is one of the greatest of all time, I just love, everything Stevie does, going back to the hospital when I worked there, Frankie Beverly and The Maze of a co worker taught me about them in the song Joy & Pain ties in so much into this. And then the Priests, I really love the Priests and their music in Earth, Wind and Fire, one of the members from Earth Wind and Fire's from Denver. I am a big Frank Ocean fan as well. New wave, so Joy Division, and I probably end up putting a New Order or someone else on there if we kept going with this playlist.

carla 1:56:08

Well, I did 13 so you can add a couple more. I'm so excited to share this list. I'm gonna start with the couple that like we're in that we got booted out of the top seven which is Sun Ra, Blue Soul, So I mean, I just, I don't know, I feel like I'm from another planet most of the time, so I really relate to Sun Ra's stuff and, and really get lost in it. And then Sinead O'Connor really, really important. I mean, her and Tracy Chapman, you know, are my political educators. Oh the song that I kicked off right away was for the one that Zach told me to do nature boy, but This is for Life from Luka Bloom. I don't know if you know his stuff, but he's Irish. Just an incredible singer, singer songwriter, and it's really about a song during the troubles where a man or woman fall in love and he gets put in prison because he kills somebody. But they stay together despite it all and it's all about time and how he can't actually watch the moon because he's in jail and it's really really sad but there's like a beauty about it that they commit to life together their love their love is going to transcend this physical distance. Yeah, so and Prince, of course, it was really hard to pick a Prince song. I was really wanting to do something from his early stuff that Purple Rain is the one that had to be and then The Cure. Aw, man, I probably listened to Cure like three times a week because it's a dance. It's not you know, it is melancholy Joy to the max because it has the beat to dance. But the songs are so sad. Sigur Ros is another, all of it. It's my every time I go on a flight. I listened to Sigur Ros. I love it. The Police's like circa you know, teenager, I just felt completely lonely. It's from their first or maybe their second. I thought it's from the first album. And then I have a couple jazz stuff on there to Steal my Joy from Lee Williams. Do you know that song? So good

chris 1:58:09

No, no.

carla 1:58:11

it's about not stealing, It's like don't steal my joy is actually the song

chris 1:58:15

Nice.

carla 1:58:17

Sounds really, really beautiful. And then of course, At Last lost I borrowed from a friend who did a playlist about hope and Rebecca Solnit actually, she had it on there. Because she's you know, sometimes sometimes we have to wait for it. Sometimes there's patience in the fight, in the build. So I thought it was a good one in terms of ending my playlists. Sometimes the Joy has you have to wait a bit.

chris 1:58:45

I love that.

carla 1:58:46

They cover them all. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, Walkabout real quick. I love Atlas Sound. And I really wanted the song on the film I made about the purple thistle and I went through a lot of networks to get it but of course, you know, you're in the business. He didn't he doesn't actually have rights to the song so I ended up not using it but yeah,

chris 1:59:05

on dang. Yeah, I love your extras on here.

carla 1:59:10

Oh my god. I missed Sour Gout. Yeah, that's my kid. It was hard to pick but I picked the one that resonated the most. He's written a couple songs for me. I should probably have done one of them but had a lot of rain in it.

chris 1:59:26

Awesome. All right, carla. Well, I'll talk to you soon. Bye

carla 1:59:30

Bye.

1:59:32

Thank you for tuning into this episode of the time talks podcast part of the channel zero network. Please check out carla bergman work and support their endeavors. Links to carla's works are in the show notes. Please send me an email and tell me some songs you listen to when you're feeling blue, or share a playlist with us. My email is [email protected]. thanks to awareness for the music, share the show around, rate it up and give someone some water. peace.

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Ep 07 Transcript: A Lawless, Bloodly Time

Episode 7

PAZ: Hi everyone, welcome back to Stairway to StarClan, a Warriors Cat reread pawdcast. I'm Paz.

JULIAN: I'm Julian.

LIZ: I'm Liz.

PAZ: And joining us today, we have a special guest.

ALIX: Hi, I'm Alix.

PAZ: Very excited to have another Warriors expert, Alix, on the podcast.

ALIX: I'm so happy to be here. This is my favorite podcast.

PAZ: Why, thank you. Yeah, so we're all here today with a guest to do like a wrap up episode on Into the Wild cause I think it would be fun, and love to hear from other former Warriors fans and--

ALIX: I'm a current Warriors fan. Excuse you.

PAZ: Yeah. We're-- I don't know. What's the word for when you get back into something? I don't know. We're in it again.

JULIAN: Returning fans.

ALIX: The lapsed fans. Reformed. Reborn.

PAZ: Mm... no?

ALIX: Born again.

JULIAN: Resurrected.

PAZ: Baptized in the waters of RiverClan.

JULIAN: We've done it again, everyone. Fireheart has become Catholic.

PAZ: No. How does this keep happening? We've only been recording for like, two minutes. God. Okay. Um, yes, this is our Into the Wild recap, retrospective episode. But to start, I think we should, you know, get to hear from Alix, like what your relationship to Warriors is.

ALIX: Yeah, so I read these when I was a kid. Probably from when I was something like eight years old. So I don't actually remember how I got into these books. But they were my first major obsession. And I would, you know, tell anybody who would listen about them. I would draw little family trees. I would play Warrior Cats with my sister in the field near our house. Yeah, I love these books. And I started reading them again because of the podcast. And they're good. They're like, legit good.

LIZ: They are.

PAZ: Yeah, yeah, it's like beyond even just the nostalgia factor. Like I'm very much enjoying these books.

ALIX: Yeah, these were the first thing that ever got me to go on fanfiction.net.

PAZ: Wow.

LIZ: Wow.

ALIX: Although I never posted any Warriors fanfiction, I read a lot of it and commented on various, you know, like OC adventures. And I got, you know, a random kit named after my second name, which was fun.

JULIAN: Aw.

PAZ: I also read some Warriors fanfic on fanfic.net. And it was always like, OC. I never read any fanfic, like, featuring just the original characters. I don't know.

ALIX: I don't think I did either.

PAZ: I'll have to look back on.

ALIX: But you know, that's how I kind of got into fanfiction and then I started posting Maximum Ride fanfiction eventually.

JULIAN: A natural transition.

ALIX: Yep. You know, from cats to kids with wings.

PAZ: I also, yeah.

ALIX: And then, you know, I've been in fandom for like 13 years now. And it's how I met all of you guys. So I think it's a good thing that Warriors has done for me.

PAZ: Thank you, Warriors.

ALIX: Thank you Warriors.

LIZ: Warriors, bringing us again together in these dark times.

JULIAN: In this, the darkest hour.

PAZ: In these unprecedented times. Well, I'm very excited to have you on the podcast. But, you know, since you're our guest here, I thought maybe we could quiz you on the book to make sure you're really like up to par for the--

ALIX: To be on the show?

PAZ: Yeah, to be on this show, this very like, well-researched, dedicated show.

ALIX: Well, thank god, you know, I was hoping you wouldn't just let just anyone on the show. Only verified Warrior Cats experts.

PAZ: Yeah, we have to vet you. So luckily there is a quiz on warriorcats.com. An official quiz, How Well Do You Know Into the Wild? So get ready.

ALIX: Do you want me to take it, or do you want me to answer it and then you can put in the answers for me?

PAZ: Yeah, you can answer and we'll read it out.

ALIX: Okay.

PAZ: Okay, you ready?

ALIX: I'm ready. I have my copy of Into the Wild here, but I won't cheat.

PAZ: No cheating. Please, book away.

JULIAN: This is a closed book test.

ALIX: Of course.

PAZ: Who first received the prophecy about fire? A, Bluestar, B, Oakheart, C, Rusty, D, Tigerclaw, or E, Spottedleaf. Oh,

ALIX: I believe it was Spottedleaf?

PAZ: Okay, I think you're right.

ALIX: It's between that and Bluestar. I think they talk about it for sure.

PAZ: Aw, I think you only get to see at the end.

ALIX: Well, okay.

PAZ: We'll see. I think you're right. What was Firepaw's name when he was a kittypet?

ALIX: Okay, quiz.

PAZ: A, Smokey, B, Smudge, C, Henry, D, Rusty, E, Blaze.

ALIX: I'm going to say Rusty.

LIZ: Blaze...

ALIX: God I wish his name was Blaze.

JULIAN: Justice for Henry.

PAZ: Who becomes deputy immediately after Redtail? A, Lionheart, B, Whitestorm, C, Tigerclaw, D, Firepaw, E, Mousefur. That'd be incredible.

LIZ: This baby is my deputy.

ALIX: It is Lionheart.

PAZ: Yes. Okay.

ALIX: I feel like Mousefur only shows up in one scene.

PAZ: Yeah, Mousefur is not really in this book. What happens when Bluestar's patrol passes through the barn on the way back to camp? A, Barley betrays them. B, rats attack them. C, the dogs get loose and attack them. D, they pass through the barn peacefully. E, Firepaw stays with Barley and lives as a loner. That's some AU fanfic.

ALIX: Yeah, that would be a twist. Well, the answer is that rats attack them, and Bluestar loses a life.

PAZ: They sure fucking do.

ALIX: Barley would never betray them.

PAZ: No.

ALIX: This quiz offends me.

PAZ: That's homophobic frankly.

ALIX: Honestly.

PAZ: Who does Ravenpaw claim killed Redtail? A, Oakheart, B, Tigerclaw, C, himself.

[laughter]

D, Bluestar.

LIZ: Tigerclaw wrote this quiz.

PAZ: He did.

ALIX: Is there an E?

PAZ: E, Whitestorm.

ALIX: It is Tigerclaw and I would just want to say, claim? Like what is this, like a news headline?

PAZ: Tigerclaw wrote this quiz.

JULIAN: It's important to show both sides.

PAZ: Snopes.com article. Number six. What are Firepaw and Graypaw's warrior names? A. Aw, there's some good ones here.

ALIX: A, Bananaear and Susanclaw.

PAZ: Firestorm and Graycloud.

ALIX: Ooh.

PAZ: Fireleaf and Graystream, Firedusk and Graycreek, Fireheart and Graystripe, or Firefur and Graytail.

ALIX: Wow. I'm going to say Fireheart and Graystripe but these are all have really powerful energy.

JULIAN: I'm really partial to Firedusk and Graycreek. They have like really chaotic energy.

PAZ: Yeah, Graycreek is hard to pronounce. I just want to say gay. Gaycreek.

ALIX: Gaycreek.

PAZ: Cause with the two R's in there, it's too much.

ALIX: Yeah. It is Gay Creek.

PAZ: Well, Alix, you got six out of six. Well done.

LIZ: Wow.

ALIX: Wow.

PAZ: You can count yourself among the true masters of all things warriors.

ALIX: Wow.

LIZ: If you get a six out of six, I think you just become the new podcast host. Sorry, guys.

ALIX: Yeah, welcome to my podcast, Stairway to Starclan. I have three guests this week.

PAZ: Oh shit.

LIZ: It's an honor to be here.

JULIAN: Alix has pulled a Tigerclaw.

LIZ: That's why. They're a real fan.

ALIX: I'm so glad all my studying paid off. I'm still laughing at that centrist question. I wonder how well I could have answered these questions before I reread the book recently. I feel like I might have gotten tripped up on the prophecy one.

PAZ: Yeah. The official website is so hard because you can't just sort by, like quizzes or anything. Maybe you can. It's tagged quiz, but I don't know how to see tags. I don't know. The website is a mess. It loads like, so slow also.

JULIAN: It's very slick looking. But I feel like they put a lot of effort into the design and not a lot of effort into like, the back end.

LIZ: No.

PAZ: Yeah.

ALIX: Too bad.

PAZ: It's too powerful, too, and not, like--

LIZ: Done?

PAZ: I forgot the gamer term I was gonna-- well-optimized. Yeah, so now that we all know we know Into the Wild very well and by heart, yeah, like, in retrospect, like, what do we want to say about it and like, what-- I don't know, like, what new things did we learn? Like, I guess to the returning fans.

ALIX: I thought I was-- I had this idea in my head that training took like, he started at six moons, and it takes exactly six moons, but I forgot that it's just like, whenever Bluestar decides you're done.

PAZ: Yeah, it is like that.

JULIAN: Yeah, I also remembered training being a lot longer, I think because like, when I was doing roleplay, training was such a big part of it. And it was such like a structured-- because you had to get like a certain number of posts to become a warrior. So there was a lot of just like, Oh, I'm gonna write my training posts. I hope my friend who's already a warrior will pretend to teach me to hunt.

PAZ: I feel like maybe some of the later books spend longer on the training. I feel like there's a lot of like, timeskips off screen during this. Because it was at least a couple of months.

ALIX: I think you guys are saying like, they originally planned this to be one book.

PAZ: Yeah.

ALIX: And you can definitely tell that they were, you know, they're kind of trying to sort of usher Fireheart through the whole, like, warriors process fairly quickly, even if it's six books instead of one.

PAZ: Yeah, cause I don't know, maybe I might be misremembering, but I feel like in the Power of Three, they're apprentices for, like, at least more than one book because they, I mean, they start out as kits.

JULIAN: Yeah, I definitely thought that Fireheart didn't become a warrior until book two. So realizing that he's like a warrior at the end of book one was a surprise to me.

PAZ: Yeah, he feels so small.

JULIAN: He's just a little guy.

ALIX: And justice for Sandpaw and Dustpaw.

PAZ: Oh, my God. I know.

ALIX: Like, sure, they're kind of bullies. But like, that doesn't mean you get to like fail them out of high school.

PAZ: They're super seniors now. You know, yeah. Honestly, though, it seems like a lot of clans it's just like, whatever the leader wants is how the rules work, apparently.

ALIX: Yeah, damn.

PAZ: I don't-- no, the leaders don't get elected either. It's just like, whoever fucking was deputy.

ALIX: Yeah. They get elected by the former leader through nepotism.

PAZ: Through nepotism. Yeah, the society. It's unreal.

JULIAN: Feral cats, I have concerns about your societal structure. I think you should get a parliament going.

ALIX: Truly.

LIZ: And the nepotism that we're presented with is better than the straight up just like monarchy in ShadowClan, right? The options you have here. They're so-- they're grim.

PAZ: Well, I hope ShadowClan gets over that monarchy thing. Get well soon. But I guess what I got out of this book is I like Firepaw more than I did as a kid when I thought he was too boring and didn't continue reading. I think he's endearing as like a dumb little little guy. You know, I have appreciation for like, like, loves their friend shonen protag archetype now.

ALIX: Yeah.

JULIAN: I feel like I came to these books off of Redwall as a kid. And so I was so-- Redwall is full of like, really, really stupid protagonists. So I was primed to appreciate like a little himbo who loves his friends and wants to do what's right and good. Yeah, but I love him. I was worried I wouldn't like him as much the second time around, and I do. He's a sweet little boy.

PAZ: Yeah, yeah, I'm excited to see how reading the first series in which he is the protagonist will color my rereadings of the later books, because when I was reading the series for the first time, he was just like another NPC essentially. And like I vaguely knew, like, what was up with his story, but I think I'll be more emotionally attached to some of the scenes he gets in like later books now.

ALIX: I do think like this, this book reminded me like how extremely appealing they make the whole Warriors way of life. Like it really is something you want to fantasize about being, even though they're like a bunch of like stinky cats in the woods. I still, like as a 23 year old, I'm like, damn, I wish I could get out there and sleep in a bush and walk on a log. You know?

PAZ: Yeah. I remember loving the descriptions of the camp in the later books so much. And it's like yes, I do want to sleep in like a little cave with moss. I do.

ALIX: Every time me and my sister would go camping or something or just, you know, go to some area that had like, that was natural, we would always try to find a cat camp and be like, Okay, this is like where the leader would make announcements. This is where the medicine cat would sleep.

JULIAN: Aw.

LIZ: Aw.

ALIX: It was a very fun activity that I recommend anytime you're in the woods.

LIZ: All right, make a note everybody.

JULIAN: Next time I go on one of my silly little walks.

LIZ: We're gonna get to a Patreon tier, and it's called going to camp in the woods and be cats.

PAZ: We're gonna LARP for money?

LIZ: Yes.

ALIX: #makeCrabClanReal.

PAZ: Okay.

ALIX: I'll pay for it. Listen, I'll sign up.

LIZ: We will set up our own society.

ALIX: And just live there?

LIZ: Yeah.

ALIX: Great.

PAZ: I think we're just reinventing like utopian communes of the 70s.

