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fyeahsharonrooney · 3 years

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'Finding Alice' star Sharon Rooney on silencing the social media bullies and why her granny was her greatest inspiration (Sunday Post, 17.1.21)

'...Fire up social media on your phone and within moments you’re free to interact with a world full of people. Holiday photos from your cousin in New Zealand? Click like!

Your pal’s video of a Yorkshire terrier that sounds like Brian Blessed? Hit retweet! Don’t like the way someone looks? Tell them to lose some weight!

Hang on, that last one is probably a bit rude. You wouldn’t wander up to a stranger in the street and casually advise them to give the sweeties a miss, not unless you were desperately craving a sore face.

Yet that kindly advice is precisely what someone like Sharon Rooney is offered when she logs into sites such as Instagram.

Sharon, who starred in Disney’s recent live action Dumbo remake, E4’s My Mad Fat Diary and hit sitcom Two Doors Down has endured her fair share of trolling.

“It’s the unsolicited medical advice I enjoy,” she laughed. “Telling me not to eat jellybeans. Thanks!

“I learned quite quickly people will pick apart anything. They will find something. Even if I was five sizes smaller, someone will tell me I looked better before. You’ll never please everyone.

“There’s a lovely mute button now. If someone writes something rude I just quietly say ‘Shhh’ to them.

“With My Mad Fat Diary I’m already saying, ‘Hello, I am fat human’. What can they say?

“I have eyes, I know what I look like and I’m fine with that. Sorry if you’re not. I’m doing OK, so please don’t worry about me.”

Sharon, 32, is doing more than OK though, which you’ll see if you tune into new ITV drama Finding Alice tonight.

She stars opposite Keeley Hawes and it’s a role that saw Sharon cross the Bodyguard star’s name off a special list.

“I’ll let you into a secret. Every actor has a dream list of people they’d love to work with and Keeley was on mine,” she said.

“I told Keeley. She just rolled her eyes and told me to shut up.

“Why would you not want to work with her? She’s fantastic in everything she does.

“Keeley’s everything I thought she would be. Whe’s one of a kind. A special human being. Look, Keeley’s not paying me to say this! Maybe she should…?”

Praising a colleague is, of course, second nature to an actor. There’s a reason they call them luvvies; plus you don’t want to end up working with someone you’ve bad-mouthed on a project in a year’s time, do you?

This isn’t merely empty platitudes for a thespian pal. Sharon’s praise is warm, generous and genuine. It’s how she herself comes across, along with a dash of wry humour.

Perhaps it’s the influence of her late granny, who Sharon describes as her soulmate.

“This sounds so cheesy but she truly was,” she added. “You know you get one human who you just chime with? I just loved her. We were two old souls.

“She taught me so much. I think grannies have that magic where they teach you to deal with life after they’re gone. I just enjoyed every minute I had with her.”

The pain and sadness we’ve all experienced over the past year, along with the forced holiday she’s had to take with being locked down, has let Sharon think about the grief she felt when her gran died.

“Even if you’re preparing for a death I don’t think it’s any easier than if it’s unexpected,” she said.

“When it is unexpected, like the way Harry dies in Finding Alice, you’re left reeling from it for so long before you can take in what’s happened.

“With Nicola, the character I play, the initial shock has happened. Her big brother has died. So how do you move forward? Grief itself is such a complicated thing. There’s no guide book. When you feel sad, you feel sad.

“Grief sneaks up on you. You think you’re fine then it appears with a ‘Hiya!’

“I still get it. I’ll think I can’t wait to show my gran something before going, ‘Oh yeah’.

“My gran spoke about it before she died. We were talking about how thinking of someone after they’ve died is like ringing a bell for them.

“She said, ‘Don’t think of me too much, hen – I’ll get no rest.’”

(Sharon Rooney as Miss Atlantis with co-star DeObia Oparei in Tim Burton’s Dumbo)

Happily, Sharon brought her sardonic and garrulous Glaswegian spirit to the set of Dumbo, in which Sharon appeared alongside Hollywood legend Danny DeVito.

“You forget they’re still humans, which is easy to do when you’re standing in front of Danny DeVito. All I could think was that this was Danny DeVito. Has anyone told him?

“You just talk on set. Gab, gab, gab. That’s all we did. I was shouting over to Tim to ask for two minutes so Danny could finish his story.

“That’s Tim Burton, by the way. Listen to me, I just call him Tim now.”

Casting for a Disney blockbuster like Dumbo was straightforward, although it did come with an ironclad ban from telling her friends about the project until it was announced.

My Mad Fat Diary focused on the plus-sized character Sharon played but, since then, the roles she’s taken don’t normally specify anything about her character’s weight.

“A lot of parts I go for don’t say the character must be plus-size or look a certain way,” she said.

“I’ve only been doing this for eight years or so but for me it’s never been an issue but I know for some it has been.

“It’s about owning who you are. I realise that’s difficult because of social media. What I try to do is take jobs with people who are authentic characters.

“If it does specify a plus-size actor then my response is to ask why. Let’s investigate this.

“These days – well, before the pandemic – I would go to auditions and the room would be filled with so many different people, which I love. The room isn’t filled with girls who all look the same.

“And I love seeing a role that I didn’t get go to someone completely different to me. Well, I don’t love it because then I’ve not got the role, but it’s still nice to see.”

(The cast of Finding Alice © Joss Barratt)

A closeness with her other granny (the pair are bubbled up) has developed during the lockdowns of the past year, from which Sharon has taken heart.

Other than that she’s been enjoying her break ahead of Finding Alice’s release, as well as browsing social media.

Although these days she’s a lot wiser in how she does it; retaining the enjoyment with the help of that handy mute button.

“I used to follow every celebrity and every celebrity magazine,” added Sharon. “But it just made me doubt myself. I’d go to post a video then I’d wonder if I should put more make-up on first.

“I’ve stopped doing that. On Twitter these days I post videos where I’ve just woken up.

“I mean if you do post a video where you look great and have all your make-up on, then great, but I don’t know how you do it! I look forward to my no-make-up days.

“Oh you should see the state of me. I live in loungewear now. I put on jeans the other day. What are these things? What is this material we wear? These are awful!”

Finally, some feedback with which we can all agree...' X

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mantra4ia · 3 years

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NBC Debris, episodes 1-9: overview of high hopes and adjusted expectations

*Mild spoilers ahead*

I'm rooting for this show guys, really I am. The premise and the two main characters / actors are interesting, or at least try very hard to be. But this series has been slow off the ground despite my excitement during preseason teasers and here's why, in my view.

Pros:

An intercontinental alliance gives room / potential for some interesting spy craft, I just wish it was slightly more artful, less heavy handed.

Alien debris having potential to do good things is also a fantastic promise to expand on. George Jones talked about some terraforming level stuff (whether it goes right or wrong is another story), let's see more of that. Are tech giants fighting over the intellectual property rights to debris-based advances? How are money and favor between industry and the government changing hands (apart from a very literal briefcase full of cash on the black market when we first meet Influx)? How do different pieces of debris interact with one another, maybe it changes some of their properties in unpredictable ways.

Bryan and Finola have good amorphous lead chemistry. We aren't being force-fed where it is going to go, but we know it's a compelling relationship where they're both relying on each other to get through challenging emotional hurdles (marine special ops, family tragedy). And we see them together, riffing off each other from the beginning, and it works as both a personal and professional partnership.

Strongest debris-scifi-based episode was definitely 1x04 "In Universe" with the chlorine- respiration-based biome. To me it's the best of the season so far.

Strongest character episode so far is maybe 1x09 "Do You Know Icarus?" or 1x06 "Supernova"

Cons:

Episodic structure hampers the ramp of tension building. You don't get big payoff because you get short plot points. Yes there's the recurring "ball of light" and Influx references, but those are more phantom thread teasers than a long game of steadily developing insights.

No fully developed villain or antagonist to make the stakes seem tangible and priorities urgent or simmering: is it Influx, Maddox, Ferris, casually mentioned foreign government espionage, the guy who played Michael on The Vampire Diaries? I don't know, and worst of all nor do I really care because I don't feel their immenent threat or ideological purpose. I am more worried about the debris body count, but debris is a problem / quandary, not a viable adversary at this point. We've got a multi-front conflict, and 45 minutes with underwhelming writing complexity to try and meet the task. It's a struggle.

The ABCD action-based plot. I have to do this sequence in order to beat this level. Where's the character building?

Speaking of which, while I like Bryan and Finola's dynamic opposite each other, I can't say the same about their development as individual characters. Their depth and relationship to others has so far been terrible due to superficial telegraphing which tells us rather than a writing structure that shows us why we're supposed to care about them, their lives, or their relationships to others, like Finola and DeDe and George as a family unit, or Bryan and Maddox. Seeing an old family video of sisters dancing to a favorite song does nothing for me when I haven't seen them interact on anything more than a long distance phone call. Can we maybe get a flashback of them at George's memorial so that we can get a sense of how devastated the family was or see the consequences of DeDe's substance abuse habit as a crutch during an emotionally chaotic time in her life? No. We get hearsay. Maddox is supposedly so worthy of Bryan's trust, pulled him from the brink of a dark emotional abyss (1x07), but we get no sense of that bond off the clock like Bryan checking in on Maddox's family, or any sort of personal connection. Just a cold professional relationship with a few one liners.

Telegraphing to ambiguity ratio: certain things the audience gets explained to us, like alternate universes visible in the molecular imperfections of glass or how they damaged George's hippocampus and impaired his memory (like they're just throwing out words to sound sci-fi impressive), and yet some basic details that would help build this world lore and make it believable are left up to off-screen imagination? Come on now, we all know the season one is for world building. Hop to it! Debris falls from the sky, worldwide, and you're telling me no one knows about it and it doesn't impact public life / culture in any way, it doesn't make the news cycle, nothing? You're an Orbital agent, and you're able to fly around in laboratory equipped jets and land in whichever airspace you please, and no one bats an eye? Terrorists are using debris against civilians, and we don't see government restrictions, curfew, lockdowns, etc, we don't get any minor glimpses into ramifications on ordinary life? No, because the focus is always trained on our "field agents" but not the playing field. It's mundane, small stuff questions that keep us grounded, which is a refreshing and needed balance in sci-fi, but apart from a conversation about stale Peeps I don't see attention to daily details of life as we know it.

We are literally told in the pilot by a title card (talk about expedient) that "three years ago images were captured of a wrecked alien spacecraft moving through the solar system" and for 6 months debris has been falling. Has it smashed through any cities causing panic? How is it spun by the media, or how is Orbital keeping it out of public attention? Is there a political power struggle over research access, and what do those higher up agency meetings look like? Where and how is the recovered debris being cataloged and stored when it is not used in active research? Who has clearance to it, what is that clearance called/what does it entail, which government retains agency of debris pieces, or does that depend on where Orbital recovers it? This is like first-five-episode-arc lore building and we are nine hit or miss episodes into the season! I need this show to level up if it's taking the route of being clever and cerebral, which it appears to aim at by focusing on the scientific part of sci-fi. If it's goal is to be a small scale, partner ride along weekly mystery with heavy synthetic sound cues, then it needs to pick a tone that takes itself less seriously.

The dialogue is so lackluster and expository. Please get some of the writer's room to focus on making it sharper, quicker, smarter.

The science of debris: George Jones, as some genius mind behind Orbital tech, isn't believable. We don't get to see any part of his professional life in Orbital in the three year lead up to when we meet our characters, he doesn't even have any dialogue when Finola first finds him captive. We have "science-aesthetic" scribbles on a chalkboard and Finola's word that George is a workaholic research savant. It doesn't ring true and by extension some of the "rules" of this Orbital technology seem murky (not as in we learn alongside the characters, but as in the concept seems under developed). George's biggest contribution thus far is a levity critique of Bryan's driving speed. At this point he's a plot device to further Fin's journey, as is DeDe. That's base.

Lack of interest in supporting ensemble: why should I care about Maddox's family crisis, or DeDe's addiction or George's suicide after he was shut out of his own research at Orbital, etc? Again this ties back to previous points of show don't tell, and build a world, maybe use some flashbacks. Make it personal — why is George's research (apart from a generalized better world) so singularly important to him that it breaks his family, what compelled Brian to transition from military service to Orbital? How are different factions within Orbital — like the research team and the field agents — getting along, who's at the very bottom of the barrel or on the very top of the hierarchy?

I want this show to succeed, but I don't get a clear read on what genre they want to be or more importantly what the characters want. Please increase the focus on dialogue, get the basics of want-obstacle-action done right, and then the debris and the conflict it creates can have a bigger impact.

#nbc debris #new fandom #sci-fi #finola jones #bryan beneventi #renew Debris

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mirkwoodshewolf · 4 years

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Graduation surprise; BoRhap cast x reader

*Author’s note*

Hey ya’ll well I promised this fic when I posted the Queen prom fic so here it is. Now I know it’s not as long as the last one is but I felt like this didn’t need to be super long. Also as another special little fact for ya’ll I was gonna make this a Queen fic as well but then I decided to change it to a BoRhap CAST fic since I hadn’t done one of just them in awhile.

So to all seniors whether HS or college, the class of 2020 CONGRATULATIONS I know it’s not what you hoped it would be but still try to find celebration in this pandemic, you all achieved probably the greatest milestones in your life. So stay safe, stay healthy, stay sane, and be happy :) Lot’s of love from me my darlings!

Taglist:

@waddles03

@psychosupernatural

@plethora-of-things

@jd-johndeacon-or-jackdaniels

@ixchel-9275

@simonedk

@queensdivas

@platawnic

@queendeakyy

@geek-and-proud

@kairosfreddie

_______________________________________________________________

Goddamn this year! Just when we think the new decade would be worth our wild, now we’ve got all this shit going on! First there was the threat of WW3, then the next month we’re dealing with wildfires in Australia, and finally to top it off why not add a global pandemic?!

The Coronavirus has literally been all over the news for months, and the fact that our government knew about it since late last year and didn’t warn us about it!? Then when they told us to be on lockdown, everyone starts hording toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and food that no one can buy said items for weeks on end.

But of course my main problem is the fact that I, along with so many other kids and adults around the world can’t participate in their own graduation ceremony. As a college student, I was just longing to finally participate in my final graduation ceremony ever. This was supposed to be my final chapter in school life and now because of this damn virus, that’s gone.

I mean yeah my diploma will be coming in the mail but I wanted my family to all be there to see me reach the end of my school life before I finally begin a new chapter. Plus my cousin’s friends said that they would come and see me and I’ve missed seeing those guys, I hadn’t seen them all since the Bohemian Rhapsody premiere.

I sat there in my old room of my house (cause since the University closed down back in March, all students had to leave the college campus and go home so that way we could reduce the spread of the virus. So I ended up moving back in with my parents) just finishing up my final paper for class.

That’s when my Zoom video chat blew up with my cousin’s profile pic. I grinned and clicked on the answer button and soon enough my cousin’s face took over my screen.

“Hey poppet.”

“Hey Gwil, how you holding up?” he let out a sigh.

“As best as I can. Though I should be asking you that, you are the one really dealing with this whole Coronavirus adjustment than I am. How’d you do on your classes?”

“For those that have said online classes are easier, they’re dirty rotten liars and completely incompetent.” He softly chuckled. “But thankfully I finished my last exam paper and submitted it just now.”

“Your dad look over it for you? Cause I know you’re a terrible editor.”

“Oi not all the time. Just when I’m lazy.” He hummed as he raised his brow at me. “But yes I did have dad review it for me. Cause before we got to submit the rough draft and my professor said I needed more analysis to my quotes on why I quoted that specific source. God I don’t know why I took that class to begin with?”

“Because you’re a criminology nut and you have been since you turned 16. God and I thought my horror movie tastes were bad.”

“Hey it’s good to be aware of shit like that!”

“Language missy!”

“Okay Cap.” I teased. He gave me his stern look which made me laugh as I fell to my side on the bed. “Oh by the way I saw that little dating app video you did.”

“And what did you think?”

“I liked it. Kinda makes me wish an app like that did exist in real life.”

“You not just pulling my leg on this?”

“No. Honest and swear to god you had me moved by your performance. Well next to you being Brian May of course.” He grinned. “I swear I still can’t get over when I first saw you in the full hair and makeup, I literally almost had a freakin panic attack.”

“And the fact that Brian was also there to witness that.”

“Oh god don’t even go there!” I groaned as I hid my face in embarrassment.

“So—now that you’re all done with school, what’s next for you?”

“Well any plans I had are put on hold till this whole crisis goes away. And I really thought 2020 was gonna be my year. This sucks!”

“I know poppet, I know. But believe me that it’s not just you whose affected by this. Everyone in the whole world is suffering exactly the same way you are.” I sighed solemnly.

“I know. I mean I should be feeling for you and the guys right now, I mean all of you are out of work till further notice. And all the restaurants that I love going to. Did you know that the little ice cream parlor you and I used to go to when we were kids shut down?”

“No!”

“Yeah, the owner couldn’t keep up the payments because hardly anyone was ordering from them anymore, even with online delivery. So she closed it down.”

“Damn, that sucks. I really loved going to that place with you. That was always our special little time together without the grownups around.” I nodded remembering all the fun times we had together in that little shop.

It was then someone suddenly popped into our conversation. The extra person now on my screen was none other than Joe Mazzello.

“Hey Gwil, mini-Lee!”

“Hello Joe.” Answered Gwil.

“Hey Joe been a long time.”

“How you two holding up?” he asked us.

“As best as we can, how about you? I’ve seen those Youtube videos you’ve been doing on your page.” Gwil said.

“You know those were jokes, especially that last one. I just wanted to get a laugh out of everyone, or have them hate me.”

“No one could hate you Joey.” I said with a smile.

“Aww thanks mini-Lee. How’s classes been?” I let out a groan as I once again flopped on my bed which made Joe laugh.

“I am just thankful that this is all over. At first I thought online classes would be easy but one of my professors was technology challenged. Another one would sometimes forget to do a lesson, and then of course blackboard could barely operate long enough for me to submit an assignment which caused some of them to be late.”

“Well like you said it’s over now.” Joe assured me.

“Oh hey I saw that Jurassic Park livestream you did.”

“Oh did you? How come I didn’t see you submit a question or just say hello? I’ve seen your Youtube page so I know your username by heart.”

“Cause I may or may not have also been working on a project. But chose the livestream over the project.”