JULIAN: I was gonna say, yeah.

ALIX: But were they based off a middle grade book? I don't think so.

JULIAN: Patreon tier, Staircast invents a cult.

PAZ: Oh no.

LIZ: Oh god.

ALIX: Liz, I'm so like, curious if there was anything that you thought was going to happen in this book that didn't?

LIZ: I thought that they were going to get Tigerclaw like instantly at the end, and that would be it.

ALIX: Right.

LIZ: They did not. Understandably. I just felt like they would. But um yeah, I know that he's like, going to be around for a while, just given like--

PAZ: Yeah, sorry.

LIZ: --name changes that I've seen.

PAZ: I haven't censored his, uh, yeah. Look away. Cover your ears.

LIZ: Alright, closing my eyes. Someone has to stop the Audacity file for me. Um, yeah, I don't know. I went into this just knowing nothing, except that there would be little guys and I liked it a lot. And yeah, I was-- saying I was surprised that it was so engagingly written sounds condescending. But like, I just didn't expect to be so invested. And it is like, storywise very, like solidly crafted. There's some good plot beats. Course I love the characters because they are just little guys. I do want to just take a nap in some moss even though it's probably real stinky.

ALIX: Here's my question. When do you think they are going to get Tigerclaw? Like in what book out of six? Or like, you know, I don't know, if perhaps he continues on past the first series?

LIZ: I don't know. The way you phrase that made me real suspicious. At the end of the next series?

ALIX: Whoa.

PAZ: Oh.

JULIAN: Ooh.

ALIX: Interesting.

JULIAN: Some real longevity on this guy.

LIZ: Well, I'm putting a real slow, slow game here. Like a slow bet. None of these terms are real, I think. I'm getting safer with the predictions because just right away did not work.

ALIX: Yeah, I mean, that's a good point. Like he could have, really easily been like, villain of the week.

PAZ: Yeah, he could have. Yeah, that's kind of what-- well I guess Brokenstar wasn't really onscreen that much. But he had more of a villain of the week vibe. But I don't know. He's still out there somewhere. The ShadowClan stuff is very off screen, which is kinda funny.

JULIAN: Yeah, I liked it. But I kind of wish there had been more focus on it. I know it's hard to kind of keep two antagonists going.

PAZ: Mm-hmm.

JULIAN: But it felt like it was very, like it was all at the end there.

PAZ: Yeah. I guess I tried to, like, weave it in through Yellowfang. Which was like an interesting choice. It wasn't totally out of the blue, but definitely like it felt like-- you'd like expected it to like-- the climax to like center on Tigerclaw. And then it swerved and it was like actually, ShadowClan's like, fucked up monarchy situation.

ALIX: It's-- okay. I can't say this because of spoilers, but I'm mad about it.

LIZ: Hold on. I'll close my ears. And then you can say it.

PAZ: No.

ALIX: I will not say it. I will say it in our Warrior Cats spoiler chat later.

LIZ: I'll get in there someday.

JULIAN: You will.

PAZ: I think we can let you in there once we finish the Power of Three because that's up to where all of us read.

JULIAN: There's not really-- like, if there's spoilers for later books, it's not because we read them.

PAZ: I've been spoiling myself for later books. I don't care. Just clicking around.

LIZ: Reckless.

PAZ: I mean, I guess a pleasant surprise for me was finding out there's gay cats, canonically.

JULIAN: Yeah, that was really nice.

PAZ: I didn't know that.

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: I mean, even if it's kind of like, wink wink, nudge nudge because the publisher won't let it be explicitly said, I guess, from what I've read, but it made me very happy.

ALIX: Yeah. I think this book has really surprisingly complex characters in at least like Yellowfang and Ravenpaw.

PAZ: Yeah, they're definitely my two favorite characters of this book.

ALIX: The gay ones.

PAZ: Yeah. Love Barley, too. Of course.

LIZ: I did quickly google, are there gay owls in Gahoole, and the answer seems to be no. So Warrior Cats, you've got one thing. You've got several things over that right now.

ALIX: I mean, the cats aren't blacksmiths, which is a disappointment, but I guess, you know, if you're gay don't have time to be blacksmiths.

LIZ: You don't need a blacksmith if you're gay.

PAZ: No, you don't. It's just vibes.

ALIX: Just vibe.

PAZ: I'm excited to get to the other gay character so we can talk about him also.

ALIX: Oh, yes. We need lesbian cats.

PAZ: Yeah. That seems to be lacking. I hope they get on that.

JULIAN: Some wlw representation please.

PAZ: Please. I am excited for the New Prophecy where like the Leafpool and Moth... Wait, who is it? God.

ALIX: Mothwing?

PAZ: Mothwing, Yeah, I know lots of people shipped them, and I think as a child I didn't--

ALIX: You got the vibe?

PAZ: --notice anything so. I want those vibes on that reread.

ALIX: Yeah. Another interesting thing I think is that, um, I think it becomes very explicit later that StarClan is real and tangible. But like, I was surprised that in this book, like, I mean, there's like the whole like, Moonstone prophecy thing, but like StarClan seems much less like, there, if that makes sense.

PAZ: Yeah, like, as Julian noted in the first episode, I feel like it gets more magical, like with each passing series.

JULIAN: Yeah. My memory of like, the first episode, or the first series is very much like StarClan is there but like, as a religious force, and not as like an actual entity with power in the world.

PAZ: Yeah, yeah. I mean, even in this book, it can be kind of ambiguous because like, with, like the Bluestar nine lives things, it could reasonably be read like she just got injured really bad.

ALIX: She's just cool and strong.

PAZ: But yeah, StarClan gets real involved later.

JULIAN: Her nine girlboss lives.

ALIX: All girlbosses have nine lives.

LIZ: The StarClan thing is surprising to hear about as to what happens later on because, like, for me going in, it seems to be just like placement as religion I guess. It's like the system of spirituality for me. That's the impression that I got from this book. So seeing that it's-- I'm assuming like, actual StarClan cats are gonna show up. That's like, very interesting.

ALIX: I mean, even I haven't kind of gotten to where it becomes way more of a plot point, I think.

PAZ: From what I've read of spoilers of the later seasons, it really just escalates. Which is very funny. But I guess they also like, built in a system in which to have characters come back, if you just have this like dead cat group hanging around.

ALIX: Like Spottedleaf, who dies so fast.

PAZ: Oh, my god, that was another thing.

LIZ: I mean, it was very sudden. I also didn't expect that.

ALIX: People kinda die left and right in this book.

PAZ: Yeah, that's so true.

JULIAN: Yeah, that's one thing I didn't remember is like, I remembered them being like, very, you know, battle-focused and whatever. But I did not remember how easily characters die, and how many characters die, and like how violent they are. Which I think is partly like, as a kid you don't really conceive of violence as like a real thing as much. And then, like, you're reading about these cats, like tearing each other's throats out as an adult. It's like, Oh, geez.

PAZ: Yeah, and this book was not even, like, nowhere near that levels of violence that show up later.

JULIAN: Oh, yeah. No.

ALIX: But they just like introduce and kill characters so fast and this and I feel like that doesn't really continue.

PAZ: Yeah, that might be like a byproduct of them thinking this would be the only series or even like, initially one book. Cause I think even after this expanded into a series, they thought it'd just be like one standalone series. They didn't think it would keep going. So they're probably like, way less precious with characters.

ALIX: Goodbye, Lionheart. Goodbye, Spottedleaf.

JULIAN: Pour one out.

ALIX: Do we feel-- I forget if you guys talked about like whether or not Spottedleaf is like fridged wife trope.

PAZ: No, we didn't. Partially because like in this book, it really doesn't-- I mean, it doesn't feel like a romance. And I don't think it should. It feels very much like baby's first crush on like older person who is not getting involved in any way.

ALIX: Gives him herbs.

PAZ: Gives him herbs. Yeah, classic trope.

LIZ: Yeah, it feels like, when she actually dies, it's like a kind of a growing up moment, almost like, oh, something got real. And this person who I just had like a regular crush on, got caught in the crossfire. Not that cats have guns.

ALIX: God, I hope not.

PAZ: It doesn't linger on it very long. Although from what I know of Fire and Ice, I think it revisits that plot point. But yeah, in this book, it felt very like unimportant, in a way.

ALIX: He doesn't spend a lot of time going, oh no, but if Spottedleaf had lived, then we would have been mates. He's just like, this is sad.

PAZ: No, yeah. Which is fine. Because she was definitely like, presented as an older figure. I don't know.

JULIAN: Yeah. I think we get more into, like, how he feels about that in the later books, where he does some processing. He also hasn't had any time to really have any feelings. Not that I think of him as like a real emotional cat. But, you know, it's been-- he's had a busy couple days.

ALIX: He hasn't had time to tell Bluestar.

LIZ: Oh no.

PAZ: I was gonna say, there's not much like internal self reflection, or like thoughts in this book. And yeah, there's no thoughts going on in that head at all. Also, just like, I don't need to tell Bluestar.

ALIX: He is no thoughts head empty.

PAZ: I mean, that's like one of the ways you can like-- if you've read other books, you can kind of like feel how this is like the first book because I do feel like, in some way the characters have less like, complex inner lives, in a way where like, personal drama and angst becomes very central in later books.

ALIX: Yeah, if this were a later cat, I feel like he would be way sadder than he is at any point in this book.

PAZ: Yeah. For sure.

ALIX: He's just happy to be here.

JULIAN: He's just vibing.

PAZ: He really loves being a little wildcat. He loves that he kept his balls.

JULIAN: Okay, yeah, no, that's the main thing that I don't remember from when I was a child.

PAZ: Oh god, yeah.

JULIAN: Revisiting these is like, Oh, yeah, okay, there's a lot of focus on whether cats are intact or not.

ALIX: You said intact like as if they were a virgin.

JULIAN: That's what they call it with like horses. Where it's like--

LIZ: Do they? Oh my god.

JULIAN: Yeah, where it's like an intact stallion.

LIZ: Oh my god.

PAZ: Ugh, that's weird.

JULIAN: I know, it's really awful.

ALIX: I never was into horses. So.

PAZ: I was, but not-- I didn't care about that stuff.

LIZ: I also was, but I didn't know anything about them, and I kept not knowing anything about them the whole time I was interested in them. I read Black Beauty and like, the book said that he was like a gelding and I was like, what's that? I'm not gonna pay attention.

ALIX: I read a lot of different horse books.

LIZ: Must be a different horse.

ALIX: And they'd be like, oh, this is a gelding. And I'm like, is that a type of horse? Cool. Smiley face. Let's move on.

JULIAN: I had a lot of friends who actually rode and like, either owned horses or like, lived on working farms.

PAZ: Yeah, my aunt owned horses, but I don't know. I wasn't that involved. She didn't like teach me horse facts or anything. I just got to ride on a horse sometimes.

LIZ: We really are just like, wow, cool horse.

PAZ: Yeah, the ball focus is so funny. And it really truly is the basis of the entire series.

ALIX: Yeah. I cannot wait for you guys to get to a specific point in the next book which relates to this.

PAZ: Oh boy.

JULIAN: I feel like the reproductive politics of these books are very interesting. And I'm like--

ALIX: They are.

JULIAN: --interested or like, excited to like, talk more about their whole situation.

PAZ: Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of points that I am, like, I guess excited or, like, look forward to talking more about or like, like, being able to do that. Also like ableism in Warrior Cats is a topic I know I want to be able to address later like, once that comes up, cause that's a big issue. But also like--

ALIX: Good news. Comes up very fast.

PAZ: Whoo. Oh boy.

JULIAN: Yay.

PAZ: But yeah, also just like to continue to look into the, like, gender, family, reproductive politics going on here.

ALIX: At least it isn't fully like a you got to be married with kids type thing. I feel like it's more than anything emphasizing letting people make their own choices.

PAZ: Yeah, for sure.

JULIAN: Yeah. Like, there are a lot of like, female cats who are like, medicine cat or warriors or whatever.

PAZ: Yeah. It is very funny though, that one of your roles in society is just pregnant.

ALIX: I was thinking about this. I was like, I know that there's some queens who just like stay in the nursery to help out the other queens, even if they don't have kits at the time. And I was like, do they let male cats do that? Because I feel like they should.

PAZ: They should. I mean, I guess in that way, there is an aspect of communal parenting, like it's not as focused on nuclear families, which is nice to see.

JULIAN: Everybody cares for the kits.

ALIX: Yeah, it's really not at all, because like, I think they retconned a lot of people into being siblings and related. But I think the whole point of the first book is like, you know, find your chosen family. And people care a lot more about their mentors than their parents.

JULIAN: Yeah, like people's parents-- at least in the first book-- kind of don't matter.

PAZ: Yeah, they're non-existent.

ALIX: It's also the like, middle grade thing of like, we want to make young characters but then just get parents out of the way so they're an orphan or they're a cat. The two genders, orphan or cat.

LIZ: Oh since we like mentioned medicine cats as a status? Role? Whatever, just now. I want to say like, I wasn't surprised that there was only one because that tends to be a thing, but I think that they should have more than one doctor for their whole society. Seems like a-- they're taking some risks here.

PAZ: Yeah, as a kid I did not question that. I never had one thought of like why aren't there more doctors?

ALIX: I feel like there should be like five, right?

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Yeah. Like your whole society is based around fighting other cats.

ALIX: Mm-hmm.

JULIAN: You need to have more healers.

PAZ: So weird.

JULIAN: Your party's wildly unbalanced.

LIZ: Everyone is DPS but Spottedleaf.

JULIAN: Oh, yeah, I didn't think about that till you brought it up, Liz. But that is an important point. It's also like the medicine cats are like both doctors and like spiritual leaders. Um, which is like, you know, not that uncommon, I think.

PAZ: Yeah, I think I saw an interview or something somewhere where they mentioned medicine women and like, that, like that kind of trope tying into like medicine cats. Yeah, but you can see that I guess. I mean, as like with the problems with that trope and stuff, but yeah.

ALIX: But there still should be like five.

PAZ: There still should be, yes.

LIZ: Did Spottedleaf even have an apprentice?

PAZ: No.

ALIX: No.

LIZ: Cause she was kind of young, right? So like hey, your society already has a problem with dying young, so I don't know. I think some more thought should go into this.

PAZ: I don't know what they were planning to do if Yellowfang hadn't happened to be there.

ALIX: I feel like-- yeah. No, this is from fanfiction. But maybe it comes up later, but like I was reading a fic where again, like the medicine cat dies and there's no apprentice, and like, they just like wait for like a sign from StarClan as to like which warrior now becomes the medicine cat.

LIZ: Oh my god.

PAZ: But I feel like you would miss out on so many... like so much knowledge. What are you going to do, go ask another medicine cat like, which herb does what? Just rely on dreams? What's going on?

LIZ: Well, can you imagine sharing vital medical knowledge from other cats with other cats?

JULIAN: Well, and they can't write anything down. It's all oral tradition. So like, if you don't have that continuity of oral tradition, everything is lost.

LIZ: God.

PAZ: Right?

ALIX: I guess they don't lose anything because they're around forever in heaven. But also, do you just get trained at night by a dead medicine cat in your dreams?

PAZ: Oh god.

LIZ: You get like a dream DM and it's just like, the ghost of Spottedleaf being like, Hey, wake up.

JULIAN: You up?

ALIX: I'm just thinking of that one meme where somebody is spraying somebody with fire to wake them up. Hey, wake up. Fire will save the clan.

JULIAN: I feel like, you know, even if you can have your ghost mentor, there's some stuff it's helpful to have a hands on demonstration of, or pawson.

ALIX: Yeah. How do you know the technique for fucking biting tit. Ticks.

[laughter]

JULIAN: Yeah?

ALIX: But also, wait, hold on. Like why if they all remember everything, have they not made great strides in medical advancement?

PAZ: I don't know.

JULIAN: Because they don't have opposable thumbs.

PAZ: Yeah, that limits them in a lot of ways.

ALIX: I guess.

LIZ: They technically know everything, but their memory is really bad because they're cats. So it's all there.

ALIX: Right?

LIZ: But it's passive.

JULIAN: Okay, real question. Why hasn't StarClan told Bluestar to stay the fuck away from Tigerclaw?

PAZ: Right? StarClan has a problem being--

LIZ: They're really bored. They're just like, oh no, I want to see this play out.

PAZ: Yeah, what else do they have to do?

ALIX: They gotta watch the drama.

JULIAN: There's some sort of StarClan Prime Directive, where they can't interfere too much.

PAZ: There probably is. I don't know.

ALIX: Also, it's not clear how much of the future they actually know.

JULIAN: I mean, not even the future, just the present.

ALIX: I don't think they can read Tigerclaw's mind.

JULIAN: But they can see he killed Redtail.

PAZ: StarClan says I pretend I do not see it.

LIZ: No, there's someone in StarClan just being like, you know, I never liked Redtail.

PAZ: Meanwhile, Redtail's right there.

ALIX: Yeah, why doesn't Redtail's ghost show up and solve his murder? Hold on.

PAZ: Right? Oh my god.

JULIAN: The real Hamlet.

ALIX: Yeah!

PAZ: Yeah, Redtail should have been like, I don't know, haunting Ravenpaw and I don't know. That'd be a cool different book.

ALIX: There has to be a whole reason why they can't just say things because otherwise there would just never be any mysteries.

PAZ: Yeah, that probably gets addressed later, I assume.

ALIX: Redtail showing up like, hey, uh.

PAZ: Alix, I'm just thinking of that fic you linked where Redtail and Tigerclaw were exes.

LIZ: [gasps] Oh my god. Oh it makes sense.

ALIX: I wanted to bring this up because it was such a fucking powerful concept to me.

PAZ: I know, I love it.

LIZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: I love some murder exes.

PAZ: Right?

ALIX: Because it was basically being used as cover for him. Like he was like-- you know, even if you report the murder that I do, they won't think it's because I want power. They'll think it's because I'm jealous.

LIZ: Oh my god.

ALIX: He's like trying to come up with like fuckin like different like defenses in Warriors court.

LIZ: They should have Warriors court. They should have other professions.

ALIX: Where's the lawyer cats?

LIZ: Of course Tigerclaw would be gay and homophobic.

ALIX: I think that's exactly what Paz said.

PAZ: Yeah, I think I did. But yeah, that's his vibe. He also like goes to the gym a lot.

LIZ: No.

JULIAN: God, he's a fucking gym rat.

PAZ: He is.

ALIX: Oh my god. Tigerclaw's Grindr.

JULIAN: He posts his like abs down picture on Grindr and is like stealth.

ALIX: I liked that fic though because it was just like everybody was like, You didn't know that? It wasn't like a torrid secret. It was just like Tigerclaw is bi and has a fraught ex, and I'm like, honestly, this is great.

JULIAN: Firepaw walks into this incredible queer drama just like, (high-pitched) what's up?

LIZ: What's going on?

ALIX: Oh, you didn't know?

JULIAN: Out here in the forest cats are gay.

ALIX: That fic is just so galaxy brained.

PAZ: Yeah, that was a humongous take.

LIZ: Imagine Graypaw expositing all of this in like his usual fashion, but it's just everyone's list of previous breakups.

JULIAN: Okay, so Whitestorm and Lionheart have some beef because they used to date until...

PAZ: God.

ALIX: This is incredible.

JULIAN: And like they're mostly fine, but they shouldn't like sit next to each other.

LIZ: Firepaw voice, what's dating?

ALIX: I'm six months old.

LIZ: I didn't know what hunting was called.

PAZ: Oh, boy.

LIZ: I just got here. I love the dirt. Hi, I'm Firepaw.

PAZ: Wow, what an accurate impression.

JULIAN: I'm sure this has been written where-- because I've seen a lot of like AUs on AO3 where they're all human. Um, and I'm sure that someone has written-- or I hope that someone has written the AU where the clans are just like different queer student groups on campus, and Firepaw is like the baby freshman who's just discovered like queerness as a concept.

PAZ: People definitely write high school AUs and I'm too scared to click to find out if they're still cats or humans.

LIZ: I hope they're just cats but they go to cat school and they take cat studies, like meowthematics, and... That's the only one I have.

PAZ: Oh perfect.

ALIX: I hope it's like the My Little Pony movie where there's an alternate universe where they're all humans, but then sometimes they can Magical Girl turn into ponies.

PAZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: That's so good.

LIZ: I'm just picturing that going like Animorphs, like the covers. Human boy to little guy.

JULIAN: Shoop.

ALIX: I keep realizing I'm imagining like human Fireheart as KJ Apa from Riverdale.

PAZ: Is that the main guy? I don't--

ALIX: Yeah, it's Archie.

JULIAN: It's just the guy who plays Archie.

ALIX: I'm just like who's like a redhead and plays a himbo?

PAZ: A dumb jock.

ALIX: Although Archie's not nice enough to be a himbo. Anyways.

LIZ: You know, these cats are British. Do you think if we go back far enough in like the Wayback Machine, we're gonna see like, here's my fancast for human Firepaw. It's Rupert Grint.

ALIX: Yes. Yes.

PAZ: Absolutely.

JULIAN: Honestly, it's probably somewhere on Tumblr, like if I do some digging. I'll report back.

PAZ: You probably wouldn't even have to look that hard.

ALIX: That fully exists.

LIZ: Here's my fancast for older Firepaw, so I guess Fireheart, and it's Ed Sheeran.

PAZ: [groaning]

LIZ: [laughter]

JULIAN: Noooo.

LIZ: I couldn't think of that many red-headed dudes. And that was the only one I got.

PAZ: Oh, I'm picturing Ed Sheeran in my head right now. It's so scary. I don't want to.

LIZ: It's a scary image.

ALIX: Oh my god.

JULIAN: Do we want to, as a palate cleanser, move on to the questions?

PAZ: Yes, sure. So, you know, end of book wrap up, I figured we could also do some more questions, and we have gotten some. So we're gonna dive into those. And let's do the first one.

JULIAN: Um, I can read it out. It's less of a question and more of a--

PAZ: Yeah, anecdote.

JULIAN: --reminiscence, which I also love. "Hello Staircast, when I was an elementary schooler in 2009, there was a big community of Warrior Cats roleplayers on MIT Scratch for some reason, despite it being a platform for a block-based programming language designed to teach intro computer science, like people would roleplay in the comments. Anyway, I have brought these vintage cat OCS I submitted to coloring contests." We have Rainkit, "a small hyper kit who likes to run around and jump on things. She wants to be the best hunter ever." Rainkit is a gray kit with a little blue heart mark around one of her eyes. And she's saying hi.

PAZ: Beautiful-- it looks like a photo of the Grand Canyon?

JULIAN: I think it's the Grand Canyon.

LIZ: Oh my god.

PAZ: In the background. I love that setting.

ALIX: Cat is not wearing pants.

PAZ: No.

JULIAN: No. And then the other submission is Chaosfox. Oh, it's--

PAZ: Oh wait, music. Oh my god. It's so loud. How do I make it stop?

ALIX: I had to mute the site.

PAZ: Oh my god.

ALIX: This is so powerful.

JULIAN: "Chaosfox lives alone in a secluded area of the forest. She used to belong to a clan known as BoneClan but was turned out when it was discovered she had killed another cat. It was an accident."

LIZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: "But she was framed by her brother Longclaw. She avoids other cats and will likely attack you if you come near her. She's very thin because prey is scarce where she lives. She'd never reveal it, but she is lonely."

PAZ: Wow.

LIZ: Oh my god.

ALIX: Oh my god.

PAZ: What is this song?

LIZ: I don't know. I'm afraid to turn it back on. It's very loud.

ALIX: It's so loud.

JULIAN: And then when you click on the little play to get this animation going, Chaosfox is like rainbow, like has little shards of rainbow color that make up her body. It's really good. It's really incredible.

LIZ: It's animated.

PAZ: I feel like I can see her bone tail, like?

ALIX: Oh, yeah. It's powerful.

JULIAN: Oh, yeah.

LIZ: The colors are oscillating. It's very beautiful. I have so much respect for this artist.

ALIX: I feel like-- like the audacity of BoneClan for kicking someone out for doing murder.

PAZ: Right?

ALIX: You're called BoneClan.

JULIAN: Oh, thank you for sending that in, Ruby.

PAZ: Thank you. These are beautiful. If you remember what this song is called, I guess, @ us.

LIZ: Yeah, we'd love to know and then we'd love to just make that our new theme song forever. Same volume.

JULIAN: No slow ramp.

PAZ: Okay, I have to close that tab.

ALIX: That's incredible. I love that so much.

PAZ: And that was from Ruby. Thank you, Ruby.

LIZ: Thank you so much.

ALIX: I can read one if you want.

PAZ: Okay.

ALIX: "Dear esteemed cat scholars, in the last episode, you mentioned how cats should broaden their horizons and establish more roles and jobs for cats and their societies. My question is, could, should, and would cats unionize?" And that's from Maayan.

JULIAN: Oh my god.

PAZ: I think they should unionize.

ALIX: They should.

JULIAN: Right, everyone should unionize.

PAZ: I don't know if they would.

ALIX: Maybe.

JULIAN: They seem to be very attached to a hierarchical structure right now. So I think they would need to do some like-- you'd have to do some real consciousness building.

PAZ: Some workshops.

JULIAN: Among the cats to like encourage them to think as a group. They do think about the wellbeing of the clan, but like, you would have to frame it so that they could see that, like, when warriors have better working conditions, everyone benefits.

ALIX: I mean, to be fair, leaders aren't like bosses because they actually do like hunt and fight. Like they do work. So it's not 100% like they're exploiting the labor of the other cats. But I still think collective bargaining would be good for them.

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: I think the apprentices should unionize.

ALIX: Yeah, yes, yes, yes, their labor is exploited, I would say.

PAZ: For sure.

LIZ: They should unionize so they get like, you know, some safety protocols, like not being sent to snake hell while you're an intern by your evil mentor.

JULIAN: Yeah, I think they should unionize and fight for a better mentor selection.

LIZ: Yeah.

ALIX: Literally.

PAZ: Have some say in that process.

LIZ: There should be a review board, right? Like some sort of approval process.

ALIX: Like any accountability.

LIZ: Uh-huh.

PAZ: Ratemymentor.com. Tigerclaw has an F.

JULIAN: But he does have a chili pepper.

ALIX: According to Redtail, at least.

PAZ: Oh my god.

LIZ: What's Ravenpaw's review? Just like, 0/10, tried to kill me.

ALIX: I got stabbed here.

PAZ: Would not come back.

ALIX: Good sandwiches, would come back.

LIZ: Also, just lectures. Does not teach.

PAZ: Well, I guess that's our answer. They should unionize--

ALIX: But they won't.

PAZ: The apprentices especially, but they won't. Who wants to read this next one?

LIZ: I'll read it. This is from-- I don't know who it's from.

PAZ: Oh, whoops.

LIZ: There's no-- is it signed?

PAZ: Let me go look in the email.

ALIX: This is a dream from StarClan.

JULIAN: It's from Nat.

LIZ: Okay. So this question's from Nat. The header is The Proboards Experience. "Hi Staircast cast, loving the show. I know it's been mentioned, so I'm sure you would have got around to answering this question from me eventually. But do y'all remember the Proboards RP golden age? I cannot count the amount of Proboards I created or joined, many of them for Warriors. And most of them seeing participation for an average of four weeks, after which they died forever."

PAZ: Yep.

LIZ: "I'd love to hear if any of you were part of the scene. And if you have any strong emotion--" sorry-- "any strong memories. Here's the only one I remember. At some point, I knew the creator of it. Now I don't have any recollection of how." And there's a link to the Proboards. "Look at all the work that went into the architecture of this thing, only for a small group of internet kids to never use it due to moderating and advertising being hard." Aww. "I've also attached some fantastic 2009 fanart of it, which I found recently and unlocked my memory of that particular forum. Thanks again for letting me re-experience these books in your podcast." And attached is just a stunning, beautiful piece of art that I wish I could blow it up on the screen and show everybody.

PAZ: Yes, so it has the name of the forums on it, which is Moonlight Dreams. And "Dreams" is in beautiful rainbow font, very atmospheric. And it looks like there's five cats in a cave around Moonpool, maybe? I don't know. Yeah, three of them look very astonished. One of them looks really angry. There's a story going on here.

LIZ: There's a little kind of orangey brown cat on the far right with one black paw, and I think that's just-- mwah. That's adorable.

PAZ: That's character design, baby.

ALIX: Oh my gosh.

JULIAN: I mean, like I obviously have a lot of memories of the Proboards Golden Age. Um, my best friend in elementary school's older sister set up a forum for us to RP, starclan13.proboards.com. And it was a weird mix of like our friends, and then the older sister's group of friends, who were about three years older, and then at some point I got my little brother, who at the time was like six, and all his friends into it. So we ended up, because obviously at the time you needed to be 13 to create an account anywhere that you could post, because of child safety laws. And my parents knew about this law. And so I was like, well no, it's different. Proboards is different somehow. I managed to convince them that it was okay for us all to be doing that. And it was because we knew almost everyone who was on the board.

But I spent-- I had 45 minutes on the computer per day and I spent every one of those 45 minutes RPing as my OC Pinestripe. I didn't realize that like most Proboards apparently weren't very active because ours was incredibly active, maybe because we all knew each other in real life and could yell at each other to get online. But like now that I'm looking-- I like pulled it up, and I'm looking at it, and there's a total of 45,000 posts on this website.

PAZ: Jeez.

LIZ: Oh my god.

ALIX: Oh my god.

JULIAN: Yeah, part of this is after we stopped or I stopped RPing as actively, there was kind of a second wave in like 2010 of people that we did not know in real life, who I guess found the site. We had done some like cross advertising on different RP forums. And I guess they found it via that and kind of took over and were super active. So I was not around for all 45,000 of those posts.

PAZ: That's wild.

JULIAN: But it was very active. We had a total of like 300 members total.

PAZ: Wow.

JULIAN: Of like very elaborate plot.

LIZ: Amazing.

PAZ: Yeah, just for comparison, the Proboards that our listener linked has a total post count of 125.

LIZ: Aw.

ALIX: There's also-- 50 of these posts are in the Advertising Other Sites.

JULIAN: Yeah.

LIZ: Oh no.

PAZ: Yeah, I was definitely on Proboards, but not for Warriors Cats ever, I don't think. That was mostly confined to Neopets for me. I think-- so I was in a guild on Neopets that did Invader Zim role play. And we eventually moved to Proboards.

ALIX: Incredible.

PAZ: So that's what I was roleplaying on Proboards.

LIZ: I didn't know that about you, not the Invader Zim part.

PAZ: I don't like to talk about it.

LIZ: Cause you--

ALIX: Yeah, I never-- oh sorry, go ahead.

LIZ: Oh, no, you go first. I'll wait for after because it's very important.

ALIX: I was just gonna say I was never on Proboards. I RPed Warrior Cats on Gaia Online.

LIZ: Yes.

JULIAN: I knew a lot of people who did Maximum Ride there. But yeah, I don't know. It was um, I was like a site admin for a while, which was really neat, because I got to learn how to do some HTML and CSS.

PAZ: Hell yeah.

JULIAN: You know, I moved from doing my Neopets shop to-- unfortunately, you can't see the site as it used to look because a lot of the-- we used to have like a really big top banner, and, like special graphics for everything, and custom emoticons. And a lot of those were all hosted on Photobucket.

[chorus of aws]

JULIAN: Along with almost everyone's RP signatures, so unfortunately, many of those are gone.

PAZ: Tragic.

ALIX: Wow.

LIZ: Lost history. Like that genuinely makes me sad.

JULIAN: I am gonna see if the Wayback Machine ever archived this.

PAZ: Yeah, that'd be good.

LIZ: It was a pretty big one, it might have. Yeah, I guess I never like did any Proboard stuff, and I stopped using Neopets after my friend at the time tried to teach me how to bank on it. I was like, well, I can't do this. Yeah, so it's interesting to hear like, everyone's different, like, experiences with it, because I just like-- it just passed me by.

I do want to look at the Proboards that was linked in the question because there's some interesting little descriptions here for like-- there's a folder called Calm River. And it says, "this is a small part of the river that is very calm. It is good for catching fish and wonderful for swimming if you have some free time. On the sandy banks is where warriors like teaching their apprentices battle moves." And it's all very sweet.

ALIX: Yeah, it's so empty though.

JULIAN: Oh, great news. It is on the Wayback Machine.

PAZ: Oh perfect.

LIZ: Yay.

JULIAN: And you can see many of the images, although not the big header.

PAZ: Perfect.

LIZ: There's gotta be someone with that saved on like some external hard drive.

JULIAN: Our affiliate link is like a little cat running across the-- there's a lot of gifs.

LIZ: Wow.

JULIAN: It is all in Papyrus font.

LIZ: Of course.

JULIAN: Great news for everyone.