“Nice going Joe, you’ve turned my cousin into a procrastinator.” Gwil complained.

“Hey at least she has Jurassic Park unlike you Gwilym Lee! Serious shame on you for not owning it! This is why mini-Lee is the coolest out of the two of you.” I snarked out a mock laugh as I stuck my tongue out.

“Ganging up against me okay I see how it is you two.”

“Oh come now cousin dear, we’re just messing around.”

“Messing around? If we’re messing with Gwil then I want a part of it.” Soon another picture came up and there lying on his side was Ben Hardy.

“Benjamin!” Joe screamed joyously.

“Hi Ben.” I sung out.

“Hey (y/n).” he waved at me with a wink. “Now going back to teasing Gwilym.”

“You guys are officially gonna be blocked right after this.” My cousin groaned. We all laughed when I told him.

“Again cousin, we’re teasing you. So Ben, what brings you here?”

“What can’t I pop in and say hello?” I giggled.

“I see nothing wrong with it. Oh hey get this; I finally got around to watching 6 Underground.”

“And what did you think of it?”

“The first 10 minutes were insane! And truthfully I never really understood Michael Bay films, but this one—definitely my favorite. I loved it Ben, really.”

“Well thank you (n/n). Thank you.”

“Never did I think I needed to see both you and Ryan Reynolds on screen together….”

“Whoa okay easy there (n/n)!” Joe interrupted me.

“Oi you get your mind out of the gutters! And you say it’s the fans that make what you say to the extreme.” I scowled him.

“Trust me, I’ve known him for over 10 years and he still doesn’t grow up.” Another voice stated and soon two more familiar faces popped up on screen, stuck in quarantine together in LA were Rami and Lucy. And then a split second later another face came on the screen, it was none other than Alan Leech.

“Hey, Rami, Lu-lu, Alan!” I cheered.

“Hey (y/n)!” the three of them said as they waved.

“God I feel like I’m getting spoiled, got the entire BoRhap family together for the first time in like—forever.”

“It’s crazy.” Alan said.

“Definitely.” Agreed Rami.

“Maybe when this whole thing blows over we should all get together some time in New York.” Offered Joe.

“I’m down with it.” Ben said.

“Me too.” Lucy agreed with a nod.

“Yeah, (n/n), Ben and I could fly out together.” Said Gwil.

“I’m down with that. Now that I’m done with school, I can do what I want now.”

“So guys now that we’re all here shall we begin?” Lucy said.

“Begin what? Gwil what’s going on?” I asked.

“Well (n/n), when this whole quarantine shutdown and school cancellations started affecting the class of 2020 we all felt bad that you couldn’t graduate the way you hoped you would.” Gwil said before Joe continued.

“So Gwil called all of us up via the Whatsapp chat, as well as our daily zoom calls. To gather us all together on your ‘last day’ of college.”

“To celebrate your own Virtual college graduation party!” Rami cheered. At that point everyone either threw confetti, blew on graduation blowers, or holding up signs that said CONGRATS 2020 GRADUATE!!!

I covered my mouth with my hands speechless and tried to hold back the tears.

“Ohh you guys.”

“Since you couldn’t have a college graduation party, we figure we’d bring the party to you. See not even this pandemic can stop us from celebrating our Mini-Lee’s ultimate milestone.” Ben said as he set down his congrats sign.

“And also expect some gifts within the next few weeks, depending on how the mailing services do with overseas gifts.” Alan said.

“Aww thanks you guys, you didn’t have to.”

“We know, but we wanted to. Let us spoil you even through this pandemic.” Said Joe.

“Thanks guys, this—really means a lot to me.” I wiped a hidden tear that strayed down the corner of my eye. They all awed at me that’s when Gwil lifted up a small graduation cake.

“I know, I know this’ll be ridiculous but just humor me will yah?” I smiled and nodded. He lit up the 2020 candles and held it just high enough for me to see the top part of the candles.

“CONGRATS (Y/N) LEE! CLASS OF 2020!!!” everyone proclaimed at once which made me smile and I blew out towards the screen. Gwil then blew out the candles for me as everyone else cheered and clapped.

“Thanks so much you guys. Really, you have no idea how much this means to me.”

“We’re happy to do it (y/n). If it makes your day a little bit brighter in these dark times.” Rami said.

“It did Rami, it really did.”

“Well hope we can make this even better cause I’ve also got a part 2 to this little surprise. But in order for that to happen, everyone else has got to go otherwise you won’t really be able to see it as clearly.” Gwil said.

“Aww man.” I whined.

“No worries mini-Lee, your cousin added you to our BoRhap Whatsapp chat and I’ll send you a link to our zoom channel if you ever wanna chat with us again.” Joe said with a wink.

“Thanks Joe. And thanks everyone take care and stay safe.” They all waved and bid me goodbye with waves or blowing kisses at me and one by one they signed off till it was once again just Gwil and I.

All I could see across his bearded face was that cheeky grin he does whenever he’s trying to hide something.

“What are you grinning about?”

“Just the fact that I’ll be the best cousin once you see part 2 of your special surprise.”

“What did you do?”

“If I told you it won’t be a surprise now would it? Now let’s see, god I hope they get it.” He muttered the last part to himself. It took a few minutes till finally another screen popped up and standing there in his room was Adam Lambert. I fangirled in my seat and covered my mouth trying to contain my squeals.

“Hey girlfriend!” he greeted with a wave.

“Adam oh my god!”

“How’s it going?”

“It’s been going. Finally submitted my last paper. So I’m officially done with school forever.”

“Yaas Queen!” he snapped. “So how’s it feel to be a college graduate?”

“Well it’d be better if we weren’t in the middle of a pandemic.”

“Understandable, but hey you’ve worked hard for this so be proud of yourself no matter what’s going on in the world right now.” I nodded with a shrug. “And to celebrate your graduation, your cousin whipped up another little surprise for you.”

“Oh my god Gwil you didn’t!” I gasped. He merely raised a brow at me cheekily as he bit his lip back from a smile.

“Hey guys you there?!” Adam called out and soon enough two more screens came on and the picture revealed to be both Brian May and Roger Taylor. Brian sitting on his couch while Roger looked to be in his basement with his drumkit.

At this point, I had lost my shit. I was fangirling to the max at this rate but tried to calm down.

“Hi (y/n), congratulations of graduating.” Brian greeted me.

“Major achievement there love. Congrats.” Roger added.

“Oh my god…..Gwil this is—how……”

“I knew you’d love it (n/n). Plus I knew this would cheer you up after our last conversation we had last week. You really needed some cheering up.”

“So guys are we ready to do this?” asked Adam.

“I’m ready to go if you both are.” Said Brian as he took his Red Special and set it on his lap and Roger twirled his drumstick.

“(Y/n), this is for you love. Hopefully when this whole mess is over, you can finally go out there and reach your dream job. Till then we hope you enjoy this.” Roger said.

It was then both Roger and Brian began playing the tune for ‘we are the champions’ but as Adam began singing the song, it turns out that they were actually singing their new song, ‘You are the champions’ dedicated to the first responders worldwide.

But now they were playing it in my honor as a college graduate. As they continued to play the song, I allowed the tears to flow down my face as I laced my hand over my heart.

God—never did I think that through this pandemic would I be happy. From having to never see any of my friends I made in college again, to not having my whole family come to the house to celebrate, or going out to party with some of my friends. But this—right here and now, my cousin made it all up to me all the way from London.

At this point, I knew that I was officially the luckiest person in the world. All thanks to my favorite cousin, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

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robinsnest2111 · 3 years

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indirectly tagged by @lampmeeting

it's not part of the original thing but I'm gonna add a silly little self portrait as well~

Questions to get to know you a little better:

1. What do you prefer to be called name wise? Robin or any kind of nickname related to that you can come up with lol Some of my favourites are Rob and Robble

2. When is your birthday? November 21st

3. Where do you live? A little town in Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony), Germany. Known for being the summer residence of a royal bloodline some 200 years ago. Yes there's a castle :P

4. Three things I am doing right now? Trying to forget the nightmare I just woke up from, thinking about getting a few more clementines from the kitchen and fininishing a little sketch I started yesterday

5. Four fandoms that have piqued my interest: Metalocalypse (ofc), Hogan's Heroes, Ghost BC, What We Do In The Shadows. Those are the main 4 at the moment but there's always a chance for other fandoms to take over for a bit.

6. How has the pandemic been treating you? ....yeah. Not so great. My grandma died suddenly at the start of the pandemic, I had to leave my internship I was super happy at early because of lockdown, finished my last semester at college with horrible online classes, had to move back in with my parents, cut contact with someone I've known almost all my life, barely passed my finals, still on the hunt for a job (started applying to places in September) and am close to losing it any day now lol Also pandemic means no flea markets which was one of the few things keeping my brain happy and occupied while giving me a chance to ride my bike around the region for hours :^(((((

7. Song(s) I can’t stop listening to: Sadly no particular song coming to mind right now, but I've had Ghost's entire discography and Dethalbum I, II, and III on rotation for months now lol. This Toss A Coin To Your Witcher Remix has also been stuck in my head for a while and is always worth a listen (Also have some silly techno/hardstyle remixes stuck in my brain permanently because I listened to them as background noise while trying to make my final college projects somewhat decent. Terence Hill & Bud Spencer - Lalalalalala, Da Tweekaz - Jägermeister, Star Wars Hardstyle, DJ Ötzi - Anton aus Tirol, Das Leben des Brian - Schwanzus Longus)

8. Recommend a movie: The Road to El Dorado by Dreamworks, a children's movie, I know... Each song is an absolute banger tho (even the German versions!), the jokes are silly but fun, the queer/gay hints add that little spice that I subconsciously picked up on and felt comforted by as a kid and the design of the everything is just (chef's kiss) Also the chemistry between the 4 main characters is gud as heck. It's the childhood movie I latched on to the most, my mother had to rent the dvd almost every single day until I bought a copy myself lol

9. How old are you? 24 orz I don't feel like it at all...

10. School, university, occupation? Finished college in August, unemployed because no one wants to hire in the creative field during a worldwide plague :^)

11. Do you prefer heat or cold? As long as it's under 35°C I prefer heat. My hands and feet are icicles 95% of the time after losing weight :^(

12. Name one fact others may not know about you? Since I'm an expert oversharer you probably know almost everything about me already orz But uhhh. Lemme see... I learned how to operate a laundry machine at the ripe old age of 20 at my internship at a hair salon lmao My mother never had the nerve to show me how on the modern machine we have at home (along the lines of "you will fuck it up anyways so let me do it >:^(((" which is an overarching theme in her raising me lol), but the older machine with the simpler dials at the salon was a good start to learn and honestly one of the things at this internship I'm still super grateful for...

13. Are you shy? Oh hell yeah I am... It's all the years of getting only negative feedback for trying to interact with others lol

14. Preferred pronouns: He/Him mostly, still figuring out if I still like they/them or nah (since in German there are no neutral pronouns that aren't neopronouns I've automatically gotten more attached to he/him lol)

15. Biggest pet peeves: I feel so mean for admitting it but honestly: Any noises my parents make. If I'm having a particularly bad low brain energy day even hearing them breathe makes me wanna run away and scream in anger... (Doesn't irk me with anyone else tho, which is weird...)

16. What is your favorite "dere" type? Oh there's more than 4 types now?? I've always liked Kuudere types the most out of the original 4 types, but I guess Shundere and Utsudere are right up my alley too!!!

The Kuudere (クーデレ), sometimes written Coodere or Kūdere, type refers to a character who is often cold, blunt, and cynical. They may seem very emotionless on the outside, but on the inside they’re very caring — at least when it comes to the ones they love.

The Shundere (しゅんデレ) type refers to characters who are sad and very depressed. While a full smile on their face might be out of the question, their love interest can help them open up and feel accepted.

The Utsudere (うつデレ) type refers to a character who is often sad and depressed. There is a reason for the character’s despair such as being bullied at school. Even if their life improves, they are often wary of other characters’ motives.

17. Rate your life 1-10? Maybe a 4? 4.5 at max

18. What is your main blog? The one I'm posting this on lol

19. List all your side blogs and what they’re for:

yorkiesart - old as hell and inactive artblog

bleedingheartbird - very triggering and depressing vent blog :^(

yorkie2111 - my very first username, a sea and ocean themed aesthetic blog now mostly for when I miss Denmark a whole lot (kinda inactive)

robinsartnest - a second attempt at a separate art blog, inactive as well lol

20. Is there anything people should know before becoming friends with you? I'm a clusterfuck of several undiagnosed mental illnesses and probably other conditions that I'm trying to figure out and deal with on my own until I can get professional help and some diagnoses. At times I'm weird and distant and overall very depressed and unpleasant, I've already hurt so many people this way and am trying to be better every single day. Basically I've never been given the "How to properly Human" manual and am frantically trying to get it right without hurting too many innocent people in the process.

Anyway, if you are nice to me I will love you forever ♡♡♡ :'3c

idk who to tag so if you wanna do this, do it~

#oh wow that's a long one haha #gosh these tag things really encourage my oversharing nature oops #anyway if any of you want to do this too feel tagged :D #get to know me better

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katieamazeballs · 3 years

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Looks like Sharna Burgess and Brian Austin Green's relationship is heating up!

The stunning couple attended Cassie Scerbo's '80s-themed birthday bash (benefitting Boo2Bullying) in Los Angeles on Tuesday.

The Dancing With the Stars pro -- who looked gorgeous in a light blue top and matching pleated pants -- opened up to ET's Katie Krause about why this event was particularly meaningful to the pair.

"He is so passionate about doing good in the world and leaving his mark... and that is really one of the ways we connected so much, is [asking] 'What do we want to do in the world?'" Burgess shared. "What a beautiful way to have our first event together, to support a cause that is making headway in ending bullying."

"Because he also has three beautiful young boys that are in school, and a 19-year-old, and anyone who has kids would understand, you would fight for your kids to to not have to go through bullying," she added.

This is the first time Burgess, 35, and Green, 47, have stepped out to a high-profile event together.

The two became Instagram official in January, just weeks after photographers caught them packing on the PDA in Hawaii.

According to Burgess, she's had to find a balance between "screaming it from the mountaintop" and keeping things private when it comes to talking about their romance.

"That anonymity, that little secret that was just ours, we kept that for as long as we could," she said, beaming.

"We took out time and we really got to know each other for who we are on the inside," Burgess said of their burgeoning relationship. "And we really built something beautiful."

The pair have now been dating for six months, and Burgess said both she and Green are awed by how quickly the time has passed.

"It feels like yesterday that we were saying, 'How has it only been four weeks?' and now it's like, 'How has it been six months?!' she shared. "It's gone so, so fast."

Part of the reason for the pair taking their time to build their relationship comes from dating during quarantine, which presented an entirely different experience for them both.

"It was a different way of dating. We really took our time. We took four or five dates before we even kissed," she said. "It was truly about getting to know the human being, because that's where we are both at in our lives. I'm not really dating for fun, I'm dating for serious. I want to get to know you on the inside."

Burgess added that, because of the lockdowns, "There's less outside distractions. I'm not traveling as much... it allowed us time to get to know each other."

With productions back in full swing and season 30 of Dancing With the Stars on the horizon, Burgess reflected on how Green had almost been cast as her dance partner during the last season of the show, but backed out. The dancer also admitted that now, she's not sure if she'd actually want him to join the show as her partner.

"It's such a different bubble to work in," she said. "I love what we have, and Dancing With the Stars is a whole other experience. It could put us in too much of a public space where people are like, 'Oh! They're fighting' or... 'Oh, there's no chemistry.' People do that enough when your not dating your dance partner, so it's like, do we want those eyes on us?"

A source told ET last month that Green had already introduced Burgess to the three children he shares with his estranged wife, Megan Fox -- 8-year-old Noah, 6-year-old Bodhi and 4-year-old Journey.

"Brian sees a lot of potential with Sharna and is curious to see how things blossom further," the source said at the time. "Sharna has met Brian's kids and they think she is super nice and get along swimmingly with her."

"Brian loves how optimistic and positive Sharna is and how she is super driven and always smiling and laughing," added the source. "He admires that she does her best to enjoy life and lead a successful professional life as well."

Last April, while speaking to ET via Zoom, Burgess admitted that one thing she had been "really private" about the last few years was her dating life.

"I used to share everything, up until I was about 30 and my last long-term relationship ended," she said. "Because it's hard, even in your own circle of family and friends. You want to have your own opinion, not everyone else's opinion. You don't want to be over-influenced by what other people think about the decisions or the choices you're making. And so that's something that I've kept pretty private for a while."

"I'm down to talk about growing up, the environment, the mommy-daddy issues that we all have, acne, all the things that we go through," she continued. "But dating is just the one thing that I find really difficult to share."

Burgess added, however, that once she knows "it's for real," she won't be able "to shut up" about it. "It's just that, like, process of finding him, you know?" she explained. Hear more in the video below:

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seymour-butz-stuff · 4 years

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At first, Derek Canavaggio thought he would be able to ride out the coronavirus pandemic at home until things were safe. As a bar manager at the Globe in Athens, Georgia, Canavaggio hasn’t been allowed to work for weeks. Local officials in Athens issued Georgia’s first local shelter-in-place order on March 19, canceling the events that usually make spring a busy time for Athens bars and effectively eliminating the city’s rowdy downtown party district built around the University of Georgia. The state’s governor, Brian Kemp, followed in early April with a statewide shutdown.

But then the governor sent Canavaggio into what he calls “spreadsheet hell.” In an announcement last week, Kemp abruptly reversed course on the shutdown, ending many of his own restrictions on businesses and overruling those put in place by mayors throughout the state. On Friday, gyms, churches, hair and nail salons, and tattoo parlors were allowed to reopen, if the owners were willing. Yesterday, restaurants and movie theaters came back. The U-turn has left Georgians scrambling. Canavaggio has spent days crunching the numbers to figure out whether reopening his bar is worth the safety risk, or even feasible in the first place, given how persistent safety concerns could crater demand for a leisurely indoor happy hour. “We can’t figure out a way to make the numbers work to sustain business and pay rent and pay everybody to go back and risk their lives,” he told me. “If we tried to open on Monday, we’d be closed in two weeks, probably for good and with more debt on our hands.”

Kemp’s order shocked people across the country. For weeks, Americans have watched the coronavirus sweep from city to city, overwhelming hospitals, traumatizing health-care workers, and leaving tens of thousands of bodies in makeshift morgues. Georgia has been hit particularly hard by the pandemic, and the state’s testing efforts have provided an incomplete look at how far the virus continues to spread. That testing capacity—which public-health leaders consider necessary for safely ending lockdowns—has lagged behind the nation’s for much of the past two months. Kemp’s move to reopen was condemned by scientists, high-ranking Republicans from his own state, and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms; it even drew a public rebuke from President Donald Trump, who had reportedly approved the measures before distancing himself from the governor amid the backlash.

Public-health officials broadly agree that reopening businesses—especially those that require close physical contact—in places where the virus has already spread will kill people. Even so, many other states are quietly considering similar moves to Georgia’s. Most are taking a more measured approach—waiting a bit longer to reopen, setting testing or infection benchmarks that must first be met—but some, such as Oklahoma and Colorado, have already put similar plans in motion. By acting with particular haste in what he calls a crucial move to restore economic stability, Kemp has positioned Georgia at the center of a national fight over whether to stay the course with social distancing or try to return to some semblance of normalcy. But it’s easy to misunderstand which Americans stand on each side. Many Georgians have no delusions about the risks of reopening, even if they need to return to work for financial reasons. Among the dozen local leaders, business owners, and workers I spoke with for this article, all said they know some people who disagreed with the lockdown but were complying nonetheless. No one reported serious acrimony in their communities.

Instead, their stories depict a struggle between a state government and ordinary people. Georgia’s brash reopening puts much of the state’s working class in an impossible bind: risk death at work, or risk ruining yourself financially at home. In the grips of a pandemic, the approach is a morbid experiment in just how far states can push their people. Georgians are now the largely unwilling canaries in an invisible coal mine, sent to find out just how many individuals need to lose their job or their life for a state to work through a plague.

Estimates vary as to how many businesses might actually reopen now, but none of the Georgians I talked with knew many people who intended to voluntarily head right back to work. That was true in Athens, which has long been one of the Deep South’s most progressive cities, as well as in Blackshear, a small town in the rural southeastern part of the state that tends toward conservatism. Kelly Girtz, the mayor of Athens, estimated that about 90 percent of the local business owners he had spoken with in the past week had no intention of reopening immediately. “Georgia’s plan simply is not that well designed,” Girtz says. “To call it a ‘plan’ might be overstating the case.”

Several of Georgia’s Republican mayors did not return requests for comment, but some have publicly supported Kemp’s decision. In Watkinsville, which is near Athens, Mayor Bob Smith released a statement on Sunday encouraging the town’s residents to return to religious services and their jobs.

Certainly, demand for these businesses’ services still exists. For many hair stylists, the response to Kemp’s reopening announcement was swift. Zach Lee, a salon owner in Blackshear who closed his business well in advance of the state’s shutdown, told me he heard from clients within 15 minutes of Kemp’s press conference. Lee had to tell them he wouldn’t be reopening yet because he didn’t think doing so was safe. “I want to work. I’m a workaholic. I can’t wait to get back behind the chair and do hair,” he said. “But now is not the time. I really don’t feel like being the guinea pig in this situation, and I don’t want my clients being guinea pigs either.”

Extensive protective gear is required in most types of reopened businesses, which was a sticking point for every Georgian I spoke with who was contemplating a return to work. They said the state is providing neither the gear itself nor guidance on how to get it, so they’re in the same market as everyone else, competing with medical workers and high-risk people who need masks to safely go to the grocery store. Lee said he doesn’t “feel comfortable buying up that stuff right now when there’s hospitals that are needing it and they can’t get it.” Dupree said that to secure the gear she needed to reopen, she had to ask clients and friends to volunteer their extras.

One person’s “extras” are another person’s hoardings.

Many workers and business owners have to factor in competition. “The trouble with [Kemp’s] ad hoc orders is that they sort of gin up a generalized interest in commercial or business activity,” said Girtz, who spent much of his career as a local public-school teacher before becoming the mayor of Athens last year. When people hear on the news that businesses are open, many will assume that it’s safe to patronize them, and may miss more nuanced information about ongoing safety concerns. And when only some businesses open, they’re able to capitalize on this interest and swipe business from still-closed competitors.

For hair stylists, barbers, and nail technicians, whose livelihoods are especially reliant on loyal customers, losing business to others is worrisome. “I want to keep my clients and I don’t want them to see anybody else,” Jillian Yeskel, a stylist in the Atlanta suburb of Roswell, told me. Yeskel has asthma, which might worsen cases of COVID-19, so she’s decided to hold off on returning to work for at least another two weeks. During the shutdown order, she didn’t have to pay rent for her salon station like she normally does, but now that the order has been lifted, she’ll have to start paying again.

Which is what it’s all about, really. It’s about offsetting the pandemic costs onto business owners, then sucking their assets dry and feasting on their corpses after they inevitably fail.

Look for a wave of foreclosed properties and asset sales in Georgia’s future, where creditors sell off items for pennies on the dollar to the 1% and their chosen few.

Just don’t be surprised if the governor gets in on some of that action.

This is the guy who selectively kicked tens of thousands of people off the voting rolls in order to win his election - he’s a slimeball and doesn’t care who knows it.

#health #2

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sciencespies · 4 years

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How—and When—Will the COVID-19 Pandemic End?

https://sciencespies.com/news/how-and-when-will-the-covid-19-pandemic-end/

How—and When—Will the COVID-19 Pandemic End?

In many ways, the COVID-19 pandemic has proven to be a moving target. Faced with stopping a pandemic scientists have yet to fully understand, researchers simply can’t guarantee what lies ahead—or when life will return to a version of normalcy.

But as businesses continue to shutter and people retreat into their homes, one thing has become clear: To stem the spread of disease, Joe Pinsker reports for the Atlantic, strict measures that keep people physically separated could be in place for several months—perhaps even more than a year.

These social disruptions are severe, alarming and difficult to fully comprehend. They also come at an immense psychological cost. Already, mere weeks of closures and separations have taken an immense toll on the world’s wellbeing, sparking major financial losses, widening socioeconomic inequalities and exacerbating the health burden on vulnerable groups.

Experts warn that this is the price that must be paid to stop the pandemic. Not because the costs we’re paying now are negligible, but because what stands to be lost is so immense. The United States now has the most confirmed infections of any nation in the world, surpassing 100,000 cases and 1,500 deaths in total on the evening of Friday, March 27—and it’s not yet known when the country will reach peak for new cases. So what happens next?

Immunity is key

When enough of the global population becomes immune, SARS-CoV-2 will lose its infectious toehold, failing to find enough new, susceptible individuals to infect before leaving its current hosts. Researchers estimate that about 2.5 to 5 billion people—roughly a third to two-thirds of the global population—will need to be immune to hit this critical threshold, Jonathan Lambert reports for Science News.

Two possible paths to immunity exist, neither of which is guaranteed. In one, individuals who recover from COVID-19 produce the immune molecules required to fight off the virus, should it try to infect them again. In the other, people become immune by getting vaccinated, teaching their bodies to recognize and destroy the invader without getting sick.

Both resolutions hinge on whether an exposure to SARS-CoV-2, or at least, pieces of it, can protect a person from future infection, which has yet to be shown definitively in the long term.

Flattening the curve

Though many COVID-19 vaccines are now in development, this process takes many months—often years. In the meantime, officials worldwide are scrambling to reduce the rate at which new infections arise to avoid overwhelming an already strained healthcare system.

That’s the idea behind “flattening the curve” of the pandemic’s trajectory: If the virus has fewer opportunities to hop from person to person, communities won’t see a big, rapid spike in new cases; instead, new cases would be spread out over a longer stretch of time, reducing the average number of people sickened with COVID-19 on a given date. Drawing out the pandemic’s timeline also allows researchers to develop much-needed treatments and tests.

The first step to achieving this slowdown is social distancing: drastically reducing contact with individuals, in this case by keeping at least six feet away from others—a distance that largely avoids the infectious droplets sprayed out of the airway of those infected with SARS-CoV-2. (Some psychologists have advocated for the use of the less isolating term “physical distancing” to encourage people to remain socially connected while physically apart.)

Given the infection’s weeks-long trajectory and the virus’ extreme ease of spreading, distancing is not something that will work instantaneously. The tactic effectively starves the pandemic of hosts—something that takes time, and could quickly be thrown off should some subsets of the population waver in their commitment.

If, for instance, distancing measures were relaxed too soon, SARS-CoV-2 could roar back in a still-susceptible population, extending the pandemic’s timeline even farther.

“If we all just went right back to how things were before, transmission would start again with the same intensity,” Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security epidemiologist Caitlin Rivers tells Brian Resnick at Vox.

According to Science News, a minimum of one to three months of strict distancing will likely be required in the United States—and that’s just the beginning. Our battle with COVID-19 will likely extend far beyond that, especially if SARS-CoV-2 waxes and wanes with the seasons, or our immunity to the virus doesn’t hold up for more than a few months or years.

Until a vaccine becomes available, the world may be in limbo with distance policies tightening and relaxing when COVID-19 flares up or subsides, according to Gideon Lichfield at MIT Technology Review.

“We need to be prepared to do multiple periods of social distancing,” Stephen Kissler, an infectious disease researcher at Harvard’s School of Public Health, tells Ed Yong at the Atlantic.

The importance of testing

As Yong reports for the Atlantic, another crucial component is an expedient ramp-up in diagnostic testing for SARS-CoV-2 infections. Without knowing the world’s actual burden of disease—the number of people infected, including those with mild or no symptoms—researchers can’t get a good handle on how the pandemic is evolving, or what populations are most at risk.

Other countries, like South Korea, deployed testing early, allowing them to identify and isolate infected individuals, then monitor their close contacts for signs of disease—a comprehensive strategy that largely curbed COVID-19’s spread, Rivers tells Science News. The United States is beyond the point at which it can mimic this trajectory.

But effective, accurate diagnostics remain crucial to preventing infections at the local scale, and can still slow SARS-CoV-2’s ongoing spread. By mapping out disease hotspots and pinpointing places where infections are more scarce, widespread testing could alleviate some of the most stringent social distancing measures, Sharon Begley reports for STAT.

More tests could also identify individuals who may have recovered from COVID-19, and—if they’re immune—those people could return to work, or help care for vulnerable populations. Critically, making and perfecting these tools now will equip us for any future outbreaks.

An end in sight?

After weeks of strict distancing, some parts of the world—including China’s Hubei province, where SARS-CoV-2 was discovered—are now initiating their “exiting strategies,” according to STAT. Here, the pace of the pandemic has dramatically slowed, following a complete lockdown that kept residents from traveling between cities or even strolling down the street.

With the exception of those in Wuhan, the city where the virus was first detected last year, Hubei residents can now leave the province, provided their health status is clear. Should the case count stay low, more restrictions are expected to be lifted in the coming weeks—though officials are readying themselves to reimpose measures if necessary.

The optimism in Hubei, however, is not universal. In the United States, COVID-19 cases are still skyrocketing by the day, and experts can’t yet forecast when this country’s outbreak will start to fizzle out. For now, many are highlighting success in other countries, and the glimmers of hope emerging in places like Washington state, where new infections are still occurring, but not as rapidly as before, thanks to widespread abidance to distancing.

The road to ending this pandemic is an obviously difficult one that relies, in large part, on the collective resilience of hundreds of millions. Strict distancing will not—and cannot—be sustained forever, and recovering from these measures will require careful attention to both physical and mental health.

But letting up too soon would only worsen the consequences, Lilian Alessa, director for the Center for Resilient Communities at the University of Idaho, tells Nicoletta Lanese at Live Science.

“We literally have to have absolute compliance,” Alessa says. “Without that, this is our new normal.”

#News

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loudlytransparenttrash · 6 years

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What are your thoughts on Charlottesville? I've heard a lot of conflicting stories and am kinda lost on what to believe about it

Hi :) A little group of alt-right idiots gathered last year and it’s now all the evidence we need to prove that America is overrun with Nazis and it’s all thanks to our Hitler president. But what most deliberately leave out is they weren’t the only people there. The whole point of the first rally was to protest the removal of a monument. They wanted the story to be this: Everyone there opposed to tearing down the monument were literal Nazis so the violent attacks on anyone in a MAGA hat is justified. Brian Fallon and Chris Cuomo even compared Antifa macing people and throwing bricks and cherry bombs to the brave Americans soldiers who stormed Normandy to fight Nazis on D-Day. Find me a single person on the right, any conservative who hasn’t condemned and disavowed the racists who attended the protest. To lump anyone against tearing down the monuments in with the faction of white supremacists is why so many melted down when Trump said there were fine people on both sides. They became even more hysterical when Trump said both sides engaged in violence.

CNN cried in enormous font on its front page “He still blames both sides!” The New York Times blared that Trump “again blames both sides.” So did the Chicago Tribune. So did NBC News. So did U.S. News while calling Trump insane. So did NPR. So did CBS News. So did the Washington Post. So did the Wall Street Journal. So did Time. So did MSNBC. NBC News later wondered: “Has Trump Lost His Moral Authority for Good?” CNN continued with the massive headlines, calling Trump’s press conference “a meltdown for the ages,” and declared: “Trump is who we feared he was” and “Donald Trump’s presidency is headed to a very dark place.” Vox claimed Trump “is offering comfort to racists and extremists.” The president has become “completely unhinged” Jimmy Kimmel told his viewers afterwards. He had just canceled all their scheduled programming to focus on the president “finally showing the world the racist he is.” This is a day after Jimmy Fallon did basically the same thing and asked America how to “explain this to his daughters.” The Atlantic wrote “Trump Defends White-Nationalist Protesters.” Kat Timpf was on the verge of tears as she stressed, “I’m wondering if it was real life.“

It’s funny how they all failed to leave these words by Trump out: “Racism is evil and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans. Those who spread violence in the name of bigotry strike at the very core of America. We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence. The driver of the car is a disgrace to himself, his family and this country. You can call it terrorism. The driver of the car is a murderer. What he did was a horrible, horrible, inexcusable thing.” So this is proof he’s a racist who offers comfort to racists and extremists? Just because he didn’t turn what happened into a racebating lecture to all white people about the dangers of their whiteness as the left insisted him to, it doesn’t mean that he failed to condemn racism and it sure as hell doesn’t mean that he supports it. The left went into meltdown mode because he told the truth of what happened in Charlottesville.

We are supposed to see it as outrageous and morally abhorrent that Trump would claim that “there is blame on both sides.” The thing is, Trump was telling the truth. The violence that occurred throughout the downtown area was committed by both sides. Even the Charlottesville police chief affirmed that the protest saw mutually combative individuals on both sides. Is the black police chief a racist guilty of comforting extremists as well? It is not unreasonable to blame “both sides” that day. Yes there were some people there who we have every reason to hate, but the left-wing protesters had zero intentions of a peaceful counter-protest of “passive resistance,” they didn’t show up to practice civil rights-style non-violent activism. They were armed, they had fighting and violence on their mind and there is unequivocal testimony and footage proving that they committed widespread unprovoked violence that day.

Refuse Fascism was among the left-wing groups at the Charlottesville rally and urged violence against the Trump supporters there. Another anarchist group that was there, CrimethInc, said “We must identify the forces underlying their laws and their order. Patriarchy, policing, capitalism, and the state. We have to work together to reimagine the world without them. We need to make this country ungovernable.” They declared “We need to do what the German people should have done when Hitler was elected.” Another far-left group there was the Workers World Party, a group of marxists who have declared their support for Kim Jong Un’s dictatorship in North Korea and have has consistently published propaganda-like screeds supporting Venezuela’s regime. The communist group “sent many of its members to beat up those who marched there.” The same group took credit for organizing the vandals who toppled a city-owned Confederate statue in Durham, North Carolina a week earlier.

These are the nutjobs, along with hoards of Antifa, who are defended and honored as the anti-racist heroes. We can make a point of condemning the alt-right without justifying the continuous violence and rioting of ISIS-wanna-be thugs. By equating them to the Americans of D-Day or saying they just “stand up to hate,” all we’re doing is green-lighting more political violence under the disguise of tolerance and love. We need to condemn all political violence, the extreme ends of both sides are just as repulsive and dangerous as each other. We can all agree that the racists who attended were bad people who deserved to be counter-protested. The one moron carrying a Nazi flag deserved to be yelled at. But why did the counter-protesters start such raging violence against everyone there? Why did they start to block, swarm and beat on cars driving by? The tragic outcome wouldn’t have happened if a few racists didn’t show up, that’s very true. But it’s also true it wouldn’t have happened if the left-wing mobs didn’t turn the event into a massive violent, chaotic battle zone.

Even after the tragedy of last year, a few days ago the mobs still thought it was a good idea this time around to again swarm cars and threaten drivers. The town went into lockdown for its anniversary and in the days beforehand, according to Charlottesville’s Daily Progress, “reports surfaced from concerned citizens believed they saw persons resembling Nazis and white supremacists in locations from office supply stores to coffee shops.” Did you see how many people showed up for the rally? About eight. It’s funny how little Nazis there are when you don’t include every American who supports Trump or is opposed to tearing down all our Civil War monuments.

Projecting support of Nazis onto a person who you disagree with to force them to defend themselves, prove they’re not a Nazi sympathizer and disavow an already globally disavowed and despised group is a sneaky leftist tactic that is used against everyone from the president to any conservative with a voice. The groupthink of the left is if you believe someone is a Nazi, aka, someone you don’t like, it’s totally cool to just beat them up and it will be glorified by the liberal media as “fighting racism.” Conservatives are accused of violence for merely speaking, yet when there’s actual real violence right in front of us, we get silence because it’s not from the right people. Just as there’s been total silence on every left-wing riot over the past two years.

We’re all supposed to pretend Trump said something racist after Charlottesville. He spoke out against racism, he blasted the alt-right for their role in the violence and he warned against all political violence. If it were just an average person saying what Trump said, we’d all say ‘duh.’ There’s nothing controversial about what he said, only the fact that it came from a guy who people are so desperate to delegitimize and call a white supremacist. Now Charlottesville is used to shame and silence anyone on the right as evidence of what conservative ideals and policies lead to, just as they use the myth of “caged kids” to turn as many people as they can away from voting Republican again. That’s just my take, obviously there were racists there, but like it or not they did have a permit to be there, and most people clearly had nothing to do with these few idiots and were only there to oppose the statue from being torn down. The narrative that everyone not on Antifa’s side were Nazis and were the ones to spark the violence is a deliberate lie to hold conservatives accountable for the actions of one criminal. I hope that’s helped a little, if not please feel free to message me with specifics :) xx

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ericvick · 3 years

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Baby boomers reassess downsizing during pandemic

When Jonathan Sweig and his wife sold their family home of 25 years in Franklin and moved into a 1,400-square-foot condo in the Back Bay last July, it was part of a plan set in motion long before anyone had heard of COVID-19.