LIZ: Listen, Papyrus is where it was at. I definitely used it for just like school reports, as a middle schooler, because who's gonna stop you?

ALIX: I remember doing it as well.

PAZ: Yeah. Well, Julian, I'd be interested to see if you could find any posts of yours in the Wayback Machine.

JULIAN: Oh, yeah.

PAZ: But that'd be like--

JULIAN: I think that's probably--

PAZ: A project for the future.

JULIAN: A project because it'll take me a little bit to navigate this. But yes, I'll try to see if I can find my death post when I killed off my character.

LIZ: Oh my god.

ALIX: Oh my god.

PAZ: Oh please.

JULIAN: Cause it was very dramatic.

LIZ: Um, can we just read a few of the names on your old site?

JULIAN: Oh, yeah.

ALIX: Oh my god, sorry.

LIZ: Because they're really good. Just in the current cat section, just to pick a few out, there's Vengeancestone, Diamondpaw, Pookystar, Saberkit, Rainbowkit, and separately, Rippedkit and Ripplekit.

JULIAN: Oh, great news. I forgot that in WindClan, we do have a Suepaw. So Susan, Susanclaw.

PAZ: Wow.

ALIX: Wow.

LIZ: There's also just a Garfunkel, which is perfect.

ALIX: Oh yeah, Garfunkel.

JULIAN: Oh, I forgot about Garfunk-- wait,, which clan is Garfunkel in? I don't remember Garfunkel.

LIZ: Uh, WindClan.

PAZ: Garfunkel.

ALIX: Kushaclaw?

LIZ: Suepaw.

ALIX: Wow.

PAZ: Others: Loner, Amberfeather (go Amby!)

JULIAN: That was my best friend.

ALIX: Aw.

PAZ: Aw.

JULIAN: She used to be the leader of RiverClan but then decided to become a loner.

ALIX: [gasp] The drama.

PAZ: Wow.

LIZ: Wait. There's a loner called Mirage. Shout outs to Emily.

ALIX: Oh my gosh. Mirage is here.

PAZ: Wow, Mirage Apex Legends.

LIZ: Oh, and the very last name in this whole entire list is Cody.

JULIAN: Yeah.

LIZ: God bless.

JULIAN: Cody was like a rando who just really badly wanted to play a kittypet. And it's like, well, I mean, you can if you want to, but...

LIZ: I respect that. You've got to have some different perspectives in here.

JULIAN: I think you would have really gotten along with Cody because Cody's whole shtick when role playing was that they would just like pop into RPs and be like, hey, you should all come be kittypets with me.

ALIX: Y'all heard of medicine?

LIZ: Do you want to get vaccinated? Do you not want to have ticks? Well, have I got the lifestyle for you.

JULIAN: Yep.

LIZ: Anyway, thank you for this. These beautiful links.

ALIX: They're really incredible.

LIZ: And this beautiful image. And this beautiful question.

JULIAN: Yeah, thank you so much, Nat.

PAZ: Yeah. And I hope we can dive into the Proboards experience more in the future.

JULIAN: Yes.

PAZ: But Alix brought us something very special as well, speaking of the distant Warriors past.

ALIX: Yes. So I've basically had access to the same email account since I was nine, ten years old. So I found an email exchange between my middle school best friend and me about Warrior Cats. So I linked a Google doc. And if somebody wants to be my best friend from middle school, I will be me, and we can read this little exchange

JULIAN: Yeah, I'm happy to do it.

ALIX: Okay. All right, obviously don't doxx her.

JULIAN: Right, of course.

ALIX: So, "Dear Rainface. I got Warriors Field Guide, Secrets of the Clans, and it includes, ta-da! the story of how the clans started. Here is a summary. Many minutes ago, there were only cats who lived in small groups. They fought for no reason at all. It was a lawless, bloodly time for the forest.

One night, they agreed to meet at Fourtrees and talk. They ended up having a battle. Many cats died. The living ones slept at Fourtrees. When they woke up, they saw the slain cats as starry cats/StarClan. 'Unite or die,' said StarClan. Four cats wanted to lead the cats, a black female, Shadow, a silver gray tom with green eyes, River, a wiry brown she-cat, Wind, and a ginger tom with amber eyes, Thunder.

A dispute broke out. Suddenly, 'Silence!' a StarClan tabby yowled. She told them to find cats like them. For Shadow, night hunters, for River, water-loving cats, for Wind, fast runners, and for Thunder, strong hunters. 'If you do this,' said a white tom, 'we will reward you with eight extra lives that you may lead your clans many moons.' A tortoiseshell said, 'we will watch over you from Silverpelt and visit you in dreams.' The white tom declared the full moon truce. The tabby yowled from the great rock, 'you will be warriors.' All the cats agreed. And so began the age of the Warrior Cats." I just want to say that I did write this summary.

PAZ: It's so good.

LIZ: It's beautiful.

ALIX: And I put an ellipsis, then "isn't that scarily like A Place Before StarClan by us, with the white tom and everything? Let me know. Bye! Hawkear."

JULIAN: "It is. But there is no Moonstone coming down to earth or little cats blowing off to the north, south, east or west. Their version is way too boring."

ALIX: "There is a Moonstone story that I will tell you later. But I admit it is a little boring."

JULIAN: "Okay."

ALIX: "We talked about it."

JULIAN: "Oh. Yeah."

ALIX: "Please give back the books if you are done. I need Harry Potter Seven Guesses book before it comes out."

JULIAN: "Sorry I couldn't give it back to you sooner."

ALIX: "'S okay." Spelled S, apostrophe, okay.

LIZ: Aw.

JULIAN: "Good."

ALIX: Then I said, "Hey, now I suppose there was a Sky too?" End exchange.

PAZ: Beautiful.

JULIAN: I love that in 2007 it was totally fine to send a one-word email.

ALIX: Yeah.

PAZ: This is-- I did not email my friends like this. This is fascinating.

ALIX: You know, I would have said that I didn't either, but apparently I did.

JULIAN: I super did, so

PAZ: I love your summary so much.

LIZ: It's so good.

PAZ: "It was a lawless, bloodly time for the forest."

ALIX: I do love "bloodly."

LIZ: That's innovation.

ALIX: I do think this is the canonical lore. But also like, I love that I just sent it up in such a like-- it's like a vaguely poetic way. But I'm just like, "they ended up having a battle." Absolutely no reason why.

PAZ: I love that you were like, so this is the official thing. We did it first and way better.

ALIX: It's a really, really powerful energy.

JULIAN: Oh, to have the sheer confidence of like an 11 year old hyped up on Warrior Cats.

PAZ: Oh, right?

LIZ: That's the confidence you need to send a one word email.

ALIX: Yeah.

JULIAN: That just says "good."

ALIX: I feel like I'm putting way more energy into this exchange than my friend. I'm writing paragraphs. And she's like, good, thanks.

JULIAN: Yeah, I tried to bring as much to the role as I could, but I didn't have a lot to work with.

ALIX: Thank you, you did a great job. Also, wait. Sorry, I just realized the difference-- how much time was between these different messages, because I sent that "'s okay" one on July 31, 2007, and she responded, "good," on August 14, 2007.

PAZ: That's about the rate at which I reply to emails.

ALIX: Yeah, there's five days between almost all of these emails.

LIZ: God, if this was now, it'd be like, hey, just checking in for an update. Have you had a chance to look at my Warrior Cats summary yet? Okay. Let me know. Thanks again. Bye.

JULIAN: Just wanted to touch base on this. Do you have any thoughts?

ALIX: Circling back on this. Isn't our fanfiction better?

LIZ: Best wishes.

ALIX: I hope this email finds you well.

JULIAN: Let me know if you have any questions.

LIZ: Hope to hear from you soon.

JULIAN: Email was a mistake actually. Except for this, this is the only valid use for email.

LIZ: We should have never moved on from this.

ALIX: Thank you so much for letting me read this.

JULIAN: Thank you for sharing it with us.

ALIX: It amused me very much when I found it.

PAZ: It's very good. Thank you. That's kind of what we got-- what we have to bring to the table today. I don't know. I think we did a good, like retrospective talk. Oh, okay. I know what I wanted to do. Liz?

LIZ: Yeah?

PAZ: Would you like to give us your prophecy for the next book?

LIZ: Yes.

JULIAN: Yeees.

ALIX: Yes [clapping].

PAZ: What do you think will happen?

LIZ: Um, they're going to almost get Tigerclaw. But he's going to get away at the last minute, I think at the end of the book. And sorry, did I say Tigerclaw? I did, right?

ALIX: Yeah.

LIZ: All right. And Fireheart is going to be like, rats, if only I had not been wracked with indecision, and also just brainlessness because I'm a dumb little cat. So he's going to have that kind of like, you know, Hamlet hubris moment. And he's gonna get a promotion. Maybe they'll have different jobs now.

You might see more of the other apprentices. Graystripe will develop a personality. I say that with affection. Because there's going to be less exposition to give, I think. They are going to have a fun little jaunt into the barn while they're on a patrol or something. And they're going to see their good friend Ravenpaw. And he's going to be fine with his new boyfriend.

Bluestar is going to have like-- there's gonna be a subplot with Bluestar. She's gonna be like, oh, I'm getting so old, I need to start thinking about me. Like, what have I done for myself? All these years and I don't even know myself. And that is like her slice of life older person romance plot with Yellowfang, who's like re entering the workforce as an older medicine cat. Yeah, that's pretty much my prediction.

JULIAN: I would watch this drama.

ALIX: I love this so much.

JULIAN: Bluestar's self care journey.

ALIX: I love how hard you're manifesting that Ravenpaw is okay.

LIZ: Yeah. He is. I don't know what you mean.

PAZ: The aggression in your voice. Thank you so much. I'm excited to see if your prophecy comes true. Well, that was it for Into the Wild. We're done with it. And now we're moving on to Fire and Ice next week. Very excited.

ALIX: I'm so excited to listen.

JULIAN: Hell yeah.

LIZ: I've had the book on Libby for like a few days now. And I'm like, chomping at the bit to get into it.

PAZ: Now is the time.

JULIAN: Oh, Alix, do you have anything you want to plug?

ALIX: Yeah, I have two podcasts, Hot Taking It, where I watch classic MTV sitcom Faking It, which is about high school lesbians fake dating. And also a podcast that I finished, I guess, although it's kind of ongoing, which is Across the Loonaverse, which is explaining Loona lore. Julian was on that at one point, so if you're a fan of Julian--

JULIAN: Oh, I was. I forgot.

ALIX: --you can go listen to that. And then that will pretty soon be replaced by a Riverdale podcast where I can talk about KJ Apa some more, although not in the role of Fireheart. Yeah, Across the Loonaverse, and Hot Taking It, which I think you can find if you go to my Twitter, which is @kismetnemesis, and then I have them linked. Probably the easiest way to do it.

JULIAN: Hell yeah.

PAZ: And as a reminder, you can find our show @staircast on Twitter. And if you want to send in any questions or anecdotes like the ones we read today, you can send them into [email protected]. And we'll check those periodically.

LIZ: Yeah, I want to thank everyone again, for the really good questions. They're just, they're very cute and sweet. And I had a good time listening and reading them.

JULIAN: Yeah, it's really nice to hear what this series means to other people.

PAZ: Mm hmm. Yeah. And I am just having a blast revisiting it. So thank you, everyone who's doing it with us as well.

ALIX: Yeah, thank you so much for letting me be on the show and also making the show so that I can listen to it. It's genuinely like the highlight of my week. Like every Sunday, I'm like, Alright, it's time to listen to Staircast.

PAZ: Thank you.

JULIAN: Aw, Alix.

LIZ: Thank you for coming on because you're, one, a seasoned podcaster, and also per the rules of the Clan, the new podcast host, so it's in your hands now.

ALIX: Yeah, um, although I think next week I might be busy, if you guys could just be interim hosts for a little while.

LIZ: Yeah, of course.

PAZ: Okay, yeah. We'll figure it out.

JULIAN: We'll be podcast deputies.

ALIX: Oh yes. And if I die, you all have to fight it out.

LIZ: Who has to wait for that? Listen. You've read about Tigerclaw. He's doing fine for himself.

PAZ: Well, uh, I think that's gonna do it for us this week. Tune in next week for Fire and Ice and until then, may StarClan light your path. Bye.

JULIAN: Bye.

LIZ: Bye.

ALIX: B-bye?

LIZ: I'm never sure if I should do that one with you guys.

PAZ: Yeah. I keep it in.

[outro music]

PAZ: Okay, let me put away these covers.

ALIX: These childish things.

JULIAN: No, we're taking out childish things

PAZ: Oh, whoa, it got translated into Latvian. Wild.

ALIX: Only two books, though, so they don't get to know the whole plot.

PAZ: No, Latvian at least got to The Darkest Hour, so three books.

#into the wild ep #ep 07 #a lawless bloodly time #transcript

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his-catness-tchalla · 3 years

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Word of Honor ep.07

#honestly Zhang Zhehan's face is a work of art #山河令 #Word of Honor #天涯客 #Tian Ya Ke #Faraway Wanderers #Zhou Zishu #cdramaedit #cdramagifs #wordofhonoredit #wohdaily #my gifs

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himjhu · 4 years

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What If I Pee Myself On The Soccer Field? I #AskASoccerPro Show Ep 080

11-year MLS veteran Quincy Amarikwa welcomes you to episode 80 of the #AskASoccerPro Show! This week Quincy talks about how to stay fit, going pro with no semi-pro experience, overcoming irrational fear, and more!Check out what Quincy covers this week:

00:00 – 02:45: Welcome To The #AskASoccerPro Show Ep 80!

02:47 – 08:08: Will Quincy Return To Play Soccer?

08:11 -11:20: How Many Days A Week Does Quincy Train? @ferramirez_14_

11:21 – 14:21: How Quincy Changes His Training When He’s About To Join A Team @ferramirez_14_

14:23 – 18:49: What Does Quincy Think About The Quakes Advancing In #MLSisBack Tournament? @shannonmeier1136

18:51 – 24:59: Is It Possible To Go Pro At 23 With No Semi-Pro Experience? @andersfsflow

25:00 – 27:42: Why YOU Should Make A Highlight Reel @connor_johnson2028

27:45 –30:03: Not In The Starting XI? How To Deal With The Mental Aspect Of Not Playing. @oscarrmejia

30:04 - 33:41: Why The Three S’s Of Self-Awareness So Important?

33:42 – 42:45: What If I Pee Myself On The Soccer Field? @lunacysoccer

42:46 – 47:03: Where To Go When You’re Ignored By A Coach And Need A Community That Can Help

47:07 – 51:58: Perfect Soccer Gamer Dylan Joins The Live! @nocontext_dylan

52:03 – 53:46: Quincy’s Recommendations For College Freshman Joining A Soccer Program? @_rubz11

53:51 – 58:24: How To Help Teammates Who Struggle With Their Mentality @john_hollinger27

58:25 – 59:54: Where Can You Get Your Own Perfect Soccer Bundle?

If you would like to listen to the episode:

If you would like to watch the episode:

If you would like to read the interview:

*Transcript is unedited and machine-generated. There will be errors. For further clarity please refer to the audio or video.

Quincy Amarikwa (00:00):

We're all here to ride the MSL wave. The #AskASoccerPro Show. I'd like to welcome you to another episode of the #AskASoccerPro Show. C underscore E L F a R O. What's going on? Katie joining and Joe Jackson. What's going on T a T. How am I supposed to pronounce your name? I know I always say T, but you had you'd you'd written out how to say it appropriately. Ryan, one L he said, what's up Quincy? What's going on, Ryan? Joe Jackson said, yo Quincy, what's up? Katie said what up? F E R a F E R Ramirez 14. Giving me a wave. What's going on Sammy. Welcome as always Connor. Johnson's joining in Jose Pardot. Brett Pratto 10 said what's good Quincy a, you know, it's good. It's the good word. It's time for another episode of the show. And I'm excited to get in today, get into today's episode, you know, shut up. I told her on that, so let's see what we got here. Ooh,

Quincy Amarikwa (01:09):

Oops.