Theirs was a fairly common migration: For years, empty-nesters in the suburbs have sold their longtime family homes and downsized to a downtown condo, where they could spend less time mowing the lawn and more time walking to theaters, restaurants, and Red Sox games, said Chestnut Hill realtor Mary Gillach.

Then the pandemic all but silenced the joyful noise of city life and hit the brakes on that inflow of suburban boomers.

“That’s so not happening now,’’ Gillach said.

Not only was it difficult to downsize during a pandemic, Sweig said, but the lockdown felt like an inopportune time to move from a spacious five-bedroom Colonial, with a yard and pool, to a two-bedroom condo in a dormant downtown. “We had to adjust because the lifestyle that we imagined didn’t really pan out right away,’’ he said.

The Sweigs’ former home in Franklin. —Jonathan Sweig

Sweig, who works in Cambridge, also had been looking forward to a shorter commute after traveling two hours a day for work. He got his wish, of course, but not because of the move. “Ironically, now I’m 5 to 10 minutes away, and I’m not going to the office,’’ he said.

However, their first-floor unit still ticked a lot of boxes, Sweig said, with perks like an in-unit laundry setup and a patio for gardening and grilling. The couple have enjoyed strolling to favorite restaurants and walking their new puppy, a black Lab named Lilly, which has helped them make friends in the neighborhood. They’re now closer to Winthrop and its beaches, where Sweig grew up and likes to take the dog. And most important, one of their daughters lives downtown, too. “It was really hard to get her to come to our home in Franklin — now we see her once a week,’’ he said.

In fact, the top consideration for a lot of baby boomer buyers, Gillach said, has become proximity to adult kids and grandchildren. “They’re more and more interested in being near those they love, willing to give up that dream of what they were going to do in retirement to be near family,’’ Gillach said.

“Almost all the boomers I am working with seem to be moving to get closer to their adult children,’’ said Michelle Oates, a realtor with Coldwell Banker Realty in Andover. Some of her clients have even moved back from Florida to be near their kids. “COVID has afforded those who are still working with more of an opportunity to live where they want,’’ Oates added, “and I think it’s given all of us, boomers included, a new perspective on the importance of quality of life and spending time with our loved ones.’’

As Brian O’Connor and his wife planned to sell their family home in Reading, where they had raised three kids, they concluded that “Going south was out of the question.’’ The couple wanted to stay close to their children, all of whom have settled into good jobs in Boston, so they initially planned to buy something in or close to the city that would allow them to travel without worrying about maintenance. “I don’t want to be snowblowing anymore,’’ said O’Connor, 60.

Then, COVID hit, and the idea of urban living lost some of its luster. “We began to consider slightly more secluded locations away from the city that still had easy access to Boston,’’ O’Connor said. The couple purchased a new home at Millwood Preserve, a 55-plus community in Framingham across from 820-acre Callahan State Park. “With the large state park right next door for hiking and beautiful farms nearby, we felt like we were deep in the country,’’ O’Connor said, “[but] Boston is only 30 minutes away down the Pike.’’

Those preferences represent near-universal trends in 55-plus housing, said Jane Marie O’Connor, a 55-plus housing consultant — some of which started before the pandemic, but have been further reinforced by the realities of COVID.

Jane Marie O’Connor said buyers looking at 55-plus communities want to be more connected to nature, placing a premium on nearby walking trails, and have a new appreciation for outdoor relaxation and entertaining. “People are putting in fire pits, fireplaces, and outdoor kitchens in covered areas that bring the inside out,’’ she said.

Another highly valued amenity at 55-plus communities are dog parks. “Dogs are a big deal,’’ O’Connor said, and have been for a few years. “Where communities didn’t allow dogs before, now they’re putting in dog parks, they’re putting in pet grooming rooms.’’ With the MSPCA reporting a 20 percent increase in pet adoptions last year, that’s unlikely to change.

Naturally, the pandemic has led all buyers, including baby boomers, to conduct more of their home search online, at least in the early stages. That means buyers who show up to tour homes are farther along in their decision-making than in years past, she said — and represent the leading edge of what will likely be a wave of buyers who may have been waiting out the pandemic. “There’s a pent-up demand, and we’re seeing that across the country,’’ she said.

That’s perhaps good news for younger buyers, who face a stifling shortage of homes for sale. “Most of my clients are the young families who desperately want these boomer houses, which aren’t coming on the market,’’ Oates said.

Absent any urgent need, a baby boomer’s timeline for “right-sizing’’ typically takes more than a year from the decision to sell until move-in day, Jane Marie O’Connor said, so some of last year’s sales were likely based on decisions made long before the pandemic.

Indeed, Rodney Harrell, vice president of family, home, and community at AARP, said it’s too soon to draw conclusions from last year.

“Housing decisions are big decisions, and typically take a while; unlike many consumer decisions, we can’t simply ‘return’ a home to the store and buy a new one,’’ Harrell said. “We do know that the desire to stay in one’s home has remained high over the years, and I don’t expect that to drop substantially as a result of COVID.’’

Compass realtor Kevin Caulfield has seen baby boomers reacting to the pandemic in a few ways.

“Some people stayed the course. They had a plan in terms of what they were doing, sold their house, and continued on with that plan and bought something and moved into Boston,’’ Caulfield said. Others have put that goal on hold until they can safely reap the benefits of an urban lifestyle, he added, and some have stayed put, with a renewed appreciation for their no-longer-empty nest. “[They’ve] enjoyed having their college-aged kids or young adult children at home through the pandemic, and they’ve put the space back to use,’’ he said.

But Caulfield, who is lead broker for The Archer, a new 62-unit luxury conversion in Beacon Hill, said he’s seeing renewed activity and interest in the city as case counts fall and more people are vaccinated.

Meanwhile, more than three-quarters of Americans over 55 own their homes, which means many baby boomers have realized quite a bit of equity in the past eight years as prices have surged. Perhaps seeking escape from COVID contagion and claustrophobia, some have used that home equity to purchase a second property in a more serene setting, from the Berkshires to Cape Cod. “A lot of people downtown have bought other places. They have bought vacation homes that they’re living at permanently right now,’’ Gillach said, “so the Cape has gone off the charts.’’

Sales of single-family homes surged more than 20 percent in both Berkshire and Barnstable counties in 2020, with median prices shooting up nearly 16 percent in both counties year over year, according to the Warren Group, a real estate analytics firm. Sales on Nantucket were up 71.2 percent, and the median price of a single-family sold on the island rose by 34.2 percent, to more than $2 million.

Bruce Jones, a writer and retired educator, beat the latest rush into Cape Cod real estate by about 37 years. Jones, 75, and his wife, Maggie, love their home — and its location, on a half acre in Barnstable Village overlooking woods and a kettle pond. “The yard kicks my ass in a way it didn’t used to,’’ Jones admitted — enough that he started looking at smaller condos in the area, where maintenance would be included in the homeowners association fee.

After all, Jones said, with most of their adult children and grandkids now living in the Pacific Northwest, there isn’t much stopping them from downsizing. So he casually asked a realtor friend about a condo that interested him, in a converted estate off Route 6A — and crashed into a churning real estate market at high tide.

“It had sold after being on the market just a few days,’’ Jones said, so he and his wife are likely to stay put, he said. “With COVID-19, we’ve re-embraced our house, renovated a first-floor bathroom for aging in place. We’re happy and thankful for what we have.’’

In the Back Bay, Sweig is similarly content and, perhaps typical of his generation, optimistic as he waits for Boston to return to its former vibrancy.

“I was always coming into Boston as a young kid, so this is like coming home for me,’’ he said. “It definitely took time to get used to living in a smaller space, but we’re really happy here.’’

Jon Gorey blogs about homes at HouseandHammer.com. Send comments to [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @jongorey. Subscribe to our free real estate newsletter at pages.email.bostonglobe.com/AddressSignUp. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @globehomes.

#Baby #Boomers #downsizing #Pandemic #reassess

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voodoochili · 3 years

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My Favorite Songs of 2020

With nowhere to go and nothing to do in 2020, I had plenty of time to listen to as much music as I could stand. Luckily for me and for everyone else, 2020 supplied an embarrassment of musical riches; the endless creativity of our artists providing necessary emotional support during the Worst Year Ever™.

I’ve compiled my favorite 100 songs of 2020. Again, I limited my selections to only one song per artist, but as you’ll see, I couldn’t quite stick to it this year. Narrowing the list down to 100 was a painful process, with many excellent songs left on the cutting room floor.

Check below for Spotify playlists

Top 100 Songs of 2020: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3ySKk19paBFgO698vw7HTs?si=-al-SyEsTqWzqKfmEraNFw Best Songs of 2020 (Refined): https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1ET0aA5TPj5JDsUtosaCVv?si=MyDxjcXKQpy3SNs7dV0wIQ Best Songs of 2020 (Catch-All): https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0XxtEo0PrNSyZDWBCjJtuR?si=pBZWRoNGSGWBCaqxJrHoyw

Without further ado, my favorite songs of 2020.:

25. Yg Teck - “What You Know”: Yg Teck has one of the more prominent Baltimore accents in rap music, elongating “ooh” sounds and shortening “er” sounds with reckless abandon. “What You Know” is buried towards the end of his excellent mixtape Eyes Won’t Close 2, but it stands out as one of Teck’s strongest songs. The buoyant piano-led beat offers Teck an opportunity to reflect on his struggle with heart-breaking directness: “So what if they hate me, sometimes I hate myself.”

24. Brian Brown - “Runnin” ft. Reaux Marquez: Filtering the conventions of southern rap through his easy-going drawl and omnivorous musical appetite, Brian Brown is the brightest light in Nashville’s burgeoning hip-hop scene. Built around producer Black Metaphor’s circuitous jazz piano, “Runnin” is a soulful and poetic meditation on breaking out of the staid existence that can creep up on you if you stay still for long enough. Brown serves up the song’s irresistible hook and provides a grounding presence on his second verse, evoking the styles of two Tennessee rap titans: Chattanooga’s Isaiah Rashad and Cashville’s own Starlito.

23. 42 Dugg - “One Of One” ft. Babyface Ray: Detroit producer Helluva’s beats provide the tissue that connects the Motor City with the West Coast, creating anthems that mix D-Town propulsion with soundscapes perfect for a top-down drive down PCH. The Helluva-produced “One Of One” is an electric duet between two of the D’s most distinct voices: low-talking, whistle-happy guest verse god 42 Dugg and nonchalantly fly Babyface Ray. They trade bars throughout the track, weaving between squelches of bass to talk about the ways women have done them wrong.

22. PG Ra & jetsonmade - “Keeping Time”: The phrase “young OG” was invented for guys like PG Ra, who is somehow only 20-years-old. On “Keeping Time,” the South Carolina rapper spits sage-like wisdom about street life over Jetsonmade’s signature trampoline 808s, decrying nihilism and emphasizing the importance of holding strong convictions in a deliberate, raspy drawl: “Oh, you don't give a fuck 'bout nothing, then you damn wrong/Cause every soldier stand for something if he stand strong.”

21. Empty Country - “Marian”: After spending a decade as the main songwriter for Cymbals Eat Guitars, Joseph D'Agostino is an expert at crafting widescreen indie anthems. CEG is no more, but D’Agostino is still doing his thing, opening the self-titled album of his new entity Empty Country with “Marian,” a chiming and heartfelt power ballad with sunny vocal harmonies and a fist-pumping riff. It’s hard to make out the lyrics on the first few spins, but a closer listen reveals some striking imagery (“In a sea of Virginia pines/A burnt bus”), as the narrator imagines the life that lies ahead for his newborn daughter.

20. Raveena - “Headaches”: Raveena’s music is a soothing balm, capable of transforming any negative emotion into peaceful reverie. “Headaches” starts as a sensual, woozy, reverbed-out slow jam–typical Raveena territory, perfect for emphasizing the enlightened sensuality that she exudes in her vocals. The song mutates in its second half into an invigorating bit of dream pop, picking up a ringing guitar riff and a prominent backbeat as Raveena struggles to stay close to the one she loves (“There's no sunset, without you”).

19. Los & Nutty - “I’m Jus Fuckin Around” ft. WB Cash: In which three Detroit emcees receive an instrumental funky enough for ‘90s DJ Quik and proceed to not only not ride the beat but to fight so hard against it you’d think they’re training to get in the ring with Mayweather. I love Michigan rap.

18. Sufjan Stevens - “My Rajneesh”: I’ve never seen Wild Wild Country, or read about Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and his cult, so I don’t know too much about the subject matter of “My Rajneesh.” I do know, however, that it’s a story that involves crises of faith and the state of Oregon, which means it fits perfectly into Sufjan’s milieu. “My Rajneesh” does an excellent job of relaying the ecstasy of a devout believer, layering celebratory chants, South Asian traditional percussion, and glitchy electronics into a 10-minute epic. As the song progresses, the sonic tapestry grows distorted, mimicking the emptiness that lies beneath Rajneesh’s surface and the darkness and confusion faced by his followers when the illusion fades.

17. Koffee - “Lockdown”: Leave it to rising dancehall superstar Koffee to find ebullient joy in a situation as bleak as quarantine. Weaving around piercing guitar licks and euphoric vocal samples, Koffee schemes to turn her lockdown romance (”quarantine ting”) into a long-term deal, fantasizing about travel with her love even as she’s content to just spend time in her apartment. Everything is dandy as long as they're in the same room.

16. Rio Da Yung OG & Louie Ray - “Movie”: Flint’s answer to Detroit’s “Bloxk Party,” one of the best rap songs of the past decade. Rio and Louie trade verses throughout the song, competing with one another to see who can be the most disrespectful.

Rio’s best line: “Ma don't drink that pop in there, I got purple in it/I know it look like Alka-Seltzer, it's a perky in it”

Louie’s best line: “Let me cut my arms off before I ball, make it fair”

15. Ratboys - “My Hands Grow”: “My Hands Grow” shines like an early-morning sunbeam, hitting that circa-2001 Saddle Creek* sweet spot with aplomb. But “My Hands Grow” is more than just a throwback–it’s an oasis, populated by sweeping acoustic guitars, electric leads with just the right amount of distortion, and especially Julia Steiner’s affectionate vocal, which blooms into gorgeous self-harmonies during the bridge.

*Obligated to add that this song came out before Azure Ray signed to Saddle Creek, but the point stands.

14. J Hus - “Triumph”: J Hus and Jae5 have the kind of telepathic artistic connection and song-elevating chemistry only present in the best rapper-producer pairs. A great example of how their alchemy blurs the lines between genres, “Triumph” is the J Hus/Jae5 version of a boom-bap rap track. Hus rides Jae5’s woodblock-and-horn-accented beat with unassailable confidence, gradually elevating his intensity level as he sprays his unflappable threats. Like most of Hus’s best songs, “Triumph” is home to an irresistible hook, which I can’t help but recite whenever I hear the words “violence,” “silence,” or “alliance” (more often than you think!).

13. Sada Baby - “Aktivated”: Every post-disco classic from the early ‘80s could use a little bit of Sada Baby’s wild-eyed intensity and dextrous flow. On “Aktivated,” Sada runs roughshod atop Kool & The Gang’s ‘81 classic “Get Down On It,” turning it into an irresistible and danceable anthem about going dumb off a Percocet. Sada is a master of controlled chaos, modulating his voice from a simmer to a full-throated yell within the space of a single bar. It really makes lines like “Coochie made me cry like Herb in the turtleneck” pop.

12. Yves Tumor - “Kerosene!”: Prince is one of the most-imitated artists on the planet, but while most artists can only grasp at his heels, Yves Tumor’s “Kerosene!” reaches a level of burning passion and sexual literacy that would make The Purple One proud. A duet with Diana Gordon, “Kerosene!” is a desperate plea for connection, each duet partner thinking that a passionate dalliance might cure the emptiness inside. The song vamps for five minutes, filled with guitar pyrotechnics and moaning vocals, its extended runtime and gradual comedown consigning the partners to a futile search for a self-sustaining love that won’t burn itself out when the passion fades.

11. Special Interest - “Street Pulse Beat”: “Street Pulse Beat” sounds like “Seven Nation Army,” as performed by post-punk legends Killing Joke. It’s a strutting, wild, propulsive anthem–part come-on, part self-actualization, all-powerful. Dominated by an insistent industrial beat and the fiery vocals of frontperson Alli Logout, whose performance more than lives up to the song’s grandiose lyrics (““I go by many names such as Mistress, Goddess, Allah, Jah, and Jesus Christ”), “Street Pulse Beat” was the song released this year that made me miss live music the most.

10. Megan Thee Stallion - “Savage” (Remix) ft. Beyonce: The first-ever collaboration between these two H-Town royals was the most quotable song of the year, firing off hot lines and memorable moments with an effortless majesty. Megan does her thing, bringing classy, bougie, and ratchet punchlines about the men who grovel at her feet, but it’s who Beyoncé elevates the track to transcendence. She prances around the outskirts of Megan’s verses, applying the full force of her lower register to her ad-libs (“THEM JEANS”), and during her verses, the Queen proves once again that you can count the number of rappers better than her on your fingers.

9. DJ Tunez - “Cool Me Down” ft. Wizkid: WizKid is almost alarmingly prolific, releasing enough amazing songs per year that he would be a worthy subject of his own “best-of” list. My favorite WizKid song of 2020 didn’t come from his excellent album Made In Lagos–instead it was this team-up with Brooklyn-based DJ Tunez. A favored collaborator of WizKid (Tunez is partially responsible for career highlights like 2019’s “Cover Me” and 2020’s “PAMI”), Tunez’s organic and textured approach to Afrobeats is an excellent fit for his voice, mixing swelling organs, 808 blocks, and the occasional stab of saxophone into a percolating concoction. The “Starboy” rises to the occasion, hypnotically repeating phrases in English and Yoruba, making octave-sized leaps in his vocal register, and stretching syllables like taffy as he sings the praises of his lady love.