Quincy Amarikwa (01:12):

Anders, Flo, what up, dude? I love your book. Perfect soccer and a lot of motivation, you know, thank you very much as you guys can see on the screen there, you see the little perfect soccer player, blueprint action. You'll shout out towed or for the dope dank meme. For those of you don't know, we just released the perfect soccer bundle, which is

Quincy Amarikwa (01:32):

Everyone I'm getting juiced with. What's coming out and how we're getting everything together. And I'm loving seeing everyone spamming that heart button. Cool. We're making ultimate ultimate things, dreams, everything come true. And one of the dope things I'm juiced about releasing and letting everybody know is available is the perfect soccer bundle. So it makes sure you hit over the perfect set of skills.com/store and check out what comes with it. Perfect soccer goal, perfect soccer balls skills Academy, be pro weekly training program. The perfect soccer player blueprint, the ultimate soccer college, college soccer recruiting boot plant, and more but that's a dope bundle that is coming at you at an extremely discounted amazing price. But let's see what else we got here. I'm seeing everyone's spam that heart button. So I'm seeing that many of you have probably just become aware of the perfect soccer bundle.

Quincy Amarikwa (02:21):

And I'm hoping to hear that many of you are copying your own perfect soccer bundle here soon. But again, shout out honors for saying he he's read. The book, loves the book. Joe co the gunners is joined in mass journalist is joined in and you know what it is when I ended up falling behind Tony, what's going on in Shannon, what's happening Taya T T. His name is Taya. Thank you very much. Ramirez asked, are you still going to play soccer? Well, I'm still a free agent, and I think the quarantine has just thrown a wrench into everything, the regular normal systems and processes. But I also do believe that this has been a great opportunity in time for many individuals, especially higher up in organizations to self reflect on what it is they were doing that got them to where they're at, but more importantly, that the changes in evolution and thinking they're going to need to have to make in order to evolve into what I think comes post quarantine.

Quincy Amarikwa (03:19):

So I know the MLS is back tournament is getting into the later stages. A few teams have been sent home. So I think many people are gonna start thinking about what happens after the tournament and what that means and what they're going to need to start putting into place so they can, they can build, they can build towards they can build towards building a longterm winner's mindset and longterm longterm goal for their organization. So what's been going on and that'll actually be good cause I'll, I'll transition into, I just had a, I just completed my my interview with the guys over at the designated player plot podcast. Last night, that podcast ended up going well over three hours, dope conversation, lots of insight. If those of you are wanting to get up to date as to kind of this, the state of soccer in America, as I currently see it based on my 11 plus years of professional experience, that podcast will definitely be the one that you want to check out, listen to download a relisten, to take notes on and you know, yeah, take notes and and take notice to see how things transpire and play out here, moving forward.

Quincy Amarikwa (04:42):

Cause

Quincy Amarikwa (04:42):

As most of you

Quincy Amarikwa (04:44):

Should know, if you don't know, this is the #AskASoccerPro Show episode 80. I'm pretty sure we're on episode 80 almost to the century club. And I'm excited to have you guys join in because I'm here to talk to you guys about the MSL or the mental strength league. Yes. I've been a major league soccer pro for over 11 years now, but the reason and ability and the way that I was able to get to year 11 and hopefully we'll see here year 12 and beyond is all thanks to the MSL or the mental strength league. The mentality that we discuss here every Thursday, 6:00 PM, PST 9:00 PM EST live on the perfect soccer account. Shout out Joe Jackson already dropping that I'm in your head emojis for 20 more episodes or [inaudible] yes, but on this show, we break down the AmeriCorps process. The seven step process that is necessary for you to be able to accomplish your goals.

Quincy Amarikwa (05:48):

If you want to reach your goals, let's make this a little bit bigger. If you want to reach your goals, if you want to reach them, you got to get down with the MSL. Cause this is the mindset and mentality you need to accomplish your goals to overcome that negativity, that insecurity that self doubt. And how do we do that? Can, can people drop down in the chat, those of you who have been around for a while, gotten a lot of value out of the brand, the MSL mentality and practice what we preach here every Thursday. Can you let me know what the three S's stand for, which is the pillar and foundation to the AmeriCorps process, the pillar and foundation to the MSL, our mentality and our community. Cause I'd love. I'd love to see if if our community can help educate those who may be paying attention or listening in for the first time as I start to look at the questions that are coming in, you know, shout out Joe, thank you, Joe, for putting that in there.

Quincy Amarikwa (06:43):

Let's pin that comment down there. The three S's. So if you guys could drop below what the three S's stand for, that would be amazing. And while you guys are dropping that below, as well as your comments and questions, I'm going to scroll back up a little bit here and start making my way through the questions. Over time GH said, keep up the good work boss, always, always in forever. Chris Floyd soccer said, I want to get a perfect soccer match ball so bad. How much is it? Well, well, Chris, the retail price of the ball is I think it's 89 95. It comes with free shipping and a lifetime warranty of the ball, but, but that's not. What's beautiful. I want you to head over and check out the perfect formation, right? The perfect formation, which is the perfect soccer bundle that is now live on the site.

Quincy Amarikwa (07:45):

And you're going to be able to get the ball, the goal, and all the other additional bonuses and content for an extremely reduced baller price. But if you want to get the ball by itself, Hey, go ahead. No problem. I love that. It's amazing. You're going to love it. It's great. But I definitely suggest you check out the bundle because if you wanted the ball, you're going to, you're going to faint over the bundle. Let's see, let's see F F E R R a M I R E Z, underscore 14, underscore asks, how many days a week do you train Quincy? And that all depends on where I'm at in the season and if I'm in my free agency or if I'm with an actual team and organization. So let's talk about today, how it works, how it looks, how I'm, how I train as of right now.

Quincy Amarikwa (08:39):

So typically when I'm in between teams and I don't know how long it's going to be before I may be joining an organization or team, I I really spread out my fitness and and, and, and keep a base level. And I've talked about this in the past that I understand that puts me about two weeks out from being 60 minute game fit. Now this is something that you'll probably be able to do and figure out once you have a bit more of experience and you understand your body a bit, a bit more, and when you're first starting out, you know, you're learning your body, you're learning your tendencies. What, what your physiology is, how foods affect you, how they, how they may or may not affect you, how training programs and different types of things may or may affect you. But by the time you've gotten to 11 years at the professional level, I would assume, or I'd hope that you've gotten to a level of understanding of your body and for me and for my physiology and how I how my body works to be about two weeks out from 60 minute game fit, I can work out three days a week.

Quincy Amarikwa (09:43):

So I'll typically go Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and I'll I'll have steady state runs and body weight exercises that I do on circuit. Every Monday, every Wednesday, every Friday, typically in the morning when I first wake up or, you know, after I get the kids through through their routines unit stuff. Now what that allows me to do is it allows me to build and maintain a certain level of stamina and cardio, right? So that if, and when I get that call from a team or organization about, Hey, we'd like you to join. We want you to get integrated. With, with having that baseline, I can, I'm able to, within two weeks, get 60 minutes fit for whichever type of organization that I'm joining. So, you know, if you're an organization that's a four 42 and you want to target striker, who's making runs in the box.

Quincy Amarikwa (10:30):

That's different than a four, three, three winger winger forward who has to play both sides of the ball. So I stay in a state that allows me to get fit for whichever organization, a team I eventually joined and the philosophy of the coach, right? So as I start to see how things are trending, I'll then start to adjust my training to now ramp up for if I'm anticipating or believing, there might be an opportunity or chance that I'll be joining an organization. So before the quarantine I was, I was under the belief and feeling that, Hey, things are starting to trend. I'll probably be joining an organization here soon, so I can start to ramp up then quarantine happened and that completely tapered that off. And I created a little bit of time for me to get rest and then got back to that baseline.

Quincy Amarikwa (11:21):

Now I'm starting to get that feeling again, right? Hey, there there's an opportunity or a chance that I probably may be joining an organization here sooner, rather than later, it doesn't mean it's guaranteed, but when that happens, then I'll start to increase my, my, my my training. So now I'm more at I'm still doing Monday, Wednesday, Friday, but I'm doing two sessions a day now. So we'll, I'll do the steady state stuff in the morning with the body weight and then touches touches in agility work. And then obviously I'll start working. I'll do all the things, especially a lot of the organizational stuff with black players for change. There's a massive amount of work that's been going on behind the scenes for quite some time. So I've been very heavily involved in that amongst the other things that we've got going on.

Quincy Amarikwa (12:09):

So then I'm transitioning to that. And then by the afternoon, then I'll go and have my secondary workout, which is more a steady state run with more body weight stuff. And sometimes a little bit of touches on the ball if I'm feeling inclined, like at that point in the morning, whether I feel like it or not, I'm getting touches in the afternoon. It comes down to if I'm feeling if I, if I want to, if it's fun, if it, if I feel inspired and I think many players understand what it's like, sometimes you just, you just don't feel inspired. You don't feel like doing it. You don't feel like being out there. You don't feel like touching the ball. On those days, those are the days that I forced myself to get touches on the ball. The days when I feel like I don't need it the days where I feel like I don't want to, or the days that I make sure I do at least a base level so that I don't start to create slowly deteriorating habits that that come up and bite me in the butt, you know, two or three weeks from now.

Quincy Amarikwa (13:08):

So hopefully that gives you guys a bit of, you know, perspective and kind of context of how to kind of build maybe in your mind some, some ways of which you can, you can build out your regimen and what you're doing. So if you guys are enjoying that and you like that, if that's helpful, share a little bit of insight, some feedback for me with what you guys are thinking just from that, on that routine. Cause like I said, I only want to spend time talking to you guys about things that you find valuable that you like. And if I'm not seeing you as spam the heart button and give me some feedback as to you, if you like it or not, I'm not going to share that type of information anymore. Cause what's the point. You guys know what it is. Time's our most valuable asset out here and there's no chance.

Quincy Amarikwa (13:53):

There's no guarantee as of right now that you're going to get any more of it. So this is an investment of our time. I appreciate the fact that you guys are willing to invest your time here with me. Listen to me, talk, ask me questions, but I want to be mindful of making sure I'm, I'm over delivering value, leaving every exchange haven't given more than I received. Cause you know, that is a pillar of our purpose here. I'm seeing you guys spam that heart button. So I appreciate that. Thank you very much. Let's see what we got here. Shannon asked Shannon, M E I E R one one three six. Asks what do you think about the quakes advancing? So I'm just now fully aware in this moment that the quakes have advanced through the tournament. I think I general, I was generally aware that they had Beaton's they kind of pulled their way through and, and being the team to kind of advance in the tournament, which also ties to what I spoke about last night on the designated player podcast about culture investing in culture and the need for that to actually have an opportunity or a chance to build a team that could, that can win something.

Quincy Amarikwa (14:58):

And I think San Jose has been doing a good job of that. As of late, I think w since I've, since I've not been with the organization, so since I was traded to Montreal they eventually, so towards the end of the year, I was traded to Montreal. Then at the end of that year, who was the coach at the time? Oh man, was it, I forget lots of coaches, I forget. But my main point is they brought in Almeda. And from what I've seen over this last year and a half, I think he's halfway into his second year, right? He's been extremely focused on building culture and an identity around that organization. And I think that's something that's been massively needed. It doesn't mean that it's going to pan out and result in championships, but it will mean at the very least that there's going to be comradery.

Quincy Amarikwa (15:49):

There's going to be a brotherhood. There's gonna, there's going to be something that people want to, you know, metaphorically die for on the field. And when you can create something like that, you make it really difficult to to not put yourself in a great position, to, to win games and have an opportunity to win, win championships. Having said all that, I think the, the philosophy and style of play that I've made it has chosen is one that will be very difficult to, to execute on for the longterm in MLS, because of all the limitations of like travel and under normal, typical circumstances, right? If we're doing everything like this tournament style in the bubble, I think, I think his philosophy, the way he's approaching it is, is kind of ideal for it. But when you're, when you're talking about the situation of traveling across country and the, the, the, the vast degree of different environments that you're preparing for and everything that comes along with what is MLS that's a kind of different, different ballgame, but that's kinda what I'm thinking about so far right now GK underscore L O R E N Z O S.

Quincy Amarikwa (17:05):

Do you know where I can find anything, any training drills with just me and someone else? What do you know where I can find any training drills with just me and someone else? I'm not really understanding that question. Are you saying you need a place to have training drills for, for just you, and if that's what you're looking for, I'd say go to perfect soccer skills.com/login account that's perfect soccer skills.com/login account, create yourself a free perfect soccer team membership accounts. And you'll be able to get access to all of our one-on-one or individual training drills, as well as our B pro training program. And some other tools and resources if saying to work with someone else one-on-one depending on where you're at, I would say to apply for our B pro be pro by perfect soccer program, which you could [email protected] slash B E P R O that's perfect soccer skills.com/b E P R O Ryan RB, pro general manager.

Quincy Amarikwa (18:06):

We will receive your application and we'll figure out how best to help you get connected with a pro who can work with you one on one, but that's a, you know, that's a paid service. So be mindful of that when filling out the application play P L a Y a w a Y G L O B a L underscore said, looking forward to hearing it and would love to have you on our show too, as well. Well, it reach on out, send a, an email to contact and perfect soccer skills. I've come with your request, what you're looking to do, and we'll see what we can make happen. Honor's we're flying, we're flying through the questions here, guys. I'm loving this. This is great. Andrea is a N D R S F S F L O w asks, is it possible to make it to the MLS at age 23 with no, semi-pro do you want to experience, but an insane hunger to be a professional, absolutely obsessed to make it a reality and legit skills.

Quincy Amarikwa (19:06):

Now, Anders, I will never say that something is impossible, but I can tell you what you were saying is nearly impossible. So understanding that means you are putting you are up against you're up against massive odds to make that happen. It doesn't mean that it can't happen, but the amount of work, effort, energy, and strategic, the strategic nature for which you need to operate to make them happen is top, top level stuff, man. And if, if you're serious about it and you're committed to it, then let's see. So let's break it down. Like if, if I was 23, so let's look at it, knowing what I know now and what it takes to get to the MLS level and the higher levels in the experiences that I have and to be here, right? Knowing what I know now, if I could know all of that being 23, but knowing I have no con connections, no context, no, nothing, none of that.

Quincy Amarikwa (20:16):

Where would I start? I would start, I think I would start with, I would start with becoming like a, like a trainer or like a, an assistant trainer or water boy for the organization or team. Okay. So now we're getting now we're thinking about it. That's where I would start. I would start with that because if you don't have any previous experience playing in, in, you don't have a resume or track record, nobody is going to even give you an opportunity or chance to even like, you might be able to go to a paid tryout, but nobody's looking at anybody at Patriots. They're just looking at that as an opportunity to maybe make some revenue or money for the organization and create promo material and marketing material, to get more people, to come to future games and learn about tickets and stuff. That's just, that's a marketing tactic.

Quincy Amarikwa (21:08):

And, you know, people don't understand that or know that then here now, you know, okay. It doesn't mean it's not worth going to, because you can see where you stack up compared to competition and other people who want to be there. But the likelihood that you go to that and you get picked up is, is probably lower than the chance of you making it to the pro level. So with that understanding, and because I know that, and I understand that where I'm saying where I'd start out if I was 23 and I want to make it happen. And I was actually good enough to play, I would become like a, an athletic trainer or like an assistant, or try to get in with an organization and be water boy, whatever I would, I would wash clothes. I would make kits. I would get it coffee for the coaches.

Quincy Amarikwa (21:47):

I would do whatever I needed to do to be a part of the organization. And then through that, I would learn the philosophy of the team, the philosophy of the coach, how the organization ran and worked, that might take you a year or two all while training and doing additional things on my side on the side, on my own listening to the HASC the ASCA soccer pro show every Thursday you know, focusing on my MSL, doing my time management seat, reading the books doing individual training on my own, trying to play any, and every opportunity I possibly could. I would talk to the pros on the team if, if they were open and willing to have those conversations with me to learn as much as I could from them as quickly as possible, I would offer to train them for free.

Quincy Amarikwa (22:31):

And by that, I mean like, Hey, if they just want to show up and shoot after training in August shag balls for them, and that's what it takes, then that's where I start. And I would do that. And then maybe eventually they'd let me take some shots with them. Then maybe we could work together. You know what I'm saying? It's building relationships. This is the long slow grind I'm telling you guys what I would do. And more importantly, how I went about building my career, it was going about it like in this manner. And if it was necessary for me to do these things, this is what I would have done. And I've done even more in terms of just everything. And I'm sure I'll, I'll share more of those stories here in the future. And as you guys asked, but that's where I would start and that's how I'd go about.