8. Sorry - “Rock ‘n’ Roll Star”: Part swaggering indie anthem and part skronking no wave, “Rock ‘n’ Roll Star” struts with the woozy confidence of someone who’s had just the right amount to drink. It’s the ideal throwback to late L.E.S. (or Shoreditch) nights, sung with irresistible gang vocals on the chorus and a detached sneer on the verse that jibes with the sinister undertones of the deliberately off-key backing track.

7. Destroyer - “Cue Synthesizer”: As Dan Bejar ages, he becomes less like a singer and more like a shaman, his incantatory near-spoken word verses grounding his band’s instrumental heroics. On “Cue Synthesizer,” Bejar plays the role of conjurer, summoning synthesizers and electric guitars in celebration of music’s ability to breathe life into modern mundanity.

6. Chloe x Halle - “Do It”: Pillow-soft R&B that walks the fine line between retro and futuristic, powered by the Bailey Sisters’ playfully twisty melodies and sumptuous production from a somewhat unexpected source. That’s right, piano man Scott Storch took a break from smoking blunts with Berner to deliver his smoothest beat since he teamed with Chloe x Halle mentor Beyoncé for “Me Myself & I” in 2003.

5. Fireboy DML - “ELI”: Nigeria singer Fireboy DML is an unabashed fan of ‘90s adult contemporary, worshipping idols (‘90s Elton John, Celine Dion) that even some devout poptimists wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. A modern-day retelling of the Biblical fable of Samson and Delilah, “ELI” seems to take inspiration from Ace of Base’s “All That She Wants,” its rocksteady beat, wobbling bassline, snake-charming flute, and “lonely girl, lonely world” lyrics recalling the 1994 Swedish pop smash. It’s a testament to Fireboy’s charisma and melodic mastery that “ELI” is as invigorating as “All That She Wants” is annoying. He switches from playful flirtation on the verse, to hopeless devotion on the chorus, to lascivious swagger on the bridge, gently ratcheting up the intensity in his vocals until the song’s climactic guitar solo* grants glorious release. *The build-up on “ELI” is so great that it makes it easy to ignore that the guitar solo itself is a mess. It sounds like the producers couldn’t get Carlos Santana, so they settled for Andre 3000 instead.

4. The Beths - “Dying To Believe”: If you’ve ever audibly cringed while thinking about something you’ve said or done in the past, The Beths have the song for you. Carried by its driving backbeat, “Dying To Believe” chronicles singer Liz Stokes’s rumination on a crumbling friendship, her fear of confrontation preventing her from removing her toxic friend from her life. Though the lyric is pained and uncertain, there’s no such lack of confidence in the music. An adrenaline rush of muscular, sugary power pop, “Dying To Believe” is an immaculate construction, each fuzzy guitar riff arriving with mathematical precision and each “whoa-oh” chorus hitting like a ton of bricks. Jump Rope Gazers might not have been as consistent as the Auckland, NZ band’s self-titled debut, but “Dying To Believe” is as good as anything on that album and helps solidify The Beths’ deserved reputation as some of the best songwriters and tightest performers on either side of the International Date Line.

3. The 1975 - “What Should I Say”/“If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know)”: I know, I know. I was supposed to only pick one song per artist, but sue me, this is my list and I just could not decide between these two. The 1975 have always balanced their affinity for ‘80s-style pop anthems with an interest in experimental electronic music. In 2020, they released the two very best songs of their career, each seemingly fitting into one of those two boxes. On its face, “If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know)” is the band’s transparent attempt at recording their own “Everybody Wants To Rule The World”–it’s in D Major, it has a chugging backbeat, an echoing two-chord riff in the verse, and an ascending E Minor progression in the pre-chorus. Where the Tears For Fears classic takes a birds-eye look at the yuppie generation, Matty Healy uses his song’s swelling bombast and gleefully cheesy sax solo to explore the awkward intimacy of cyber sex. The burbling Eno-style synth that opens up “If You’re Too Shy” evokes a dial-up connection, simulating the thrill of discovery felt by those whose only connection to the outside world comes through their screens.

“What Should I Say,” meanwhile, combines Boards Of Canada-esque bloops with bassline that strongly resembles Mr. Fingers’ oft-sampled “Mystery Of Love”, over which Healy sings in a heavily-manipulated voice that sounds like the lovechild of Travis Scott and Sam Smith. Fittingly for a song about loss for words, the best moments of “What Should I Say” spring from vocal manipulations, imparting more emotional resonance than mere words could ever hope to provide. The final minute of “What Should I Say” is almost tear-jerkingly beautiful, as a single computerized voice cuts through cacophony, determined to let the world know how it feels, language be damned.

2. King Von - “Took Her To The O”: His career was far too short, but King Von had plenty of chances to demonstrate his god-given storytelling ability before he passed away in November. Accompanied by regular collaborator Chopsquad DJ’s chaotic, circular pianos, Von recounts an eventful night in his home neighborhood of O’Block. Von’s gripping narrative is packed with writerly detail (“Nine missed calls, three of them from ‘Mom,’ other six say ‘Duck’”), peeking into his justifiably paranoid state-of-mind (“My Glock on my lap, I'm just thinkin' smart”) and ending with a smirk on a bit of gallows humor that recalls prime Ghostface. Long Live Von.

1. Bob Dylan - “I’ve Made Up My Mind To Give Myself to You”: It’s impossible to escape that 2020 was a year of mass devastation, on a scale not seen in American life since the second World War. In the midst of the cascading chaos of this year, I married my best friend. So it’s fitting that the song that resonated most with me this year was “Throat Baby (Go Baby)” by BRS Kash.

*Ahem* Excuse me. It was a love song, and not just any love song: the finest love song of Bob Dylan’s six-decade, Nobel Prize-winning career.

Bob Dylan spent much of the 2010s trying his hand at the Great American Songbook, applying his craggy croon to standards made famous by Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra. It felt like a weird turn for such an iconoclastic figure, one known for his massive (and valuable) library of originals. “I’ve Made Up My Mind To Give Myself To You” proves that Bob’s covers and Christmas albums weren’t larks or cash grabs, but an old dog’s attempt to learn new tricks by digging into the past.

“IMUMMTGMTY” shares a lot of DNA with “The Way You Look Tonight” and “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” bringing florid metaphors and touching pledges of devotion, but it also inherently understands that love is a decision–a weighty decision that imparts great responsibility–as much as it’s a feeling. What really makes “IMUMM” sing is the tastefully folksy arrangement, which ties into the old weird America explored by Dylan’s compadres in The Band, filled with bright Telecaster leads and easily-hummed choruses. And the lyrics are excellent even by Bob’s elevated standards. It turns me into a puddle every time I listen. I’ll let Bob take it from here:

Well, my heart's like a river, a river that sings Just takes me a while to realize things I've seen the sunrise, I've seen the dawn I'll lay down beside you when everyone's gone

Here’s the rest of the list. Check back later this week for my albums list!

26. Katie Gately - “Waltz” 27. Bonny Light Horseman - “Bonny Light Horseman” 28. Bullion - “Hula” 29. Omah Lay - “Lo Lo” 30. Greg Dulli - “Sempre” 31. Fiona Apple - “Shameika” 32. Anjimilie - “Your Tree” 33. Key Glock - “Look At They Face” 34. Lido Pimienta - “Te Queria” 35. Morray - “Quicksand” 36. Obongjayar - “10K” 37. Xenia Rubinos - “Who Shot Ya?” 38. Kiana Lede - “Protection” 39. Flo Milli - “Weak” 40. G.T. - “What You Gon Do” 41. Chris Crack - “Hoes At Trader Joe’s” 42. Lil Baby - “The Bigger Picture” 43. The Orielles - “Memoirs of Miso” 44. Shoreline Mafia - “Change Ya Life” 45. Masego - “Mystery Lady” ft. Don Toliver 46. Junglepussy - “Out My Window” ft. Ian Isiah 47. Siete Gang Yabbie - “Gift Of Gab” 48. Rosalía - “Juro Que” 49. Black Noi$e - “Mutha Magick” ft. BbyMutha 50. BFB Da Packman - “Free Joe Exotic” ft. Sada Baby 51. Andras - “Poppy” 52. Lianne La Havas - “Weird Fishes” 53. Crack Cloud - “Tunnel Vision” 54. Lil Uzi Vert - “No Auto” ft. Lil Durk 55. Fred again… - “Kyle (I Found You)” 56. Burna Boy - “Wonderful” 57. Lonnie Holliday - “Crystal Doorknob” 58. Mozzy - “Bulletproofly” 59. Tiwa Savage - “Koroba” 60. Frances Quinlan - “Your Reply” 61. Ariana Grande - “my hair” 62. Bad Bunny - “Safaera” ft. Jowell & Randy & Ñengo Flow 63. Yhung T.O. & DaBoii - “Forever Ballin” 64. Katie Pruitt - “Out Of The Blue” 65. Sleepy Hallow - “Molly” ft. Sheff G 66. Niniola - “Addicted” 67. Prado - “STEPHEN” 68. Drakeo The Ruler - “GTA VI” 69. Boldy James - “Monte Cristo” 70. Caribou - “Like I Loved You” 71. Andy Shauf - “Living Room” 72. Hailu Mergia - “Yene Mircha” 73. Kabza de Small & DJ Maphorisa - “eMcimbini” ft Aymos, Samthing Soweto, Mas Musiq 74. Gunna - “Dollaz On My Head” ft. Young Thug 75. Roddy Ricch - “The Box” 76. The Lemon Twigs - “Hell On Wheels” 77. Sun-El Musician - “Emoyeni” ft. Simmy & Khuzani 78. Madeline Kenney - “Sucker” 79. Natanael Cano - “Que Benedicion” 80. ShooterGang Kony - “Jungle” 81. Don Toliver - “After Party” 82. Chicano Batman - “Color my life” 83. Pa Salieu - “Betty” 84. Chubby & The Gang - “Trouble (You Were Always On My Mind)” 85. Dua Lipa - “Love Again” 86. Rucci - “Understand” ft. Blxst 87. Skilla Baby - “Carmelo Bryant” ft. Sada Baby 88. Bartees Strange - “Boomer” 89. Jessie Ware - “Read My Lips” 90. The Hernandez Bros. & LUSTBASS - “At The End Of Time” 91. Brokeasf - “How” ft. 42 Dugg 92. Mulatto - “No Hook” 93. Eddie Chacon - “Outside” 94. Veeze - “Law N Order” 95. Polo G - “33” 96. Bktherula - “Summer” 97. Jessy Lanza - “Anyone Around” 98. Perfume Genius - “On The Floor” 99. ComptonAssTg - “I’m Thuggin’” 100. Mario Judah - “Die Very Rough”

Honorable Mentions: Jamila Woods - “SULA (Paperback)” Demae - “Stuck In A Daze” ft. Ego Ella May Good Sad Happy Bad - “Bubble” Guerilla Toss - “Human Girl” Kaash Paige - “Grammy Week” ft. Don Toliver Kre8 & CJ Santana - “Slide!” Laura Veirs - “Another Space & Time” Angelica Garcia - “Jicama” Malome Vector - “Dumelang” ft. Blaq Diamond OMB Bloodbath - “Dropout” ft. Maxo Kream SahBabii - “Soulja Slim” Shabason, Krgovich & Harris - “Friday Afternoon” Skillibeng - “Mr. Universe” Waxahatchee - “Fire” Westerman - “Float Over”

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perfectirishgifts · 3 years

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Q&A: Young The Giant’s Francois Comtois On Leading A Cooking Class And The Bond Between Food And Music

New Post has been published on https://perfectirishgifts.com/qa-young-the-giants-francois-comtois-on-leading-a-cooking-class-and-the-bond-between-food-and-music/

Q&A: Young The Giant’s Francois Comtois On Leading A Cooking Class And The Bond Between Food And Music

INGLEWOOD, CA – DECEMBER 09: (L-R) Francois Comtois, Payam Doostzadeh, Sameer Gadhia, Jacob Tilley … [] and Eric Cannata of Young the Giant attend KROQ Absolut Almost Acoustic Christmas at The Forum on December 9, 2018 in Inglewood, California. (Photo by Rich Polk/Getty Images for KROQ/Entercom)

As Young The Giant drummer Francois Comtois explains, food is a big part of a touring musician’s life. Whether it’s finding a favorite restaurant on the road, bonding with another band over a meal or enjoying cooking while at home, food and music share a symbiotic bond for artists.

So as someone who loves food and cooking, Comtois is thrilled to be leading an online cooking class this Friday, December 11, at 7 PM EST/4 PM PST for Impastiamo. Comtois will lead the virtual class in cooking Moqueca De Peixe, a Brazilian seafood stew, followed by an acoustic performance by Young The Giant.

ImpastiamoMoqueca De Peixe (Fish Moqueca) with Young the Giant | Impastiamo

The proceeds from the class, the first in a series called Feed The Music, will benefit Crew Nation, a fund dedicated to helping out of work live music crews. It’s a natural next step for Impastiamo, which, as I wrote about earlier this year, is the brainchild of Silvia Carluccio, a former Live Nation Los Angeles employee originally from Italy, who brought together her loves of food, music and events.

I spoke to Comtois about the bond between music and food, his favorite meal with another band, the artists he’d love to see lead a cooking class and the creativity behind cooking.

Steve Baltin: What are you going to be cooking for this first class?

Francois Comtois: I’m going to be making Moqueca [De Peixe], which is a Brazilian seafood soup. My wife is from Rio and it was one of the first dishes I tried to learn how to make to ingratiate myself with her family. I think it’s close enough to authentic now that I feel comfortable making it in front of a group of people.

Baltin: Good cooking can be very creative in a similar way that music is. Many artists love cooking, sometimes as a sort of a therapeutic release. Is that the case for you?

Comtois: Definitely. I’ve been cooking probably 95 percent of our meals since the lockdown started. I always enjoy cooking when I come home from tour, but I’m using this time as an opportunity to dig a little bit deeper into some of the techniques I’ve been playing around with, and sort of revamp my approach. I do see such a huge connection between food and music as art forms; particularly where you have this group of, whether they’re ingredients or sounds, and you have your basic techniques which allow you to manipulate them, and then beyond that, the world’s your oyster. You can kind of do whatever you want. I’ve found that they’re connected, and I do find a lot of peace in disconnecting myself and taking a moment to cook whenever I can.

Baltin: Is cooking a creative process for you as well? Do you cook off a recipe or go with what you know?

Comtois: I do a little bit of both. I learned a lot of the techniques I know from watching my mom cook, So I would make her recipes, and then after a while, you sort of figure out what works and what doesn’t. You can start to bend those rules or incorporate different flavors or ingredients. So, half the time I find new recipes that excite me, and the other half of the time I’m just trying to build up a repertoire.

Baltin: So take me through what Moqueca is. Is it a traditional family recipe of yours, or do you get to be creative with it as well?

Comtois: It is pretty traditional. There’s an ingredient that you really do need to add to make it taste authentic—red palm oil. Basically it’s just the Brazilian version of that quintessential seafood stew. You have all these different cultures that have coastal presence that have come up with their own iterations of it. So this is the Brazilian version from the region called Paella, I think. It’s tough; I tried to make it a couple of times early on when I was dating my now wife, and she would always say, “This isn’t right. It’s good, but it tastes like maybe a Thai version of the dish because there’s a lot of coconut milk in it.” So, I resigned myself to reading a bunch of recipes for it in Portuguese and trying to figure out what it was that made it authentic. I realized you just have to put a bunch of one ingredient in it and that gave it the traditional Moqueca taste. You can go crazy with seafood, too. This one I’m making with shrimp and white fish, but you could incorporate muscles and squid, basically anything that you have handy.

Baltin: Well, that does sound really good. Now I’m getting hungry for seafood. So readers understand, the proceeds from this cooking show are going to help crew that have been out of work.

Comtois: Yeah, that’s correct. The food service industry was hit disproportionately and so immediately by the shutdown. We’re trying to see if there’s a way that we can do what that industry did in response, but for the live touring industry which has also been hit just as profoundly. There does seem to be a huge connection between cooking and music. There are a lot of artists in the touring world who are very interested in going out to different restaurants and also cooking themselves. It just felt like a natural pairing. Basically, we’re opening up artists to find a dish that means something to them, do one of these cooking classes that Silvia [Carluccio] started through Impastiamo, and then add a little performance, acoustic streaming component to it. We think it’s an interesting way of raising funds and a profile of what is happening in the live touring industry right now.

Baltin: Do the other guys in the band cook a lot as well?

Comtois: I think I probably cook the most. But I would say it’s a huge part of our lives on the road though, to find a good restaurant and we’re always on the lookout for that. There’s definitely a huge connection with food and the band.

Baltin: Are there other bands that you’ve shared a bond over food with that should have their own class, that would be good to participate in this program?

Comtois: We just started to reach out to different artists and we got some interest back from COIN. They’re on our management, we toured with them last year, and they’ve got a couple of recipes of theirs, so we’re talking about possibly working with them. I was just on a call with Brian [Aubert] from Silversun Pickups. His wife owns this amazing catering company, so he has a connection to food. Silvia has been in touch with Roy Choi about possibly playing with a couple of different artists. It’s still definitely early days, and we’re hoping that December 11th shows that this is a viable solution, and beyond that, we want to get the word out. We do think it’s kind of an interesting way to address this issue.

Baltin: How far back do you and Silvia go? I love what she’s done with the cooking classes, coming from music.

Comtois: It’s just so inspiring to see what it started as and what it’s become. I’ve had a chance to do a couple of the classes and they they’re really, really great for a host of reasons. I met Silvia ten years ago, maybe more. We were doing our residency at Detroit Bar in Costa Mesa, which is not Detroit Bar anymore, but was a really fun venue in Orange County. She came to one of our shows and kept in touch with the band. She worked at the Wiltern for years. She’s been a friend of ours and part of our friend group for a really long time. When this all started to happen, I basically told her, “Hey, whatever I can do with the Impastiamo side of things, even if it’s just posts and stuff on our socials, I’m so happy to help because it’s such a cool idea.” Then it evolved from there. We were thinking, because she does have that connection with food, how can we pair these two things together and do something that’s interesting, that’s different, but also doing some good.

Baltin: Do you feel like you’d be able to lead multiple classes or is this your one specialty dish?