Quincy Amarikwa (23:11):

And my plan would be like, hopefully in three to five years, I've developed enough of a name and people understand and know that I could hang that they would actually let me show up to the tryout with the team or go through preseason with the team to see if I could earn a contract that might take, you know, two, three, four, five years. So you're 23. Now, maybe by the time you're 28, you've earned the opportunity to come to preseason with that organization that you've been a part of. Now you have an actual opportunity and chance to sign a contract. Why? Because the team knows you, they know about you, you earned and got to a position in place where they're you, you've got this opportunity, the likelihood that they're going to be looking at you at that point in time is now there. And now if you perform and you're good enough, maybe then you can earn yourself a contract.

Quincy Amarikwa (24:00):

So that honors is how I'd go about doing it. If you're 23 with none of the connections that you're talking about, that is a great question. And I'm looking forward to when we clip this and share this, cause I think there's a lot of people who would want to know how to do that. And I think most would hear how much work it would take and realize that the likelihood that it all comes together perfectly is very low and not go about doing it. But there might be one of you out there who hears all that thinks about it, says, you know what, let me give that a try, let me do it because either five years is going to pass and it doesn't work pan out, which you know, could happen, or it does, which is amazing. But if it doesn't, if it doesn't, at least you're still a part of the organization and you've learned a lot from that experience and you can then join me on the ESSA soccer pro show here, maybe three or five years from now, let me know what that journey was like, what you learned and and what you got, right?

Speaker 1 (24:57):

What you got wrong. But that's a great question. I like that. And I'm seeing everybody's spamming that heart button, which is great. I've fallen. Wow. I've fallen so far behind all the questions and comments in the community, which is great. Thank you to everybody who's joining in K 23. Hampton said that's a great breakdown. Clap emojis. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Let's see. And I'm going to go through all the other stuff. Taya, Taya, dropping them in your head emojis. Let's see play a awake global asks. Oh, for, okay. He asked for, for what's stopping him from making a highlight reel. Well, actually, if you guys are in need and help of making highlight reels Connor what's Connor Connor said Lord of interns. I think his, he said he wanted his official title, the name to be. So that could be his his internal name, but we're coming up with Connor's official title within the perfect soccer organization. He is he has been an intern for the brand for, I think over a year now plus now, and has been doing some amazing work. He helps create highlight tapes and videos for you guys. So if you're interested in that, make sure you send an email to the account so we can connect you with Connor to get that taken care of on that side.

Quincy Amarikwa (26:23):

Let's see. This is a great guy. So I'm looking through trying to see Connor, Connor McCormick 42 said Quincy for president. Hey, you never know we're on that campaign trail. John Hollinger in 27 said great value and insight on your training routine. Quincy, thank you very much. I'm glad you guys are taking something from that. Conversely, Quincy is an MSL legend. That's right. We got it. We've got to teach you how to teach the people who want to learn. Matt, Matt dropped diamond. You had emojis. Let's see what we got here. Let's see what we got here.

Speaker 1 (27:10):

PO GBA junior, dropping them in your head. Emojis. Welcome. Welcome. I love that when you guys are dropping the emojis, I love seeing, I love when seeing when you guys are dropping the Ivan near and emojis on the MLS, the MLS posts and players posts just everywhere on the internet. I'll be looking at random stuff and I'll see you guys dropping that and loving it. Let's see what we got, man. Lots of people are joining in, which is great to see. Okay. At Oscar O S C a R R R M E J I a asked what's the mental aspect of dealing with not constantly playing or being in the starting 11.

Quincy Amarikwa (27:58):

Okay. Well, as you can see that pin there below courtesy of Joe Jackson, 11, a perfect cyber skills.com/sss would be what I would prescribe for you to make sure you immediately go and listen to after today's episode. Not only do I prescribe that you go do that being your soccer doctor, right. I also recommend that you take notes while listening to that and use those notes to come up with your plan for what you want to accomplish for yourself here, moving forward. And this is the same advice that I gave. I'm a fellow community member who sent an email into the account earlier today. And the reason for that is because of this, right? What we talked about here is how to build a, a, a mentality that allows you to learn how to learn and critically think for yourself. Okay. And, and doing so with the MSL mentality and, and leveraging the three S's of self awareness, which is self honesty, self initiative.

Quincy Amarikwa (29:03):

Self-Accountability, we're able to remove ourselves from our current situation. So we can try to create a plan based on looking at it as objectively as possible. And I think the thing that most people get wrong, and the problems that they run into is they allow their emotions to dictate their decisions, which means they get in their own way. And because of their emotions, they're not able to see how their emotions are preventing them from accomplishing what they want for themselves. And what the three S's of self awareness does is it allows you to have a process of thinking to remove yourself from your emotions so that you can think clearly to come up with a plan to overcome them. So there's nothing wrong with emotions and being emotional and having emotions. Those are, those are good things, and you want to utilize them and you want to leverage them to your benefit, but just as, just as they can be a very good thing and beneficial, they can also be very bad in the sense of they could prevent you from accomplishing the goals that you want for yourself.

Quincy Amarikwa (30:04):

So for instance, like being scared is an emotion, right? Like emotionally you're, you're fearful. And that can be a good thing because I'm scared of this lion. That's coming that the lion over here, I know to avoid the lion because the lion is going to get me. It's gonna, it's gonna eat me. That's good. Fear is good. You want to have that emotional response, but fear is bad. When I need to talk to this person, I need to go talk to my coach so I can learn better how to be, to, to be a better player. And if that fear prevents me from engaging in having that conversation will not that that fear is bad because it's preventing us from accomplishing our ultimate goal of talking to the coaches and necessary to learn what we need to so we can do the work to get better.

Quincy Amarikwa (30:49):

Well, it's bad in relation to accomplishing our goal, right? So what we talk about here and what we're really breaking down is how good and bad is subjective. Two people can look at the same thing and come to two completely different conclusions. And that's what we want to acknowledge. And that's what we do acknowledge here with the MSL mentality in how we critically think about the problem, the problems, the temporary obstacles that we're facing. Okay. And I really go in depth into that. And I keep referring back to the the designated player podcast that I just had last night. Cause we really broke that down. That was like a three hour conversation, really getting into the weeds of that subjectivity art versus robotics versus good versus bad, how that plays out, how you have to use your emotions as a, as an indicator for an opportunity and time to think for yourself.

Quincy Amarikwa (31:45):

So once you start feeling the emotion that's should be a trigger for you to go like, okay, let's think, why do I feel fear right now? Why do I feel anxiety? Let's break this down. I feel anxiety because I'm scared that I'm going to be embarrassed by taking a chance or taking a risk. Or I fear that people are going to ridicule me or criticize me for making a mistake. Right? That's those are, those are fears. Those are real. And you feel them, but usually because you feel them that prevents you from taking action. And because it's preventing you from taking action, you're taking an action, which is inaction. Okay. And, and when, when you get into a place where emotions are dictating your actions, or more importantly, your inaction, you are now controlled by your emotions. And that's when you can't see beyond yourself.

Quincy Amarikwa (32:43):

And that's what we're trying to do our best to talk through and convey to the group and audience so that we can think ourselves out of the, the world we've created for ourselves or the world, someone before us created for us, right. You might not be responsible for where you are now, but you were responsible for where you ended up. Right? and that's the mentality. That's the mindset. And that's what the three S's of self awareness helps build a foundation, a foundation for, as these are good questions, I'm feeling dialed in. What are you guys thinking? What are you guys thinking? Let me know, spam that heart button. If you're, if you're picking up what I'm putting down, give me a little bit of feedback from that, that little that MSL wave that we just went on. Riding that wave Taya said the three S's are self honesty, self initiative and self accountability.

Quincy Amarikwa (33:41):

That's what I'm talking about. Taya. You know what it is? GK Lorenzo said self accountability. What's your, okay. What's your favorite PEs of the three S's of self awareness. That would be great. Joe Jackson said stuff, honestly. Self initiative, self accountability. I loved that. Yeah. GK Lorenzo said self accountability Oh, self that said self responsibility, self self accountability, or sorry. Self-Initiative self accountability. Oh, now you've now you guys are messing me up. Cause you said response responsibility, self honesty, selfish, self self initiative, self accountability. I like that. Yo GK, Lorenzo. You got my head there for a minute, bro. Hey, look at that. The community is getting dialed in. Man, that's that's awesome. Let's see. Let's see what we got here. Loving, loving the comments. Section 11, the community, man. Let's see what we got here. Let's see.

Quincy Amarikwa (34:51):

PO GBA junior said underscore PO GBA. Junior said this is amazing. Seeing that I'm planning to try out for a team and I would go on YouTube and watch videos and I'm still planning on going on the perfect soccer website to see what it's all about later. There you go. Okay. Awesome. I think if you go to the link below three S's of self awareness, you can watch that. And in the comment section, there's a link to creating yourself your, your account so you can get access to all the other books, tools, and resources. Okay. So at L U M a C Y soccer asked, what about irrational fears? Like what if I pee myself on the field? Okay. Rational versus irrational fear. So let's use the, what if I pee myself on the fear on the field? Here's the thing you could pee on yourself on the field. So when you're, so when we're talking about rational versus irrational, and when we're saying subjective versus, you know, actual versus subjective, okay. Is it an irrational fear to think about if you're going to pee on yourself on the field, maybe not, maybe you have a bladder issue or problem, and you might literally pee on yourself on the field. So to be scared or mindful of that, would you say that's irrational? I wouldn't say that that's irrational, but within the context of the question, let's, let's kind of drill into that.

Quincy Amarikwa (36:14):

So either

Quincy Amarikwa (36:16):

We believe it's an irrational fear or it could be, how do we overcome that? Well, the best way in my mind, the way that I think about it and how I overcome, what I, or I try to turn things into irrational fears. So I go, okay, I could very well pee on myself on the field is being scared about peeing on myself, on the field. Helpful to me. Does it help me be a better player? Does it help me be dialed in? Does it help me take better touches, make better decisions. Some players play better in a fearful state. So you might see this word, get back to self awareness. You might be a player who knows how to harness fear to perform better on the field. And if that's the case, maybe being scared of peeing on yourself helps you. Right. It could be a good thing.

Quincy Amarikwa (37:05):

Now, if you're talking about, I'm constantly thinking about, I might pee on myself on the field and that is making me be a bad player because I'm not focused on my positioning, my, my understanding of the game. Like I'm making bad decisions because I'm too focused on this irrational fear of peeing on myself. Then I have the visual or I have the visualization exercise of thinking like, okay, why is the thought of ping on myself? So scary. Why am I scared of peeing on myself? What do I think could happen? What do I, what's the worst thing that can happen. And then I think about so this would be negative visualization. What's the worst possible outcome? Oh, IPN myself, everyone sees they point and laugh at me. They call me P P boy for the next year. They call me P people away and everyone in school always Snickers and laughs and calls me PV boy.

Quincy Amarikwa (38:01):

Okay. So, and then they kicked me out of school. Cause the pee on myself, like this is what I'm saying. So this is what I'm saying. They're going to kick you out of school. Cause he peed on yourself. Probably not. So that would be the point where the fear is now irrational. Okay. So you guys can understand where I'm going with this. Okay. So they're probably not going to kick you out of school because of it. But everyone in the school could very well make fun of you for being P P boy and peeing on yourself on the field. And then this is the point where I go. This is the MSL mentality is going like what's so bad about that. Well, I'll feel embarrassed. People will laugh at me and they'll do this. And I go, okay, what's the MSL mentality. What's the MSL mindset.

Quincy Amarikwa (38:41):

We take negativity. And we use that to propel ourselves and push ourselves forward. And I think about it and I go, well, if I pee on myself and everyone calls me PP boy, everybody knows me for being pee people way. Right? And now that's my superpower. I come to school the next day with PB boy on my chest. I'll wear a hat that says PB boy, every time someone goes, ah, ha you're PB. Boy. I go, yeah, PB boy, come over to [inaudible] dot com and buy my path, learn how to play soccer, right? Learn from me. And then eventually you take the power of them to make fun of you away. It's not fun to make fun of you anymore because you like it. You enjoy it. This is great. And this is in alignment with all the people who show up and maybe talk crap about the MSL and me and all that kind of, they're helping us, everybody.

Quincy Amarikwa (39:31):

They are helping you. They're helping you. If you embrace it. If you realize that is your superpower, their negativity is their attention is their time. It's their focus on you. And if you allow that to turn into insecurity, negativity, and self doubt, you won't reach your goals. Your goals will always be out of reach. Okay? But put, put that negativity in alignment with your goals and let it propel you forward. And then to the point, I'm not going to say, Hey, go out there on the soccer field and PP on yourself. Right. But don't be afraid of that happening. And if you are afraid of it happening for me, I'll just tell you what I would do. I would just go on the field, not pee on myself, just so I can get it out of my system. Hey, this scares me. You know what I need to be in myself.

Quincy Amarikwa (40:18):

And this time, this ties to what I was talking about earlier in the call with how I build my, my off my training when I'm in my free agency and between teams, the days in which I feel like I don't want to touch the ball. And I have a good reason, an excuse not to touch the ball cause I've been working hard and things are going good. Those are the days I forced. I go straight out there and I touched the ball more than I want to invite more. I texted ball more than I normally would because I'm not going to allow myself to self sabotage, to sabotage myself from reaching my goals and maintaining my goals because we're here to not only reach our goals, but we want to maintain our goals. We want to, we want to maintain our level and then we want to get better.

Quincy Amarikwa (41:01):

We want to keep moving forward. We want to keep making progress for as long as we want to for ourselves. That's what we're doing. And I'm sharing with you guys. What I would do, how I look at it, what the MSL mentality and mindset is. And if, if I had an irrational fear of peeing on myself and it was preventing me from being better on the field and I couldn't focus and I couldn't do those things, what I would do is I pee on myself so I could get it over with and take care of it. And the next day I'd have a shirt that says PP boy. And I would let everybody brand me as such. And I just deal with that until people got bored of bored of it, that's what I would do. And I hope that through these conversations and the things that we're talking about, cause sometimes they're just ridiculous and they're funny and they don't make sense, but, but that's the mentality you want to accomplish something of, of meaning that's of importance that will create real change, lasting change.

Quincy Amarikwa (41:58):

You're gonna make people angry or you at very least, people are gonna make fun of you or ridicule you all along the way and eventually you'll get there. And when you do, they'll say that they supported you all along the way and they always knew you could make it. And when they, when that happens, that's a whole new experience that will, we can discuss at a later time of how you deal with that and what goes along with that. But I very much appreciate our community and the question you guys send in because it gives me an opportunity to share my experience share my thinking. And I love, I love hearing the feedback of when things are helpful for you. And equally as much when I hear that I don't know what I'm talking about and I'm full of crap. So you guys are helping me be better every day.

Quincy Amarikwa (42:45):

So I appreciate that. Let's see. And we've got about 20 more minutes before the live is a complete. So if you've got any questions, make sure you guys are dropping them here below while I make my way through everything else. I think we are making great time and flying through these questions. I'm loving the engagement today. It seems like everybody has been, has come back refresh and ready to go. Joe Jackson had said, I've definitely had experience with letting emotions control decisions in an inside and outside of soccer. So being able to take emotions out of decision making is very beneficial. There we go. I'm loving that. John Hollinger had said love that being objective and doing an autopsy on your emotions. I like that. Yeah. An autopsy of your emotions. That's good. Let's see. Yeah, but Lucy, that was a good question. I liked that one. I feel K twenty-three Hampton and said, I feel having experience outside of my college career will put me in a better position to play at the next level after college, after college. I believe if you were looking at it that way and you're approaching it as a means to learn something new to better develop your strategy and plan for the future. The answer to that is yes, absolutely.

Quincy Amarikwa (44:28):

Andrew said again, thank you for the insight late for me on the East coast. I'll try to tune in next week. Thank you very much for joining by stopping by. I appreciate that. Let's see Joe Jackson's said my club has passed me up the last few years for moving up while people who I have outperformed have gone up. So I'm getting a trial with the club that's playing at the same level as the higher team. Okay. I think you're starting to have conversations with people in the in the comments section, which is great. Everyone should everyone here should be listening to these gyms. Thank you very much. John Hallinger had asked what about playing in lower divisions first, get video and perform and then move up. Okay. That's what I'm saying. Now I'm loving this. You guys are having conversations in the, in the comment section which is what I always love seeing.

Quincy Amarikwa (45:17):

And sometimes I'm, I'm reading them cause I'm thinking their question, but you guys are figuring stuff out amongst the group, which is, which is perfect, which makes me, which reminds me I'd encourage everybody to go and join the private Facebook group. You get access to that once you create a perfect soccer team membership. So we can continue the conversation over there. John, I think you're in the group, Joe. I also believe I could be wrong. I think you were over there, but this will be great for you guys to continue the conversation beyond the Instagram live chat. And also if you guys have the conversations over in the Facebook group, I'm able to keep up to date or at least chime in and see what's going on. And I also know that we're, we're working to get some people who are wanting to be administrators and interns for the brand.