Comtois: I would love to do multiple classes. The only restriction is you don’t want to include this ten-hour braise. Usually a lot of recipes call for that sort of preparation, which I guess you could have the participants do some of early on, but I do have some other recipes that I would be interested in bringing up. The other cool thing is we would love to be able to pair chefs in different cities with artists from the same city. There are a few different restaurants and chefs here that I really admire. I did a class with Natalia Pereira from Woodspoon, which is an amazing Brazilian restaurant in Downtown LA. We’re hoping, maybe there will be some sort of partnership in the future there where we’re just kind of watching and helping cut onions and stuff. Basically, they take the food side of things and we can focus on the music. I’m definitely hoping that this can become more consistent and can continue to raise those funds for the touring world.

Baltin: Silvia and I talked about the fact that this started out of necessity coming from the pandemic. But the reality is that this is something that could continue on afterwards. Would you mix a cooking class and shows?

Comtois: Yeah, it has been discussed loosely in the past. Obviously, COVID has been just such a disaster and it’s impossible to overstate how tragic everything surrounding it has been, but I am trying to maintain some sort of perspective and see if there is any sort of silver lining here. I think that a lot of people have been forced to become more creative and open their minds to what is possible, and I think this is a really good example of that. So moving forward, I would love to be able to incorporate more of this. Young The Giant just did a live stream of the first album for its ten-year anniversary and that was successful. It’s things that we wouldn’t have really tried to do. The saying that necessity is the mother of invention really comes into play here. I think that, moving forward, we’re going to be more open to different ways to engage with fans. Sharing your food tradition and sharing food with people are some of the ways, in my opinion, where you can connect almost immediately. And I think that it’s a really cool way to share a part of yourself with your fan base, if they’re into it. So, yeah, moving forward, we’d love to do more of this type of stuff.

Baltin: What would be your dream combination of food and artists to do a class with?

Comtois: I’m a giant Radiohead fan. Any time this happens, I automatically think of Radiohead. I don’t know, maybe fish and chips with Radiohead. Something along those lines would be pretty fun.

Balin: I actually saw them in a sushi restaurant here in L.A. once, so when I think of them, I think of sushi.

I can see sushi. There’s something about seafood and Radiohead that pairs nicely. Yeah, so sushi, fish and chips, depending on what they’re in the mood for. I would be open to either.

Baltin: It came up in an interview I was doing recently where Billy Corgan had joked about the fact that part of Smashing Pumpkins success came down to having the right chicken piccata recipe on the right day. Is there a dish that you credit the success of Young the Giant to?

Comtois: There are probably a couple. When we first started recording and we dropped out of school, quit our jobs, and decided we wanted to try to pursue music, we basically ate Trader Joe’s orange chicken, like all the time, because it was really cheap, we could make big batches, and it’s like fried rice. Trader Joe’s orange chicken is pretty much what sustained us while we were writing the first album. So, I don’t know if it was a single version of that dish, but we might not even be here if we hadn’t had that to rely on. That and chicken Cesar salad. Beyond that, I think just in general sharing food, there’s always the meal when you’re on tour. It’s kind of weird, there’s a summer camp vibe to touring, and like you’re a little apprehensive, you’re kind of trying to play it cool in your corner, and there’s always that meal where you finally go out with like all of the crew and the touring acts all go out together and bond over food. And to me, that’s always the moment where a tour goes from being maybe a little apprehensive to we’re all really good friends and we’re going to hang out after we get back home and all that stuff. So it is a huge part of our lives as musicians.

Baltin: What’s for you been the favorite meal with the favorite touring band? That one memorable one that really stands out?

Comtois: One of our first tours was with Incubus. We supported them, and they actually took us out to Nobu. I just remember being so blown away. They obviously had been successful for a while. They knew how to operate in that world, and we did not at the time—we were probably eating at a lot of like Subways and places like that. So we go out to this meal and they’re ordering just the whole menu. I was like, “Man, we should stick with this music thing. We’ll be here in a few years’ time.”

Baltin: What do you want people to know who sign up for your class on December 11th?

Comtois: I’m just making food and shooting the s**t essentially, and just trying to make a connection with these people. We’re going to do a very quick performance after, but this is unvarnished. You’re going to be in our kitchen at our band house, and we’re looking forward to sharing that part of ourselves with our fans. Also, it’s a moment where the crew touring world really does need support and needs to be acknowledged for how big of a part they play when you go see a concert. You see the band and you’re enjoying yourself, but I don’t know if a lot of people really recognize this giant team that has to come behind that band to make it happen. It’s important to acknowledge just how important they are. I’m hoping that this grows into something bigger, but for the time being, we’re just gonna see if it works. I feel pretty optimistic about it.

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mhsn033 · 4 years

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Edinburgh v Glasgow Warriors: Rory Sutherland relishing nerves of ‘must-win’ game

Rory Sutherland made an sight-catching atomize for Scotland in February’s 13-6 defeat by England

Venue: Murrayfield Stadium Date: Saturday, 22 August Kick-off: 17: 15 BST Protection: Live commentary on BBC Radio Scotland, are living text updates on BBC Sport web site & app

The storm-lashed Calcutta Cup had been such a joyless grind that no one was once willing for what took speak in the early moments of the 2nd half at Murrayfield in the pre-lockdown days of early February.

After 42 minutes of unhappy kicks, dropped passes, misplaced lineouts and collapsed scrums, some lawful rugby broke out without be aware. Shock, awe; somebody went thru a gap. Clearly bored to dying anticipating the aptitude gamers to withhold out it, Rory Sutherland stepped up.

All of it appears to be so plot back now, but the moment serene causes the Scotland loosehead to verbalize. “I truly concept one thing was once harmful on the subject because I threw this absolutely ridiculous dummy and everybody fell for it,” he recalls.

What’s at stake as Edinburgh face Glasgow?

Engage your mixed Edinburgh-Glasgow XV

“I concept, ‘Cling on, it would’t be appropriate that everybody sold that dummy. Has the ref blown the whistle or what?’

“Then the M6 unfolded in entrance of me and I ran. For the principle couple of seconds, I was once going, ‘I’m scoring right here, I’m scoring’, then I remembered that there was once a rotund-back and a winger chasing me. ‘You’re no’ scoring right here, you’re no’ scoring’.

“I loved it, though. Now not losing, but playing at Murrayfield for Scotland. I absolutely bloody loved it.”

‘Those 14 months were absolute hell’

Rugby is back, which manner Sutherland is back, which manner we’ll get to study how his fairytale fable develops over the route of what is generally a momentous one year, from a Professional14 match for Edinburgh in opposition to Glasgow Warriors on Saturday to a attainable British & Irish Lions tour 10 months from now.

Sutherland’s scrummaging, ball-carrying and all-round work-price was once so appropriate in the Six Nations that he was once a popular resolve when folk played the lockdown game of ‘Establish Your Lions Team’.

Sir Ian McGeechan, Brian O’Driscoll and Will Greenwood all picked Sutherland because the starting Check loosehead. Lawrence Dallaglio said he found it no longer attainable to separate Sutherland, Mako Vunipola and Joe Marler.

Rory Sutherland (left) has battled back from a profession-threatening knee injury that also requires strapping

Everybody was once blown away by his performances and his fable. Saturday in opposition to Glasgow – “a must always-ranking” – is the next chapter in what’s an story sage of victory over horrendous injury, anxiousness and depression.

Sutherland and his long-time partner, Tammy, obtained married a pair of weeks back. What a bolt they’ve been on. The 2 of them, plus their boys, eight-one year-old Mason – “a amassed and aloof exiguous soul” – and 4-one year-old Hamish – “who’ll either be a mind surgeon or a gangster when he grows up”.

The vital parts of his strive in opposition to are known and, though it gets rather boring reliving it all all any other time, he is aware of that it be thanks to what took speak to him in the spring of 2016 that he’s who he is at the contemporary time.

In blowing his adductor muscle groups off the bone and into kingdom attain, after which enduring bilateral groin reconstruction, the prospects of him strolling and working nicely all any other time weren’t excessive. By no manner mind rugby. The fright at the time was once that the remainder of his life might possibly possibly well possibly be compromised by his injury.

His first concept is for his wife. “The stuff she had to place up with, seeing to the adolescents in the morning after which helping me off the bed, no longer many folk have any thought what it was once admire,” Sutherland says. “She was once superwoman.

“That 14 months was once absolute hell – anxiousness and depression and all other forms of feelings that you create no longer study about. I had to study a bunch of experts and numerous of the doctors I talked to would speak I mustn’t even soak up mind playing all any other time. So from going from official sport to somebody telling you that commonplace life might possibly possibly well possibly no longer be the identical all any other time was once nefarious.

“I’m no longer particular if I’ve said this sooner than, but the principle surgical treatment failed due to the a rotten an infection. They had to begin it up and return in. They said they would well possibly now not bolt in a third time, so when I went home, I was once to cease in bed for a month.

“After that, if I needed to leave the home, it needed to be in a wheelchair. I’ve spoken about all of it sooner than, but I’m in a position to’t get away from the incontrovertible reality that every particular person amongst that made me who I’m. It could in all probability well possibly sound deep and rather tacky, however it be appropriate.”

The debate of the Lions is nicely put in context. Whereas you virtually lose all the pieces, then making huge plans about the future is rather of a mug’s game. “Every every so often I will fantasise about what it might possibly possibly possibly well possibly be admire, however it would now not final long. I snap out of it lovely lickety-split,” he admits.

‘The requires are massive’

We’re now coming into arguably basically the most intense length of massive-time rugby in the history of the game. The Professional14 must always be played to a conclusion in four successive weeks, adopted by a European Scenario Cup quarter-closing with Bordeaux in week 5.

Arrive the third week of October, the advise moves to the Check enviornment. Scotland will have six fits sooner than the pause of the one year. There will be extra Professional14, extra Europe, the 2021 Six Nations and, for the chosen few, the 2021 Lions tour, presuming it goes ahead.

For the elite, right here’s going to be a marathon speed at a heart-distance runner’s dash.

Rory Sutherland is hoping to lead Edinburgh to a condominium sem-closing in the Professional14

In his contemporary e book, the extinct England captain, Dylan Hartley, writes of the realities of standard rugby where gamers “gobble painkillers admire Smarties” and are put collectively “with stitches and glue” sooner than being “chewed up and spat out”.

Whereas you read these traces to Sutherland, he understands where Hartley is coming from. “Yeah, absolutely,” he says. “The requires for your physique are massive. The manner the game is evolving, there are requires on gamers to be healthier, quicker and stronger.

“We’re regarded after, but in case you play, practice, play, practice, it be a truly no longer easy cycle to be on. Painkillers, I know how rotten they’re going to even be. After my injury, I was once on a bunch of a bunch of painkillers to accommodate it. To now not practice or to play, appropriate to get thru the day, sitting at home or strolling around the home. Very sturdy painkillers and a bunch of them. My household old to claim I regarded grey, admire a ghost. Or no longer it’s a truly vital subject, this.

“What Hartley is talking about is, must you are going to have a niggle, you are going to need some painkillers to get thru it for the weekend game. Or no longer it’s a dog-luxuriate in-dog world in official sport.

“Whereas you are no longer willing to head a pair of weeks of having to steal painkillers to practice and play then there might possibly possibly well possibly be somebody else in a position to steal your condominium. That is the truth of it. Whereas you are no longer willing to create these sacrifices, somebody else might possibly possibly well possibly and they’re going to be the one playing every week.”

‘We will all be blowing the cobwebs off’

He says he’ll be fearful sooner than the Glasgow game. Nothing contemporary there. He can remember being bodily sick sooner than video games at college. Having no longer played a Check match since June 2016, he started in opposition to Ireland in Dublin in the gap round of the 2020 Six Nations and the nerves came all any other time.

Paraphrasing, whereas in a position to head out on the pitch at the Aviva, there was once a fright of a commotion in the bowel department, in case you get his drift.

“I did nicely in opposition to Tadhg Furlong in that match,” he says. “I obtained around the pitch and I obtained self-perception. At one level, I appropriate said to myself, ‘I’m doing all appropriate right here, I’m in a position to operate this’. I will be bricking it all any other time on Saturday. Nerves are a appropriate yelp.”

An Edinburgh victory and a Munster defeat in Dublin would give Sutherland’s team a condominium semi-closing, possibly in opposition to Ulster. A defeat and the fright of an away semi-closing in opposition to Leinster becomes an exact prospect.

“Now we have got to ranking, absolutely,” he says. “And that’s one thing we have been using in any respect week. We’re high of our pool and now we have to cease there. Glasgow will be doing their damndest to create certain we create no longer. We will all be blowing the cobwebs off. It will be stress-free. It will be tall to come all any other time accessible.”

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phoenixknightv2 · 4 years

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State of the REALUnion: CoronaPaused (The version with a very raunchy yet funny yet true prospective moment)

Hi everybody,

First and foremost i hope everybody is doing well and staying safe during this tough time. It has not been easy, i can only imagine. My thoughts and prayers are with everybody during this time. I’m here tonight to bring some prospective on the current situation at hand. Here is what is on tap.

-The state of the Pandemic

-Conservative vs Liberal Media During this

-Personal Message for President Trump and Congress

-Where i stand

-A Message to my loved ones

In the Great Words of Chris Cuomo, Lets get after it.

The state of the Pandemic in the US

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Never in my lifetime, never in any of our lifetimes did we ever expect to go through something like this. Ever since the Influenza Pandemic, the swine flu, the H1N1, ebola. Those were easily controllable. CoVid-19, holy dear mother of god this has just gotten out of control. We’re reopening yet the numbers in a good chunk of the country have continued to go up. POTUS yet thinks that is a badge of honor. Seriously?!?!?!?!!??!?!!? In Texas, we are emerging as a hotspot. I’ll address that more in a bit. As i have said before, capitalism has taken over this country where the money talks. If money talks then ok there we go, we’re going to do what the money tells us. That is what the Red states like Texas, Florida, Georgia, etc have done. The Blue states continue to play it smart. New York especially.

The Winners of the CoVid 19 Pandemic

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Doctors

Nurses

Chris Cuomo

My Girlfriend

Joe and Mika Scarborough

Mitt Romney

Dr. Bright

My Father

His Team

H-E-B

Andrew Cuomo (Yes i know about the Nursing Home mistake. He’s been better than most Of Congress however. Congress does shady shit on purpose. No one bats a fucking eye)

Bernie Sanders

The Last Dance Documentary

President Obama

Dr. Fauci

Mayor Adler

Dr. Birks

Senator Lamar Alexander

Bill Lee

Mike DeWine

Liz Cheney

The Losers

---------------------------------------------------

Greg Abbott

Donald Trump

Dan Patrick

Ron DeSantis

Brian Kemp

Fox News

Sean Hannity

Louie Gohmert

The Majority Of the Rest of Congress

Trump Supporters

Now i get it, we all have to make money to survive but the experts continue to say hey reopening without a proper plan is not the way to go but a good chunk of the states especially the red states are saying no no no, we’re reopening anyways. Its because of the fucking money. Yes we need to survive. Yes we need to make money for rent, for food, for bills, for all the responsibilities and then when the responsibilities are caught up then for the fun shit. But if experts are saying woah woah woah hold on a second we’re rushing fast here, if we start to lean back on the things that were working to fight CoVid-19 then we’re going to have a second wave and it’s going to be alot worse. We are going to have to lock back down, and let me tell you what, if that happens Riots are going to happen and more people are going to die. Let me tell you this as well, it scares me.

It scares me for afew reasons.

1. Crimes are going to be at an all time high.

Note: My old man and i are ready to defend ourselves and our castle. If we have to fight to defend ourselves and our loved ones, i won’t be afraid to do so. I’m not going to let the stupidity of our state government and our federal government igniting sick people to start riots stop us from protecting our loved ones.

2. It scares me for my girlfriend and her cat (And i love that cat like it’s my own daughter)

3. It scares me for one of my best friends who lives alone and her dog. (I love that fucking dog like it’s my own nephew and it’s the closest thing to a doggy friend i have since my three dogs left me years ago when they left with my bitch of an ex stepmom)

4. It scares me for the vulnerable

5. Scares me for the kids

6. Scares me for the rest of my loved ones.

It is very disgusting and the more this immature shit continues to happen, the more the riots are likely and i will do whatever i have to do to protect my loved ones. This country is falling apart. Just earlier tonight, i got pissed off when my father told me that a good chunk of people were back downtown and a good chunk of them were not following the safety guidelines just after Dr. Escott said earlier yesterday, we are effectively flattening the curve but we need to continue to do so especially if we want events like ACL and Longhorn football to start on time. Governor Abbott even though he’s a greedy brainless little pussy (i’ll give him some points on SOME not all but some things. More here shortly) has even said now is the time more than ever to continue to follow the guidelines even though we are all getting out of lockdown. (I’m still not out of quarantine unfortunately because i along with my old man have major skepticism of reopening earlier. More on THAT later on) Continue to wear masks even though they’re not required. (Governor, come on. I know you’re alot smarter that. If masks aren’t require then why is A) The numbers continue to go up tremendously to the point of where we are now a hot zone. Oh but wait a minute we’re still going to open. B) Why are people deciding to NOT listen to you and are deciding to say HEY THE VIRUS IS OVER!!!!!!!!)

I’m sorry no it is not. As a matter of fact, the numbers continue to go up especially in the Lonestar State)

It’s going to be alot worse governor if you don’t do the right thing. We got one shot to do this right so you better pray to god you’re right because the 90,000 deaths are already on POTUS’s doorstep. Right now the Texas numbers recovery wise and death wise are actually pretty good. 29,359 Recovered and less than 2,000 people have died (RIP to those people by the way. My heart goes out to families of the victims of CoVid 19. I’am really deeply sorry that you’re going through this. It is saddening that y’all going through this.) Just really hope you don’t fuck it up governor. The cases continue to go up so hope you’re right and if you aren’t right, i’m going to laugh at you because of your failure and you realizing that ok i’m a moron.

To everyone who has lost someone or something, whether it’s your job, business, or someone you love and care about, i cannot even begin to imagine the pain you are going through. If there’s anything i can do whether it’s pray for you or be here for you just to talk to, i’m here. I will never fully understand but i’m here because i certainly don’t ever want that to happen to my loved ones.

Now before i continue, anybody wanna know why i posted a pic of this scumbag?!?!??!?! Because this ladies and gentlemen is Dan Patrick. Our Lt. Governor. I have criticisms of Abbott but this fuckass right here is well.....a fuckass. I would say Dipass like Rick did one time on Rick and Morty but no i’m going to take it a step further. Fuckass. You Dan Patrick are a die hard fuckass.