Quincy Amarikwa (46:06):

I apologize if you know, if you're, you're someone who's, who's who I've even told will come on as an intern or as an not as an ambassador, but a moderator or helping with the community. We are working as fast as we can to get all the systems and processes in place. It's, it's ending up being a lot more work than we were originally thinking. And with all the stuff that I've been focused on with black players for change these last several weeks with negotiations and organizational structure and SLPs and stuff. My focus has been very like the bandwidth has been very much diluted. So I apologize. We are working to get that resolved as quickly as possible, but I still would like to encourage people to head over to the private Facebook group. I proceeded the understood. I appreciate the answers. Quincy, thank you for your time and perspective. Of course. Thank you for stopping by and asking your question.

Quincy Amarikwa (47:11):

Let's see. Let's see, let's see lots of engagements tonight, guys. I love, I love that kind of about 10, 13 minutes here left you F O K I G six one four asks tips to become a soccer pro. I don't think I've seen you during the community here before. Welcome to the community. And if you want tips on how to become a pro, I suggest you had two perfect soccer skills.com/log in account. Perfect soccer skills.com/log in account. Create yourself a perfect soccer team membership account, read our books for free, go through our webinar trainings and read our articles and listen to our podcasts. Cause they teach you and show you exactly how to become a pro. And let's see,

Quincy Amarikwa (48:04):

Got calling in here. So let's, let's get him in here and seeing what's what's going on on his side,

Dylan (48:13):

Quincy,

Quincy Amarikwa (48:14):

What's going on, brother? How you doing?

Dylan (48:16):

I'm just playing FIFA right now. Work on the team for you guys.

Quincy Amarikwa (48:20):

Ooh, I love that helps. So how far, how far are we from going live on the gamer on the perfect soccer gamer account?

Dylan (48:29):

Um I just got to do that a review video for you guys. And then I got to send that in and then I just need a good password and stuff, but like everything like on the gaming side set up.

Quincy Amarikwa (48:44):

Awesome. I'm loving that. So what are you, what are you most excited about here moving forward?

Dylan (48:49):

Um probably just honestly like the weekend tournaments so far for you guys, that's going to be 46. I already qualified for it. That was all, all done and stuff.

Quincy Amarikwa (49:04):

Nice. I'm loving that if everybody's seeing no context, Dylan is the second official gamer of the perfect soccer game or division. He's helping us get everything set up for what was the ultimate team is the focus, right? Yeah. So while I know many of you guys were joining in for the season, goes on with Earl Edwards jr. While he's been at the game, Melissa's back tournament as well as organizing for the blacklist for change that has been on pause. But Dylan has been here helping to get stuff set up so we can start doing this more regularly here, moving forward. So I'm excited for getting that launched. Let's see. Yeah, no, no else that fix your hair.

Dylan (49:50):

My friend, Roy. Yeah. Nice.

Quincy Amarikwa (49:56):

Let's see. So I'm seeing everybody else on here, so, all right. Well you want to let everybody know what before you're getting up, live on the account where you, where you streaming right now, or are you streaming as of now?

Dylan (50:10):

Um sometimes I stream on my tech talk when I have time and like I post like update videos on like the ultimate team that we got, like flip the camera for you guys. So I, I got all this going on for us and stuff. It's a bunch of decent players, so it should be pretty good entertaining, I think.

Quincy Amarikwa (50:32):

Nice. No, I love that. So what can our community do to support or what, what, what do they need to be doing before you start going live here?

Dylan (50:47):

I think you can just go ahead and if you're like interested in it just, you can go ahead over to my Tik Tok cause I like posts, like update videos on it. I'm probably gonna post a few like just like highlights from games I've done so far and stuff like that. And then probably just promoted more so like more of my followers. See it, and then they go over to the channel and watch.

Quincy Amarikwa (51:10):

Awesome. So you want to let everybody know Were to follow you on ticktock so that we can make sure everybody's staying up to date on all your highlight videos and joining it on the streams.

Dylan (51:20):

Sure. It's just no context Dylan on tape.

Quincy Amarikwa (51:25):

So no context dot Dylan on tic talk guys, make sure you go and follow him. He's a official perfect soccer gamer. Paul Paul PG sports just dropped in given the, the, the jesus' hand emojis and the 100, cause he's looking forward to watching stuff here soon. Dylan, thanks for dropping by bro. I appreciate it. We've got I think five more minutes here. So we'll answer a couple more questions before we wrap up today's show, but I'm looking forward to getting everything launched. You're live with you soon, man,

Dylan (51:56):

For sure. For sure.

Quincy Amarikwa (51:57):

Awesome brother, I'll speak to you soon.

Quincy Amarikwa (52:03):

Thanks for dropping by Dylan. And as we said, make sure you guys go follow a Dylan over on ticktock. He's doing some, some funny and fun soccer, soccer content over there on tick talk. We're excited to have him on with the brand and helping us get the ultimate team going. Let's see you make it any recommendations for incoming freshmen joining a college program. Okay. Ruby underscore R U B Z 11, as any recommendations for an incoming freshmen joining a college program and you guys are gonna hear me say the same things over and over and over again because the truth is true, whether you believe it or not, but head of perfect cyber skills.com/login account that is log in account, create yourself a perfect soccer team membership account. And I would recommend that you go and read the ultimate college soccer recruiting blueprint.

Quincy Amarikwa (53:06):

I think that will be massively helpful for you, especially if you're going to be joining a college program here. As soon as a freshmen, understand the process, start to finish what it looks like, how what you could have been doing to better help yourself leading into it. And then I think what would also be good is listening to some of the college the in depth with Ross episodes that Ross shot talking about his college experience at UVA, being a captain for the team, winning the NCAA championship back in his day. I think many of those lessons in that the insight and perspective would be very helpful and beneficial to to someone who's going to be joining their college program here.

Quincy Amarikwa (53:51):

Let's see John Hollinger 27 asks, what sorts of things do you do to help your teammates who may appear to be mentally off? So so I, I think most players now understand me to be a mental strength coach because they've been seeing what I've been doing for a while a while now, like officially as a mental strength coach, I think I've been one or not. I think I know I've been one for a lot longer than, you know, recently being an official mental strength coach. I was an unofficial mental strength coach and I, and I say I was unofficial because I would notice obviously every single player at different points in time in their career has difficulties that they're going through. And the, the mental side of the game is something that they have to figure out. And I've been always open to having conversations and dialogue with teammates who are willing to engage with me.

Quincy Amarikwa (54:55):

So not all teammates are willing to engage, but many, many, many of them have been. And because of that, I've had a lot of conversations with players to better understand where they're coming from better understand where I'm lacking or I'm not, I haven't done enough or worked hard enough or and providing enough value or communicating in a manner that guys can understand. So I think the simplest way to answer that question directly is just having an open door policy, basically just open line of communication. I think I, I hope most people understand that by sharing with me in this environment, it's a, it's a no judgment zone in the sense of there's a reason you've come to the conclusion you have. There's a reason you believe the things you do. And there's a reason you believe you're right in the way that you're thinking it doesn't mean you are right.

Quincy Amarikwa (55:51):

And it doesn't mean you're wrong. But at least at the very least, I believe I can be open and willing to hear where you're coming from to the best of my ability and ask questions so I can understand I think approaching it that way for the duration and time at which I've I've done, that has allowed me the ability to gain enough experience and understanding and perspective to, to to be able to become an official mental strength coach. Right? And I think many of the players who I talked to and I've worked with who are willing to publicly share that they've worked with me and the things that they've learned from the mentality, the mindset and our personal conversations, I'm very grateful for. And I'm glad that more players are willing to share. If when and how they've worked with me and you know, the players who maybe have spoken with me or have insights and talks about that, that, that side of the game who aren't at that point or level to wanting to share that that's cool as well too.

Quincy Amarikwa (56:57):

So I think the main thing on the mentality side, when you're wanting to help your teammates is not doing it for your, for any reason, other than your fiduciary responsibility to your teammate, which is to help them, help them, help themselves through whatever it is that they're going through. To the extent they're willing to accept your help and not doing it for any other reason, other than that. And I think if you, if you approach it that way over the longterm, good things will happen in the short term, you'll be taken advantage of things. Won't go your way. Things won't look the way that you would like them to look. But if you're doing it with the intentions that you're saying, which is for the betterment of your teammate, sometimes it will be at your expense. And that's what it costs to be the boss, right? And we're here talking about teamwork, dreamwork building bottom up, we're only as strong or as fast as our weakest link slowest player, most lowest IQ, whatever that is. If someone on your team has a low IQ, you have a low IQ and you guys can't move any faster than the lowest IQ. If someone on your team is really slow and you guys want to go fast, well, you can't go any faster than your slowest guy or girl.

Quincy Amarikwa (58:15):

And it might take you longer to get there, but we're talking about building culture. That'll last generations. So we've got a minute here left before Instagram officially kicks me off. If you guys enjoyed today's episode, please spam that heart button drops in Miami and your head emojis. Let me know what you're thinking. Total soccer training 2011 said, well said gave me some thumbs up fist bumps. Okay. Symbols and a soccer ball. Total soccer. I see that you're dropping in your question, but I've got a minute left. So please join in next week. I'll make sure to be on the lookout and answer your questions specifically. But yeah, guys got a minute left here. I want to thank everybody for joining in on episode 80 of the hashtag asset soccer per show. I would encourage everybody to have it over to the site to check out the perfect soccer bundle.

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thatsacult · 4 years

Audio

Star Wars. Sherlock. Supernatural. Their fans are many and - even if you don’t realise it - powerful.

In episode 6, Helen finds out how a BBC TV show can inspire an online witch hunt, what’s really going on with all this Star Wars drama, and why fanfiction should never be underestimated.

Written and edited by: Helen McCarthy twitter.com/helenlmccarthy  Music by: Antti Luode www.anttismusic.blogspot.co.uk

Contributors:  Addigni - http://addignisherlock.com/ Bina - https://221spn.tumblr.com/ Anna Julia - http://ahoyspn.tumblr.com/ Victoria - http://maximumkillshot.tumblr.com/ Professor Henry Jenkins - http://henryjenkins.org/ Dr Billy Proctor - https://twitter.com/drwilliamproct1?lang=en Professor Bronwen Thomas - https://twitter.com/onlinereaders1 Dr CarrieLynn Reinhard - https://twitter.com/MediaOracle Jessi Milestone - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaQXDLZoKomiCqjbXS0xH_Q

CarrieLynn’s book is on Amazon, just search ‘Fractured Fandoms’.

Henry Jenkins’ podcast is called ‘How do you like it so far?’ It’s on Apple Podcasts and his website.

For more about Johnlock, listen to the Decoder Ring podcast. It’s really good - https://slate.me/2tXRUxN

Episode sources:

CONTRIBUTORS: Addigni (addignisherlock) http://addignisherlock.com/ "Benedict Cumberbatch and his son Tom Holland. Sherlock and MCU. Ironstrange and their Spideyson."

Bina (221spn)  https://221spn.tumblr.com/ "Fandoms gripped me tight and raised me from boredom."

Victoria (@maximumkillshot) http://maximumkillshot.tumblr.com/hot "I write Supernatural stuffs!"

Anna (@ahoyspn) http://ahoyspn.tumblr.com/ "I live for supernatural & team free will. Currently obsessing over malec."

Dr Billy Proctor https://twitter.com/drwilliamproct1?lang=en Senior Lecturer in Media, Culture and Communication. He researches popular culture.

Professor Henry Jenkins http://henryjenkins.org/ Provost Professor of Communication, Journalism, Cinematic Arts and Education at the University of Southern California.

Professor Bronwen Thomas http://twitter.com/onlinereaders1 Professor of English and New Media, Bournemouth University.

Dr CarrieLynn Reinhard http://www2.dom.edu/departments/cas/faculty/carrielynn-d-reinhard Assistant Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences, Dominican University, Illinois.

Jessi Milestone (Mindless Entertainment on YouTube) https://www.youtube.com/mindlessentertainment "If you're mad about Disney Star Wars, watch my Star Wars videos. If you like to watch somebody have WAY TOO MANY FEELINGS about pretty much everything, you've found your channel."

TUMBLR FANDOMS (OFTEN NSFW)

Supernatural

Sherlock

Johnlock

Doctor Who

Star Wars

Harry Potter

Marvel

DC Extended Universe

Game of Thrones

Rick and Morty

Voltron

This is a very short list of examples. For more, visit Fandometrics. Or just search for your favourite film or TV series on Tumblr .

FANFICTION & FAN ART (OFTEN NSFW) Fanfiction.net https://www.fanfiction.net/ "World's largest fanfiction archive and forum where fanfic writers and readers around the globe gather to share their passion."

Archive of Our Own https://archiveofourown.org/ "A fan-created, fan-run, non-profit, non-commercial archive for transformative fanworks, like fanfiction, fanart, fan videos, and podfic".

Wattpad https://www.wattpad.com/ "The world's largest community for readers and writers."

r/FanFiction https://www.reddit.com/r/FanFiction/ "A supportive community for writers, readers, and reccers to talk about and share FanFiction."

Deviantart https://www.deviantart.com/ "An online artwork, videography and photography community."

The Supernatural fanfiction archive https://www.fanfiction.net/tv/Supernatural/ FanFiction.net's archive of Supernatural fanfiction stories, written by the fans. There are 92,500 of them to work your way through.

The Road So Far (this Time Around) - a Supernatural fanfiction story https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12430391/1/The-Road-So-Far-this-Time-Around This fanfiction story is 273,670 words long and has 45 chapters.

FAN STUDIES Centre for Participatory Culture, University of Huddersfield https://research.hud.ac.uk/institutes-centres/cpc/ "Founded in 2017, the Centre for Participatory Culture is involved in producing world-leading research in associated areas such as fan studies, audience studies, and media studies. Its work respond to the “participatory condition” which has become part of everyday life in the age of web 2.0."

@FanStudies https://twitter.com/fanstudies?lang=en A network for fan studies scholars around the world - Twitter.

Fan Studies Network https://fanstudies.org/ The Fan Studies Network was created with the idea of cultivating an international friendly space in which scholars of fandom could easily forge connections with other academics in the field, and discuss the latest topics within fan studies."

PRESS & ARTICLES The Relationship Between Fandom and Personality, Steven Kotler, Psychology Today. 6 Sep 2008. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-playing-field/200809/the-relationship-between-fandom-and-personality

The Social Layers of TV and Film Fandom, Karen E. Dill-Shackleford, Psychology Today. 24 April 2015. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-fantasy-becomes-reality/201504/the-social-layers-tv-and-film-fandom

A List of 10 Entertainment Fandoms That Grew from Tumblr, Elise Moreau, Lifewire. 17 May 2018. https://www.lifewire.com/entertainment-fandoms-on-tumblr-3486068

Fanfic As Academic Discipline, Erin Blakemore, JSTOR Daily. 20 Jan 2017. https://daily.jstor.org/fanfic-as-academic-discipline/

Inside the racy, nerdy world of fanfiction, Caroline Knorr, CNN. 5 July 2017. https://edition.cnn.com/2017/07/05/health/kids-teens-fanfiction-partner/index.html

Why we're terrified of fanfiction, Constance Grady, Vox. https://www.vox.com/2016/6/2/11531406/why-were-terrified-fanfiction-teen-girls

Ghostbusters, Frozen, and the strange entitlement of fan culture, Jesse Hassenger, AV Club. 25 May 2015. https://film.avclub.com/ghostbusters-frozen-and-the-strange-entitlement-of-fa-1798247870

Why Disney needs a gay princess, Caroline Siede, AV Club. 12 May 2016. https://tv.avclub.com/why-disney-needs-a-gay-princess-1798247224

27 Times The Sherlock Fandom Won Tumblr, Keely Flaherty, Buzzfeed. 4 Jan 2015. https://www.buzzfeed.com/keelyflaherty/times-the-sherlock-fandom-won-tumblr?utm_term=.bvw3127nB#.iq45vaOoB

Sherlock isn't the fan-friendly show you think it is, Devon Maloney, Wired. 24 Jan 2014. https://www.wired.com/2014/01/sherlock-fandom/

Do Sherlock and Doctor Who Really Have a “Bad Fan” Problem? Joanna Robinson, Vanity Fair. 9 Nov 2014. https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2014/11/sherlock-doctor-who-steven-moffat-hate-his-fans

Steven Moffat talks fan art and fan fiction, Sherlockology. 3 June 2015. http://www.sherlockology.com/news/2015/6/3/steven-moffat-fan-fiction-030615

Harassed Star Wars actor honored with Rose Tico fan art, Bonnie Burton, Cnet. 8 June 2018. https://www.cnet.com/news/fans-show-support-of-harassed-star-wars-actor-kelly-marie-tran-with-art/

Netflix’s latest hit ‘The Kissing Booth’ is a Wattpad success story, Sarah Perez, Tech Crunch. 14 June 2018. https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/14/netflixs-latest-hit-the-kissing-booth-is-a-wattpad-success-story/?sr_share=twitter&utm_source=tctwreshare

Asia O’Hara “threatened to be burned alive” by racist Drag Race fans, Sam Damshenas, Gay Times. 20 June 2018. http://www.gaytimes.co.uk/culture/108979/asia-ohara-threatened-to-be-burned-alive-by-racist-drag-race-fans/

Jar Jar Binks Actor Says He Considered Suicide After 'Star Wars' Backlash, Ryan Parker, The Hollywood Reporter. 3 July 2018. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/jar-jar-binks-actor-ahmed-best-considered-suicide-star-wars-backlash-1124848

Ahmed Best has made peace with the reviled character that once defined his past, Brian Raftery, WIRED. 15 July 2017. https://www.wired.com/2017/07/ahmed-best-jar-jar-binks-new-podcast/

VIDEOS & PODCASTS How do you like it so far? podcast https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/how-do-you-like-it-so-far/id1358943221?mt=2 "Academics Henry Jenkins and Colin Maclay use their combined knowledge to dig deeper and ask more ambitious questions than most pop culture podcasts out there."