Here’s why...........

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fP1GkV06PYY

‘‘I’m sorry to say i was right on this!!”

A scumbag thing to say Mr. Lt Governor. Now what am i talking about?

When this first started, Dan Patrick said and i quote

‘‘There are senior citizens who are willing to die for the rest of us!!” ‘‘There are more important things than living!!”

I’m sorry what?!?!?!?!??!?!?! Yes i know the rest of what he said but Mr. Lt Governor that is the stupidest thing i’ve ever heard and one of the most crooked things i’ve ever heard. You sir i don’t give a rats ass if you’re 70, you deserve to get punched in the face. If not by me then by someone else or if at the very least a bag of diarrhea that consists of shit, hot sauce, the hottest tacos from torchys tacos, chips and queso. Because that is a shitty thing. Wanna know why?

Alot of my loved ones are the elderly. My grandma Sandra, my grandmother Bren, my grandpa Ben, and my grandfather Lou. And that’s just to name a few. But especially My grandma Sandra, Bren, and my grandfather Lou. Very close with them and you know what? I don’t want them to die. I want them to be able to meet the love of my life. And you know what else, i’m not the only one who has elderly loved ones that they’re close with. Alot of people in this country are close with their elderly relatives. That is a very offensive thing especially because almost 100,000 people are dead because of this virus. You should be ashamed of yourself Mr. Patrick. Lets address that second part. More important things than living? Money? Well how can we enjoy the money if we are dead? AHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA See i just answered your own question. Shame on you Patrick shame on you. I would like to be able to have my loved ones meet my love. I would like to meet my queen’s father as well. So shame on you Dan Patrick

Now lets get back to Abbott. Do i think he’s an idiot for not following the guidelines set by the white house that the White house itself and majority itself ain’t following? Oh yeah. But it’s not as bad as DeSantis who apparently is allegedly being accused of asking Florida Scientists to manipulate the numbers? Ok that’s just crooked as hell. So far Abbott hasn’t been found of doing the same thing but if a scientist in Texas came out and said that too....that wouldn’t surprise me but here’s what i will give Abbott credit for.....Actually caring about the nursing homes and the staff and residents especially making the tests available to them. Kudos for that. That doesn’t mean you’re safe from other criticisms but i hope you’re right because we cannot afford to continue the back and forth. Shut down for afew weeks then boom back open. The back and forth needs to not happen. I hope you’re right because i would love to get back to the fight but i will not be surprised if this backfired because you choose Trump over Science.

The Ongoing Liberal Vs Conservative Media War

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The Following are Exempt from this

-Chris Cuomo

- Joe and Mika Scarborough

Show you why here in a minute

But the rest are not exempt. If there is one thing ONE thing that Trump is not wrong on, it is in fact the media except Fox news needs to be added. Mostly His puppet Hannity, Tucker Carlson (Even though i sense and been seeing a turn in him lately) and that Bitch Laura Ingraham. Spewing Conservative conspiracy theories out the wazzoo. The Liberal media isn’t exempt from this either. I’ll get to them next. But conservatives are still spewing lies out of their mouth. Attacking the Medical community and of course STILL NOT LETTING GO OF RUSSIA!!!!!!!!!! CAN WE PLEASE JUST PUT THE FUCKING POLITICS ASIDE FOR ONE SECOND AND ALL OF US WORK TOGETHER!?!?!?!?!?!??!?! I thought this was gonna bring us closer together but no it has divided us further apart. Conservatives on fox news etc saying this is a hoax by the deep state, come on. I always make the joke of conservatives and liberals in the media and in congress need to just lock the door on capital hill for one night and either argue all night or order a shit ton of drugs and fuck it all out with one massive orgy like the orgy in the Seth Rogen animated movie sausage movie. If you don’t know what i’m talking about, watch that movie but viewer discretion advised that movie is raunchy as hell and the final scene where the orgy happens.

I’m serious.

Does Kaitlan Collins and Kayleigh McEnany need to go down on each other or have a threesome with Mitch McConnell’s wrinkly ass and have a Cuckold while his wife is watching?

Does Rachel Maddow and Poppy Harlow need to use a vibrator on each other while Hannity and Tucker are jerking each other off?

Does Lindsey Graham need to get it in with Tomi Lahren and her Fiance while Chuck Schumer is licking their assholes?

Does Nancy Pelosi and Melania need to take turns swapping POTUS’s cum?

Does Joe Biden and Donald Trump need to have a bisexual fuck in the presidental suite? (House of Cards Reference)

If it gets to the point where Kaitlan Collins is wearing her one night stand outfit and doing the walk of shame then Tomi Lahren and Kayleigh McEnany come up to her and do a threeway kiss on the news and wolf blitzer is asking how was your night with the biggest shit eating grin and Kaitlan Responds ‘’Wolf it was amazing. How was yours?’’ Wolf replies with something and then makes a body movement in regards to his nose being fucked up from snorting cocaine or where Trump and Biden are in the oval office actually working together. If a giant orgy takes them all to work together i’m all for it. LOL I had to get that out there now lets be serious.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/kayleigh-mcenany-slams-cnns-chris-cuomos-use-of-less-safe-drug-to-fight-coronavirus

I saw that article of Ms. McEnany slamming Chris Cuomo for taking non-hydroxychlorquine. I’m sorry Ms. McEnany, do you realize that you made yourself stupid by saying POTUS knows that his medicine doesn’t work yet SLAMMING CHRIS CUOMO WHO ACTUALLY HAD COVID-19!!!! Kayleigh you ma’am are dumb as rocks. Have you had CoVid-19? No. Chris and his family did. His wife and his son both ended up having CoVid you fucking FUCKASS. Did POTUS? NO!!!!! SO SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH AND JUST FOCUS ON TRYING TO SAVE YOUR JOB!!!!!!!! God such a fuckass.

But lets get to the rest of Fox News, watch this video made by Trevor Noah https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAh4uS4f78o

Then by the now this channel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DmW_H4U-MI

See where i’m going with this?!?!?!? THEY LIE!!!!!!!!!!! ONE MINUTE SAYING ITS A HOAX!!!!!!!!! NEXT MINUTE SAYING THEY NEVER SAID THAT!!!!!!

WHAT IN THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?!?!??!?!? ARE YOU DRINKING BLEACH LIKE TRUMP RECOMMENDED!?!?!?!?!? DID YOU DISINFECT YOURSELF WITH DISINFECTANT?!?!?!??! NOW IS NOT THE TIME FOR BULLSHIT CONSPIRACY THEORIES AND YES I’M LOOKING AT YOU AS WELL LIBERAL MEDIA!!!!! IF YOUR NAME IS NOT CHRIS CUOMO AND MIKA SCARBOROUGH OR JOE SCARBOROUGH THEN THE REST OF YOU IN THE MEDIA NEED TO REALIZE WHAT ARE WE DOING?!?!?!?!? CONGRESS IS DIVING US!!!!!! THEY CONTINUE TO LIE AND WE FALL FOR IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!!!!!!

Now lets go to the Liberal Media of MSNBC and CNN

Before i continue, Shoutout to Miss Mika for this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khmEjO-FEaE&t=62s

Someone finally had the balls to say it. Enough is enough. Trust me and i called POTUS out weeks ago for his whole Liberation tweets which is what i keep saying is what will lead to riots and i’m just going to say something and i need to get it off my chest. I’ll take it a step further. I have enough of the corruption of our country. Now i’m going to still continue to speak on it but i will not do anything further than that, but if i lose any of my loved ones then its game on. I’ll go to war. I’ll protect my loved ones or i will die trying. Enough is enough. This country is falling apart. Now do i thank the men and women who have risked their lives overseas for our freedoms? Of course. Do i especially now thank all the medical workers for fighting this horrible enemy that is CoVid 19? So that the rest of us are safe and we have a chance despite the fact our country is ran by idiots and also is filled with about 85 percent idiots who don’t give a damn about doing the right thing. Millennials including who think OH MY GOD THIS ISN’T A BIG DEAL!!!!! LETS GO OUT AND GET DRUNK AND POP BOTTLES AND PILLS ETC!!!!! Absolutely. I have a new found appreciation for the medical community.

But i will use my first amendment rights because the United States of America has a brand new nickname

What is it?

The United States of Stupidity

Land of the Rich

Home of the Stupid

That is what this country has become. If anybody is offended by that i’m sorry but it is true and the way congress has handled this CoVid catastrophe has proven my point. With the way POTUS has acted during this, is wrong.

Before i begin the Liberal side,

I’m proud to be an American, i’m proud of all the doctors and nurses, i’m proud of the men and women who have all risked their lives so that the rest of us can be safe. I tell my Girlfriend alot who is a nurse by the way that i’m proud of her and that she is my number 1 hero. Not all heroes wear capes. So to all the doctors and nurses and the military and the firefighters and the police offices (not all cops) i say thank you for your service. To all the doctors and nurses during the CoVid Pandemic, Thank you and god bless you now while i’m proud of them

A good chunk of this country’s citizens and A VERY GREAT CHUNK OF THIS COUNTRY’S LEADERS IN OFFICE, not so much.

Quick story, My old man and i hate Sean Hannity with a passion but one night while we were having Dinner, he did make a very great point why are we not hearing from more survivors of CoVid? I have to give him that but the difference is on the Liberal media we ARE hearing from more CoVid survivors compared to Conservative media. Conservative it’s conspiracy after conspiracy oh they’re going to take your rights away.

Now i have a question for people like Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham etc. Do you guys have kids? Do you guys love your loved ones like how the rest of us do? What happens if they catch CoVid? Are you still going to think it’s a hoax? Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo because then hopefully you people will wake up and realize what the fuck are we doing? Enough with the conspiracy theories

Now to the liberal media. Guys, you have the opportunity to say why are we doing this? Mika already called out POTUS earlier, you guys could have the opportunity to call for unity with Fox news. Why are you not doing so? When this is over if y’all wanna go back to hating each others guts, fine by me. I will be busy focusing on my loved ones and my future. Matter of fact when this is over , I probably won’t watch the news hardly if ever again unless its Cuomo or Morning Joe. I got a future with my queen to focus on and i got a trip i need to get ready for but right now it’s the time to work together. Now it’s no guarantee that Fox News will budge but at least you can say you tried but seriously can you please just try? Now is not the time for war. Also Fox News for the love of god, Y’ALL ARE PART OF THE MEDIA TOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JUST STOP!!!!!!!!!!! It really dumbfounds me that they can get shown videos of what they said and it’s oh we never said that, it’s just stupid. Hopefully these people will learn but lets be real they won’t

Where i stand with the pandemic

----------------------------------------------------------------------

I have been in quarantine for 8 weeks about to be 9 weeks. Unlike most others, i’m waiting with my old man to see if we don’t go under another lockdown and our state of Texas doesn’t spike to New York Level. As i’ve said earlier, cases not good but recoveries and the death rate, not bad. It’s just up to the others to keep the improvements going. Earlier my father told me that he was downtown at whole foods and as he was driving home, he saw a SHIT TON OF PEOPLE NOT WEARING MASKS And of course he can speak for me on this but i was frustrated. If they don’t want to follow the guidelines especially when more places can reopen soon then if we go back under lockdown, don’t fucking bitch about wahhhhhhhhhhhhh why can’t we go back outside?!?!?!?! Well the answer is simple, you people are fucking dumbasses. You didn’t follow the guidelines like you own the fucking place and here we are again.

My loved ones if they sometimes need a break from the masks, that’s different. There’s going to be times where i need a break from it to give myself some oxygen. All i will say to my loved ones and i’ll say it again later on, please just be safe. I love you guys and i don’t want anything to happen to you guys.

Back to where i stand. These last 8 and a half weeks have been a test. It especially sucks because before all this happened, i made significant progress. My relationship was moving in the right direction, and after leaving my shitty shit shit job, i got the job i wanted for awhile and it was a great feeling. Now to feel like i’m being tested again, it sucks. Especially after coming out of one of the darkest times of my life a year ago that involved me going to a mental hospital to have a safe place to fall apart so i can pick up the pieces where i also discovered i have PTSD after one day waking up not wanting to live anymore. It especially still haunts me because my love had to endure that with me. Fast forward to this pandemic, i was hoping that last year was the end of Dark times for AWHILE especially because my queen deserves the world and i want to be able to take her to the dinner she 100 percent deserves. She works hard, she puts up with alot and i don’t care if i have to pay it off, when i’m cleared (and i’m going to stay cleared. I’m not doing a second round of this shit) i’m fucking taking her to that dinner barring any unforseen even for sticking with me through some of my roughest times. Before i take the rest of my loved ones to dinner, she gets first priority before i get back to my job (after my thyroid hint hint Pops if you’re reading this). She deserves that and i want to be able to give that to her or if i have to cook for her and set up a very nice candle light dinner at her place or mine, barring not having to deal with any more bullshit when i’m cleared. Now if there is one positive i can take away well actually two, its these

1. It has made me realize that i need god in my life more than ever because i refuse to relapse back to the dark side.

2. It has brought me and one of my best friends back to each other to reconcile.

Now i cannot stress this enough, i’m not happy with being under lockdown but i understand why. I’ll get to that here in a minute. I would so much rather be at work, i would much rather be with my queen, i would much rather be with my loved ones. Having a long awaited reunion. Our first since the night one of our own passed away and this time because we’ve all had to do some growing up, hopefully it won’t be sadness. It will be celebration and hijinks lol I’ll make sure of that and if i have to get super drunk, i will because as i’ve always said, i’m a funny funny drunk. I don’t always drink but when i do, i’m hysterical lol.

I do however understand why this is happening and which is why even if it’s frustrating, i will continue to fight for my future with my queen and my job that i busted my ass for. Those are the two things that are important to me. Just think of me as the Sam Ehlinger of everything else.

I’ve come so far and i’m not going to just give up without a fight. If and when i’m cleared, if i catch CoVid i’ll do whatever it takes to fight it. If i die, i die. It was a good run, at least i went out guns a blazin to fight CoVid. Now before i continue, i’m not saying i want to die. Last year, i had nothing to lose. This year is a different story, i have everything to lose and i’m not going to let anything take my progress away from me. If and godforbid if i have to fight it in the hospital alone, i’ll do what i have to do to beat CoVid. No problem because unlike everything else i’ve been through, i have more to lose now and more to fight for and i’m not giving up easily on anything. Should i catch CoVid and BEAT IT?!?!?!? It will be another story to add to the legacy of the Phoenix Knight. Knock me down, i’ll continue to rise from the ashes again and again and again, nothing will keep me down easily which is why despite the rocky situation i’m in, well that we’re all in. I’m not giving up. Despite that this has kept me from not being able to see my queen in the normal capacity that we both want and that hasn’t been easy for the both of us, i will not give up. As Daniel Bryan once said ‘’If you fight for your dreams then your dreams will fight for you!!!’’ This is a test of my character and i have every intention of passing with flying colors.

Now in three weeks (Bare with me here), my old man and i are going to have a BIG revaluation conversation about where we stand with the pandemic. I’m nervous, scared, yet excited. While i desperately want to get back out there and i’m hoping phase one will lead me there (phase one something i worked on for my father to try to tell my side of the story about why i think i’m ready to get back out there), i will do what is right. I will do what is safe and i will not be like the rest. I will be smart. I refuse to put my loved ones in danger let alone myself in danger as well. One wrong move just like with all the other re-openings then its right back to the start. This is where it’s tricky. So as you all know or well alot of you know, i want to be in san marcos at some point in the very near future. I do not want to fuck it up. My job was step one of that plan before all this happened for i’am not happy here in austin anymore. I need something more quieter but yet something more close to my people. My father, and my 4 best friends. It is not cheap here but because of the pandemic, it has led me to a bit of a rock and a hard place. Now before i continue, i always tell my girlfriend and i guess i need to practice what i preach, we just don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know what’s going to happen. Maybe Abbott was right and i look like a jackass and i can get back to a little bit more normal of a life and back on track. I just don’t know. Now here’s the rock and the hard place, it is not easy and not cheap AT ALL here in Austin. If i want to go back to work if it is not safe enough then something different would have to be arranged. Someone i know or by myself. A) I don’t want to get someone else sick. B) If i’m living on my own and i get sick with CoVid god knows what’s going to happen. Or if i’m still here at home, if i get sick i don’t want to get my old man sick with CoVid either. It’s a very tricky situation and that is why i’m nervous about making the wrong move but as long as i keep my team in the loop and they do WHATEVER it takes to help me make sure i’m safe to keep my job and at my location or (Riverside or southpark meadows if SoCo is no longer an option) i guess it’s not terrible but i do miss it but which is why i feel between a rock and a hard place in this. Also if i do crack and say its time for me to try living on my own (has to Be close to work, safe and REASONABLY PRICED) One wrong move and it can set off a giant pandoras box but maybe worse. Just like with the immature state openings, one wrong move and we are back under lockdown. Hence why i want to go to san marcos but like i told my father, the whole point was to transfer there AFTER WORKING at my job for several months to a year and i refuse to go into san marcos dumbfounded. I wanted to go in a smart way but also because it’s cheaper, more quieter and did i mention its cheaper? Lol well its because i want to be able to travel more with my queen and i want to still live my life and do things i want to do all while being responsible.

The perfect scenario: If the curve really is flattened or something like that, the numbers are not too bad and my old man clears me after our revaluation talk or if not, he pretends to not clear me but saves it for my 27th birthday on July 1st and says even though its still tricky, happy birthday YOU’RE CLEARED FROM QUARANTINE!!!!!!!!!! Oh how beautiful that would be. Granted the sooner i’m cleared, the better. I would love for the signs for me to be cleared after our revaluation conversation. The minute i’m cleared, i’m going full Phoenix Knight and i’m not looking back

Message for Congress and POTUS

--------------------------------------------------

I’m going to keep this simple. Ladies and Gentlemen of congress along with President Trump, i’m going to take it a step further along with what Mika said. All of you need to KNOCK IT OFF!!!!!!!!!! Enough with the fucking games and do your job. Orgy joke aside, do what we elected you to do and do your jobs. Enough with the greed, stop using god and religion as an excuse for your bad behavior.

I would say more but Mika took a good chunk of the words out of my mouth

Mr. President, grow up!!! Calling for Liberation in the middle of a crisis, you’re sick bro. Get off twitter and do your job. You think you’re making America Great again? Guess again Donnie, you’re not!!!!!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0239jHlMYY Evidence 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB8icFsfJe0 Evidence 2

Mika already said what i was going to say. Do your job and do it right because the more you fuck up, you are going to be on the wrong side of history.