The Johnlock Conspiracy | Decoder Ring podcast http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/decoder_ring/2018/06/decoder_ring_explores_how_a_conspiracy_theory_about_a_gay_sherlock_holmes.html "The BBC insisted that John Watson and Sherlock Holmes aren’t gay lovers. Fans disagreed."

Matt Smith Reflects on Doctor Who's Devoted Fan Base | Late Night with Seth Meyers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_rdHJlfFrI

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noiseartists · 6 years

Text

STELLA DIANA: Italogaze craftsmen

As the band say themselves on their Bandcamp page, Stella Diana is "Hailing from a city more known for pizza and opera than Shoegaze and new wave addicts, and possess not only the spirit of late 80s/early 90s British bands like Ride, but also the dark wave seeds of Joy Division and the stylistic underpinnings of new wave artists like Psychedelic Furs and The Chameleons, all of whom number among the band's influences. Others include Pale Saints, Lush, Catherine Wheel, The Stone Roses, Codeine, Christian Death, and Talk Talk. Since their inception in 1998, Stella Diana has gradually become recognized by the Italian press as one of the best Shoegaze bands in the country with their intricate, brooding and textured mix of Shoegaze, Post-Punk, Dream-Pop and new wave. They have managed to grow a sizeable international following despite singing entirely in Italian – an unprecedented achievement for an Italian indie band in these respective genres. "

It is true. Stella Diana is a band that has evolved, progressed and their latest album, Nitocris, is a jewel. In this article, we will explore that band and their music, in a very collaborative piece. We hope you enjoy.

THE BAND

"The band was born in 1998, but settled in 2002 and the name comes from the title of an ancient Neapolitan song. this is the only link we wanted to emphasize with our city, a place where music has a historical tradition.

In fact, all the music of the 1700s passed through Naples with composers such as Cimarosa, Paisiello, Scarlatti or Pergolesi, so it seemed right to note this. About the rest, music-wise, we are as anti-Italian as can be.

Stella Diana are:

Dario, voice and guitar,

Giacomo, bass,

Giulio on drums.

In all these years we have made, I think, more than two hundred concerts and played in half of Europe and our music is more appreciated in Europe then in Italy.

We always had a problem with the drummers. we had at least a dozen and now, we hope that with giulio everything is fine because we are also very good friends. Giacomo and me, have known each other for over twenty years and we have our way of composing and communicating in an automatic and profitable way.

In fact we spend little time in the rehearsal room. Just once a week for two hours. Because we know what to do and how to get it.

We have our well defined sound and this is a great thing. usually we improvise on a bass line, then we create the melody and eventually I add the melody of the voice and the words.

I never bring a complete song in the rehearsal room, it would make no sense cause working together it's what we love.

After all these years, we have reached almost 250 concerts between Italy and Europe and we hope to play a lot more even in other continents.

However we are not only interested in playing: we created our own records label, Vipchoyo sound factory, focused exclusively on Shoegaze and New Wave and we hope to release a lot of new albums from talented new bands.

At the same time, from our own recording studio, every Monday I'm the DJ with a radio that we have created ourselves, Shoegazing your waves radio, with interviews and bands from all over the world and some even better-known names."

THEIR MUSIC

WHAT is their music about

"It's hard to explain. there is no real direction or a message. basically what we try to do is to communicate feelings, emotions and try to, how can I say, paint colors. Yes. We use this imaginary canvas and put colors on it, often a little in the dark shades. I wish our music was like an impetuous sea: Simply, a pure sound in which you can lose yourself."

WHY we love them

They have evolved. Unlike some bands who are a one trick pony, Stella Diana have thrived to improve their music, to find their sound. It's obvious when you listen to their musical work in chronological order. Their sound is better, their composing and arranging is better. Fair play to them.

The bass player and the drummer. When you listen to Nitocris, you can hear the experience of the rhythm section. On every song, they bring something different (rhythm, melodies, textures) that make this album so rich. And the change in drummer shows in the last 2 LP (Nitocris and 57) in a very good way.

The variety. Shoegaze, Pop, Psych, Italian, English, Raw, complicated ... the band have released so much material with so many different genres' influences. Not an easy thing to do.

Their music. Dario's composing is superb and did thrive over time. He is getting better all the time.

Their musical tastes: their covers include Kula Shaker's Govinda and Ride's Leave them all behind, 2 of my all-time favorite songs. Tasteful.

The comparison game

It is a difficult one. As described in the previous section, the band has thrived in composing using many different influences. As such, there would be many comparisons possible.

So instead of comparing their music, I thought that it was better comparing the spirit in which they are doing it. As a result 2 bands jump into mind:

Inspirative

My Favourite Things

Both are very talented songwriters with a passion for details, and whose writing has evolved over time. Stella Diana is in the same league.

Their musical work

"Even if I love everything I've done, I don't like to talk about all the albums, apart from the last one: Nitocris. Simply because they are all sung in Italian, a beautiful and ancient language, but not always suitable for Shoegaze or Post-Punk."

Supporto colore (2007) & Gemini (2010), Albums

As explained by the band, these albums may not represent what Stella Diana are now. As such, they decided not to put them on streaming and social media, apart from Gemini, that can be found on Spotify.

41 61 93, Album, February 2014

"41 61 93 is the first album recorded and produced by ourselves in our studio and I am very proud of this. Musically it's beautiful, but I can't hear it for a long time because of language.

I love the use we done in songs like Navarre or Motel Sagrera with the saxophone of our friend Giuseppe Colucci, a great napolitan jazz musician, and also the voice of Annalisa, another beloved special guest. There are some great songs, but it's a transition album."

This Album is indeed a step in Nitocris' direction, arrangement wise and composition wise. Their sound on some of the songs would benefit to have the same production quality that their latest production, though are still very well done.

Here are 3 of our favourites.

1. Isabeau 03:17

This song bounces beautifully, delivering a superb Noise Pop song. The round bass on one side, and the crafty vocals from Dario on the other create an hypnotic texture. Take it and have it remixed by Mark Joy and you have an indie hit.

2. Navarre 07:34

Dark and menacing at the beginning, the band brings us in a land of despair and pessimism. When the break happens, around mid song, the music transform itself in an optimistic post-rock part, telling the listener that there is a sliver lining. The saxophone that helps concluding the song adds to this effect very nicely, with bright notes of mad optimism.

4. Edward teach 03:41

Big bass sound as an introduction to the song, later joined by a tweeting guitar that carries it all to the end. The female vocals (only occurrence I have heard in their music) suit the song very well.

Alhena, EP, December 2015

"Alhena was a sort of “the best of” with the production of Mark Joy a producer and sound engineer who worked with oasis and primal scream."

It shows,. The sound quality and mixing have improved and build the foundation for Nitocris, their next LP.

1. Shohet 03:13

Big sound straight away with the theme song

4. Mira 03:58

An efficient Noise Pop song. The work on the guitar sound is both obvious and really well done. They give a Ride-like colour to the song that suits it well.

5. Govinda (kula shaker cover) 04:26

I was lucky to see Kula Shaker in concert a couple of years ago. Their rendition of Govinda was exceptional and the (small) crowd was ecstatic, chanting along hands in the air. A magic moment with one of my favorite songs. Stella Diana did an excellent job in this cover, with a modified but always big bass line. A must listen for all cover aficionados.

This EP was mixed and mastered by Marc Joy of Ferndale Productions, except track 5, which was mixed and mastered by Alexander Kretov at Ummagma Studio.

Nitocris, Album, April 2016

"Workings with Mark Joy, producer and sound engineer who worked with Oasis and Primal Scream was for us was a big honor and a great opportunity. if I have to say it all, I think that Nitocris is, for now, the best musical expression of Stella Diana. A perfect balance of post-punk, dark and Shoegaze. Bass lines always in the foreground, a reverberated voice, guitar melodies with warm and sharp sounds and a cold and pulsating drums.

All of these things are the perfect idea of a new modern Shoegaze for me. Songs like Orionis or M9 or also Psychedelic Furs explain perfectly what we have in mind."

This album is excellent. The production that Mark Joy put Stella Diana's music through brings it to another level. Also, the band shows their experience in each doing a brilliant job in their parts (melodies, textures, dynamics). When all come together the result is remarkable. The change of drummer seems to have also benefited the band.

There is no surprise that the band is proud of this album. They deserve to be.

1. Sofia 05:14

For me, this a perfect slow song. A soft caressing loop with Dario's dreamy voice. Drums and Bass are kept at their simplest, just sustaining the simple reverb guitar.

The intensity increases when the distortion hits with a melodic guitar line that harmonises with the vocals. And the song continues to unfold, flawless... Just superb.

2. M. 9 02:32

"It's all about the bass" on this short song. Round, playful, Giacomo's CocteauTwins sounding bass is just amazing. The other instruments and vocals are really there for company (excellent one too).

3. F.u. Orionis 04:33

This song really shows how the band has evolved from previous albums. The song itself is very similar to previous work in its composition. Nevertheless, the sound and arrangements are better crafted making the song shine.

Darioforceful voice really enhances the piece, giving is a forceful power that is then joined by the other instruments that unfold their rhythmic and melodic lines halfway through the song. It gives a great end, that would be excellent in a live situation. The closing cello adds a nice touch.

4. Sulphur 03:34

This is a progression song, starting slowly and building momentum. The dynamics work well and all instruments participate.

The regression is also very well done at the end. "I see you through Sulphur" sings Dario. Nice way to colour your life in Yellow.

5. Aphrodia 03:54

An outstanding bass line from Giacomo that brings the song to a higher level. The Giulio bouncy drums are the perfect complement as are the soft vocals from Dario.

Everything works to perfection in this song. I could go on for a while, but the best thing is for you to listen.

6. Psychedelic Furs 03:33

What I like in this song is very personal: the recurring crystal clear guitar arpeggios. They are so similar to the arpeggios in one of my favourite songs, Winesomeness, from one of my favourite bands, The Sigh. They were the best Shoegaze I heard in France in the 90s. Our bands played together several times and their music is second to none. Were they playing in England, their fame could have been on par with some of the good bands from the time.

Well apart from that, it is a great song.

7. Dedu'n 04:05

A small detour in reverb-drenched altrock with this song.

8. Aya Ray 02:33

Starts with a hypnotic bass line, soon joined by its comrades drums and guitars. While the loop stays the same, there is a change in texture and sound from the instruments that make the second part of the song more intense and dramatic. This work on the dynamic of the song is really good and works perfectly.

9. J. Carpenter 03:59

This song closes this superb album. The work on dynamics is just excellent.

The guitar work in the background is moving, by its intensity and by the dramatic texture it brings to the song. The progression from bass and drums is slow and builds up slowly.

This is a song that could go on forever, building more and more momentum, adding distortion and so on, a classic Post-Rock progression. But cleverly the band decided to go against this need to immerse yourself in the loop, in the sound again and again. And they kept is relatively short, leaving the listener with the need for more, creating a withdrawal symptom. Clever indeed.

57, Album, May 2018

"The title is short as our tradition. The number 57 means a lot of things, but above all, it's easy to remember. In this new album, every song has been composed in total freedom, without pressure, and without schemes, simply supporting our dream pop side.

We wanted to be more direct and create a more dreamlike, delicate and unreal sound. Dreamlike as the lyrics, more hermetic texts, used only as an extra colour in each song, even if, in general, what they describe is always the loneliness and the lack of communication between people.

As in the past, even 57 was recorded, produced and mixed by Giacomo Salzano, the bass player, and the whole band, in our recording studio, Vipchoyo Sound Factory based in Naples. This allows us to have complete control over our music.

The obsession with simplicity is present in the cover art. A blood-red number on a black canvas, but a number that is not immediately clear, seems almost a sign, a graffiti or something ancient."

I was one of the lucky one to ear the album before its release. The album is indeed more dreamy, slower, but with the same quality of sound and arrangements than Nitocris.

The album's single is Der Sandmann. Dreamy, lo-fi, with a cello joining Dario vocals, it is like a dream, like floating in your headspace. It builds a bit in intensity for a little while before subsiding, like waking up and having the dream escaping from your mind, unable to remember what it was about.

And also

Stella Diana did several covers, most of them being for tbtci's great compilations.

Ride

Boo Radleys

Lush

Tamaryn

Tell us about the artists you have worked with

"Just last year we had the great honour to meet (and play together ) Patrick Duff, the frontman of Strangelove a cult band I love so much.

He came to Italy for some acoustic concerts alone, with his guitar and we were the support band. Patrick is a sweet and humble person and you can imagine how I felt when he asked us to play on stage a Strangelove song.

We did “freak” and I tried to not to pass out for the excitement."

WHERE to find their work

They are on all the music platforms:

Bandcamp

Soundcloud

Spotify

Youtube

And on social media:

Facebook

Instagram

Some good videos to watch

"I suggest: Sulphur, and Shohet from our Youtube channel":

What other have said

"Perhaps the most interesting shoegaze phenomenon emerging from Italy. Unique in the world of Italian shoegaze… nothing short of fabulous" -- The Record Stache "Walls of Sounds from Naples. Get lost in this cool wave of noise" -- 50thirdand3rd (NYC) "Stella Diana possess not only the spirit of late 80s/early 90s British bands like Catherine Wheel and Ride, but also the dark wave seeds of Joy Division and the stylistic underpinnings of new wave artists like Psychedelic Furs" -- Tribe4mian wordpress blog "I have found my new sonic nirvana in the audio that is Stella Diana. What I find fascinating is that this is an Italian band and not a group formed on the streets of London or even NYC beautiful words" -- Jammerzine

Other bands they recommend

"There are a lot of bands we love so much: Whimsical, High Violets, The Morelings, Ummagma, Wozniak, Stellarscope, Blankenberge, and many more from the rest of the world.

Not to mention at least thirty of them, I wanna mention just these Italian bands:

Rev rev rev, very psychedelic and noisy,

Clustersun (also on Noise Artists), they are absolutely cool and do a real wall of sound,

Kimono Lights, Shoegaze and also very pop,

Electric Floor, first band from our label. Check their first work: Fader, a great summary of new wave, synth pop and gaze guitars.

Then I mention In her Eye from Milan together with Mystic Morning and Novanta, all of them are cool projects.

The “Italogaze” scene is so full of talented bands: Umbrella Burning Festival (soon on the blog, Sara, their bass player is also a regular collaborator of Noise Artists), My Invisible friend, Tomorrow Forever, and many more. But I can't forget our fellow Neapolitans: Mary's restless dream, a young and talented band from Naples."

Thanks to

"First of all thank you so much for this opportunity. Then, we want to thank our press office, Shameless Promotion, our booking agency, elephant Booking, and all those who support and love us and our music around the world."

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