I’ll leave it at that

Closing statements and a message to my loved ones

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I’m going to close it with this. First by starting off with a plead, to everyone else who isn’t my loved ones, please.....please......please do not be stupid. Please be smart, follow the guidelines, maybe not always but a good chunk of the time, this is not a secret government conspiracy this is a serious situation and the more you don’t be smart, you’re going to ruin it for the rest of us. Normally i would rant but i’m begging you please be smart here. When the virus goes completely away or calms down tremendously, if a good chunk of you want to be stupid, greedy and going back to the clubs to post explicit pics etc popping bottles etc be my guest, but right now, please just be smart and considerate. I’m begging you.

Now for the message to my loved ones.

I’ll start with my queen, my best friend, my love Nicole: Baby, i just want you to know i love you with all my heart. I’m sorry this situation hasn’t been easy. But i appreciate you for sticking it out with me. I promise somehow someway i will make it up to you big time when i’m fully cleared but whatever happens in 3 weeks if its a step in the right direction where at the very very least we can spend more time together again, i’ll take it. I love you and you and Roxie are two of the main things that are keeping me going. I Love you with all my heart and i’m not giving up. Ever since the mental hospital, i just continue to fall more in love with you. I hope i make you proud like how you make me proud. You are one of the most beautiful kind hearted funny smart human beings i know. I’m honored to call you my girlfriend, my hero, my queen, my best friend. I love you with all my heart my pookieroo, my queen.

My father Chris: Pops, well done with the business and advancing with the masks. I’m very proud of you. I’m thankful for all that you have do and have done during this pandemic. I’ll save the rest for phase one

Andria: Thank you for being one of my best friends over the last six years, it has been an incredible ride and because of you, i met three of my other best friends. Love ya dude. I cannot wait for whats to come.

Chris: Brother, words cannot even begin to describe how proud i’ am of you. You have made tremendous progress over the last year and i feel like i got my brother back. I love you man and i’m so blessed that we met and that you have become like a brother to me man. I cannot wait for the new memories to come

Don: I know you’re going to make a funny out of this lol so i’ll leave a good chunk of it to you to make a funny. Just i love ya man and thank you for always making me laugh. (There will be tacos and nachos in your future soon hopefully really soon)

Bri Bri: The biggest blessing to have come out of this pandemic is that i feel like i got one of my best friends back. I know it hasn’t been easy between us but that doesn’t matter now. I’am so blessed you and i are doing well again and that i can see mav again soon, Fucking love that Dog. Anywho, proud of you. You are cool shit. And i got nothing but love for ya. Cannot wait for things to be better than ever.

I hope i make you all proud.

To everyone of my loved ones: Guys, i love y’all. I don’t know whats going to happen next but all i know is that we will get through this together and we will come out of this stronger than ever. I pray for y’all almost every night. My heart and my thoughts are with you guys. Anything y’all need at anytime, i’m here. It may not be easy but we will get through this together. As Bernie Sanders always says ‘’We’re all in this together’’. I love y’all, please stay safe and things will get better. I have faith and in the great words of Bobby Rhoode, it’s going to be glorious!!!!!!

Remember my friends, when you feel what you want to feel, you’re being real and being real is a very big deal.

Stay Safe, Love you guys, God bless you all

Phoenix Knight Forever

-Sky-

0 notes

calacuspr · 4 years

Text

Kyran Bracken - My greatest sporting moment

An interview series looking back at favourite memories from sports stars around the world

Earning a cap for your country is one of the most prestigious achievements for any sportsperson, but many have failed to make the step up to the international game and been left with the unenviable label of a one-cap wonder.

While some have unfortunately saved their worst performances for the highest level, others suffered misfortune out of their control with injuries ruining their special day.

England rugby union scrum half Kyran Bracken feared he would be one of the unlucky ones with his first cap over within minutes after a deliberate stamp left him with torn ankle ligaments.

He was in no mood to relinquish his place in the line-up however, and somehow played the entire 80 minutes with heavy strapping as England defeated New Zealand for the first time in a decade.

“I think your first cap is always very memorable,” he explained. “Partly because it’s something you’ve been dreaming about and training for, but to play against the best team in the world made it extra special.

“You’ve seen first caps go horribly wrong and we hadn’t beaten the All Blacks in years and years. I think playing at Twickenham in the autumn internationals, the build-up to the game, getting stamped on in the first minute, it all added to the occasion.”

The man behind the stamp, Jamie Joseph, is now the head coach of the Japanese men’s national team, but Bracken didn’t feel he was targeted more than any other player would be on their international debut.

“It’s a normal course of events when it’s your first cap. You expect a bit of lip and a bit of special treatment. Every time we played a team and they had a debutant you’d target them and make them properly nervous,” he commented.

“They went after me very early on but I didn’t want to come off, partly because Matt Dawson was on the bench and I didn’t want him to get his first cap!

“I kind of limped around the pitch a bit but actually had a really good game, my passing and kicking was good, I made a few tackles, helped drive the team on and was part of an amazing win.”

Were the game to have taken place in the modern day it’s very likely that Bracken’s decision would’ve been made by the medical team, but in the early 1990s substitutes were not made unless a player was very seriously injured and carried off.

“These were still the amateur days where it was all about singing the song and getting pissed in the evening,” recalled Bracken of that famous day in 1993. “So I did something really special at a really special time.”

Bracken was a late addition to the starting line-up for the game after regular scrum half Dewi Morris pulled out with the flu 48 hours prior to kick-off.

All of a sudden, the recently turned 22-year-old was flung in front of the press and faced with the task of stopping a New Zealand side going for a world record of consecutive wins.

“When Dewi pulled out, Geoff Cooke [England’s head coach] phoned me and said ‘great news for you, you’re starting at the weekend. I’ve seen you’ve been playing well for Bristol, just do what you do there and you’ll be fine.’

“All of the senior players that you see on TV, Will Carling, Brian Moore, Jason Leonard etc. they were all very accommodating and supportive, but I don’t know what they felt about having a new scrum half for such a massive Test match. I wonder if they thought that was the nail in the coffin for us.

“But rugby and sport in general is amazing like that when you read the papers and see that we have absolutely no chance of winning that game according to the press and the bookies.”

Having put 51 points past Scotland the week before, the All Blacks were a staggering 7-1 on to win and had lost on just one of their last eight visits to Twickenham.

“Because it was my first game I never thought about the winning or losing,” said Bracken. “I thought about what I expected to do myself in the game irrelevant of the score really.

“There was definitely an element of fear from us because they battered everyone. Against the All Blacks you can see the fear in everyone’s faces in that team.

“I think once Jon Callard kicked a few penalties and it was getting close everyone was looking round thinking we’re still in with a shout here. I’ll be honest, me and quite a few others were shitting ourselves quite a bit!”

There’s no baptism of fire quite like facing up to the Haka before your first England appearance, but while some are intimidated by it, Bracken found it had the opposite effect on him.

“It was great. I’ll always remember getting in line and I was playing against Stu Forster who is 5ft 9”, smaller than me, and thinking I’ll try and stare him out.

“But I couldn’t because in front of him was Inga Tuigamala the massive winger and he was staring at me when doing the Haka. I thought ‘I’m not playing against you I’m playing against the one at the back!’

“That was a great moment and people say the Haka is a psychological advantage for the All Blacks, but I found it engaging and inspiring for us to prove they’re not going to dominate us.”

More than 25 years may have passed since that memorable day, but Bracken remains active in the game and recently launched a new podcast with fellow ex-professional Nick Easter.

Guests on the Ruck It! podcast have included the likes of Tom Curry, Sir Ian Botham, Tendai Mtawarira and Sam Cane, and it’s been a welcome break from lockdown life for Bracken.

“I’d been to events with Nick before and he’s a good talker. It was my idea to start a podcast and I was looking for another player to bounce off.

“We’ve been getting really good feedback and good numbers but obviously it’s a tough time to get sponsorship so we’re just doing it for a bit of fun. The good thing is Nick and I have different opinions and don’t always agree.

“It’s sometimes light-hearted but also speaking to sportspeople and celebrities about real life issues. At one stage we were number the number one podcast in Luxembourg, I don’t know what that means!”

Another lockdown venture of Bracken’s has been the launch of his Skills Guru YouTube channel showcasing some of his best tricks shots and tutorials.

“I saw Joe Wicks and others doing stuff online and I’ve never really shared my scrum half coaching knowledge to others.

“I’ve been coaching my kids, doing drills with them in the garden and at the rugby club, and I thought why don’t I put something out there so that people can have a look and hopefully learn from. That was the idea but I’ve no idea how it’ll go!”

#Rugby

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shirlleycoyle · 4 years

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Coronavirus Is a Golden Age for People Sucking Their Own Dicks

Welcome to Rule 34, a series in which Motherboard’s Samantha Cole lovingly explores the highly specific fetishes that can be found on the web. If you’ve thought of it, someone’s jerked off to it.

The links in this article may be considered NSFW.

Reddit user 6monthsuck is determined to put his time in social isolation due to the coronavirus pandemic to good use. Some of us are back into yoga now. Others are coping with homemade bread. A lot of people are suddenly super into regrowing scallions. Some are hard at work making unfulfilled horniness their whole personalities.

6monthsuck is using this time to try to suck his own dick.

"A lot of people in quarantine are two things: bored and horny," he told me in a direct message. "I'm no different. Self sucking seems to exist where those things intersect."

He recently came across r/autofellatio, a subreddit dedicated to the art of sucking yourself off, and remembered that he was nearly able to reach his own penis with his mouth when he was a teen. But he didn't keep stretching, and never quite got there.

Now, he's trying—as you might have already guessed based on his username—to suck his own dick within six months.

"Being able to do it requires a lot of stretching and most people aren't able to fit that into their usual routines. Lockdown is a pretty good opportunity to put in the time… I thought, this time, I'd try again," he said.

Once the stuff of urban legends, auto-fellatio—the act of sucking one's own dick—is much more popular than most people realize. If all you knew about it was the mythology of Marilyn Manson's removed ribs, or that Saturday Night Live skit where Will Ferrell discovers his talent in yoga class, you're missing an entire subculture of self-pleasure. It's not only possible for many people to reach their own dick with their face, but also suck, and even deep-throat themselves to completion.

"Through infinity to a new world"

Historically, the practice of auto-fellatio goes back thousands of years. Images of gods sucking their own dicks in plow poses are inscribed in the Book of the Dead of Henuttawy, possibly as symbols of potency and power. In medieval literature, depictions of people self-sucking were placed alongside images of anal sex, bestiality, and masturbation, possibly as reminders from the Christian church that sex without procreation was sinful and shameful.

Auto-fellatio has a long cultural history in modern times, too, mostly as mythos (in Manson's case) or homophobic or shock-value jokes. In the 70s and 80s, we have Ron Jeremy's famous ability to tongue-tickle his own dick. Porn star Vito Aras—known as Dr. Infinity—jumped up on a desk and threw his legs up over his head to suck his own dick in the 1975 film Every Inch a Lady, and went on to profess the wonders of self-sucking to anyone who'd listen, including in an interview in National Screw a year later.

“The release of sperm from yourself into yourself becomes the energy which can lead to infinity,” Aras said. “Self-generating energy will allow you to be anything you want. Through sucking on my own cock, I have created a human condition that is very stimulating… Control of one’s sperm leads to infinity, and through infinity to a new world.”

It's a belief system that's the inverse of what we see from groups like NoFap today: That sperm is an energy to be harnessed and used. But instead of repression, release. Into one's own face.

These larger than life figures paved the way for Al Eingang, one of the most prolific champions of self-suck content online, to help move the practice from mythical ability to something anyone might be able to do—or at least strive toward.

"It is its own, unique and enthralling thing."

Eingang, the creator and administrator of Solosuck.com, a platform for selling his videos as well as a repository of guides, resources, and active forums for students of self-suck since the mid-90s, has been able to suck his own dick since he was "10 or 11 years old," he said. It was as natural to him as using his hand. He said a genetic condition with a side effect of making him extra-flexible has also made it extra-easy to slip his own penis into his mouth since puberty.

Years later, people would write him letters calling him a god.

"Imagine having someone giving you head who can feel every sensation that you're feeling, so they can adjust what they're doing to provide you with perfect stimulation," Eingang told me. "There's a kind of feedback loop in action that can lead to long, deeply satisfying edging sessions. I can bring myself to the edge, and then just use the tip of my tongue on the most sensitive parts of my cock to gently keep me on the crest of the orgasm wave without tipping over into a full, final orgasm, for a really long time."

Eingang shot his first video, "A Young Man From Nantucket" in 1987, on a friend's Hi8 camcorder—the top of the line, at the time—and produced the whole thing himself, from filming the scene to editing in-camera. He mailed the tape to a few gay skin magazines, and the reviews came back breathless. Producers and directors from Christopher Rage to groups like the long-running jackoff club New York Jacks started asking him to collaborate on new content.

"At the time that I started doing it, there basically was no internet, there was no World Wide Web," Eingang said. "So when I started doing the videos, I thought, a small number of people will see it and it's never really going to have that big an effect on my life."

But as soon as the internet arrived in ubiquity, he started finding images of himself from the videos he'd made for those magazine reviewers, posted online.

"I decided, well, I guess this is happening, so I might as well put myself out there on the web." He started solosuck.com in the mid-90s, and has been running it ever since. "A Young Man From Nantucket" is still for sale on his site—and people still buy it.

Since the world went into social isolation, Eingang said he's seen a big uptick in video sales from his site. He hasn't made a new video since the 90s, but people are seeking out his content now—which he attributes to people being alone during lockdown.

"For me, it's not a substitute for sex with other people (which I love)—it is its own, unique and enthralling thing," he said.

On Reddit's r/autofellatio forum, which has more than 38,000 members, the increase in isolation-themed threads and posts by people trying it for the first time paints a picture of bored and horny guys putting their time spent alone to use.

"Aiming to selfsuck during this quarantine. Any pro tips for a beginner?" one user asks. "Just the tip! But plenty of time to practice in isolation," another wrote, with a photo of them reaching toward their erect penis. Others comment encouragement or suggestions: "Nice! You'll get there… practice makes perfect!" "Fuck yeh bro great work! Keep posting that progress :)"

"'Now, I'm seeing that maybe I am a total freak and a weirdo, but so are most other people. So I can feel okay about it.'"

On the forums at Solosuck, which has been running continuously for decades, people similarly trade advice and show off their skills and progress. There's crossover between Reddit and Eingang's solosuck.com community, where guys will refer Redditors to the dedicated self-suck forum for continued mentorship. It's a place where enthusiasts can find community and camaraderie, an escape from a society that otherwise might label them as gross or weird.

"One thing that I've just heard over and over again, and all the decades I've been doing it is, 'This has helped me to calm down… to figure out, well, I thought I was a total freak and a weirdo,'" Eingang said. "'Now, I'm seeing that maybe I am a total freak and a weirdo, but so are most other people. So I can feel okay about it.'"

How to suck your own dick: A brief guide

Reaching your own dick is a practice of patience.

"It's absolutely not going to happen overnight, and I think people often resort to brute force to try and bend their spine the sufficient amount," 6monthsuck said. "A good stretching routine done daily for a few weeks will provide you with noticeable progress, so I'd say give that a go and see how you feel afterwards."

Yoga videos for flexibility and long, warm baths have been 6monthsuck's strategy in the two weeks since his journey began, and he says he's gone from being four inches away from his penis, to about two inches.

Another member of r/autofellatio and a longtime moderator on the Solosuck forums, who goes by blacksunshineaz, said it took him months to get back to being able to just kiss the tip of his penis now, in his late 20's, like he could in his early teens. He recommends yoga and pilates, but also cautions people from rushing into it.

"Making contact for the first time is magical but you still need to get another inch or two deeper to actually be sucking it," he said. "Sadly, after all the years I've been practicing I don't think I'll get there."

"Practice very, very slowly, and explore different positions," Eingang said. "Be very, very careful about injuring yourself and just enjoy the journey as much as possible. It doesn't really matter how you get with it, as long as you're enjoying it."

It should go without saying, but be mentally ready for the finale. As former VICE writer Brian Moylan noted when he wrote on this topic in 2012 (in an article that became one of the most-read VICE has ever published), the sensation of cumming in one's mouth might be new to straight men, especially. One might think that this is the logical ending to what someone reaching their lips toward their own penis would expect, but for some guys, it's sort of like a dog that's finally caught its tail.

The mix of emotion and confusion from men who've never tasted jizz of any kind, let alone their own, is a common concern throughout auto-fellatio forums. For some "straight-ish men," Eingang said, an interesting moment of introspection happens. "They're like, 'I've got this dick in my mouth, it's my dick, but actually really enjoying this and kind of wondering what it'd be like to have somebody else's dick in my mouth.'"

That questioning is a natural part of exploring what turns you on, but for guys who previously thought of themselves as unflinchingly heterosexual, finding yourself enjoying a dick in your mouth is bound to be a little confusing at first.

A misplaced connection to sexual preference is at the root of a lot of the misunderstandings people have about self-suck, blacksunshineaz said. "A lot of guys worry about their sexuality for wanting to do this. 'Am I gay?' they ask. This is simply an advanced form of masturbation so your sexual orientation is irrelevant. A lot of people think the act is impossible, even though it isn't difficult to find proof it actually is." Most of the guys on auto-fellatio forums identify as straight, he said.

"In my view, the biggest thing people get wrong is actually believing that auto-fellatio is a kink at all," 6monthsuck said. "If everybody had really flexible spines, it would probably just be a standard form of masturbation. There's a reason why most men have at some point tried to suck their own dick, because they want to know what it would feel like." For him, it has nothing to do with sexuality, but with pleasuring himself in a novel way.

As more people find themselves alone with their own dicks and all the time in the world, places like Solosuck and r/autofellatio will only become more important for people asking these questions about themselves. And when they find those communities, they'll likely discover a place where others cheers them on.

"I'm always thrilled to know that I'm bringing more orgasms into the world," Eingang said of his decades of work with Solosuck. "In a complicated world, there are very few things that I feel are 100 percent, really wonderful… It really is just humans being the weird animals that we are."

Coronavirus Is a Golden Age for People Sucking Their Own Dicks syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

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