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Pulled down the underwear! There was something random between my cheeks. Needed a good nose to sniff. #trunks #used #drawls #joggers #sweats #funky #manfunk #manscent #dump #smelly #stinky #nasty #musky #musty #ass #butt #bootyhole #scratch #goon #gooning #sag #sagging #black

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👤 do you also share a wardrobe? 🐰 actually, except for underwear, we shared everything, even socks 🦊 no! you’ve worn my underwear many times too! ( 🐰 eum? pfthehehehehe… ah what was it again? 🦊 when the five of us lived together, there was so much laundry and we couldn’t separate them. since we couldn’t do “whose underwear? whose underwear?” so we just put them all together in one place 🦊 but soobin is just not good at telling them apart so he’s used my underwear out a lot 🐰 what gave me goosebumps was that during a dance practice, yeonjun hyung suddenly got serious pulled my pants down and went like “this is my underwear!” 🐰 (so i was like) “isn’t this mine?” (and yeonjun hyung was like) “it’s mine!” 🐰 from then on, yeonjun hyung wrote ‘YJ’ on the back of his underwear. so i’d check before i wear them and (if i see ‘YJ’, i’d go) “ah it’s yeonjun hyung’s” 🦊 but he still wore it even when i’ve written it down! 🦊 so i’d check his butt like this and turned (the pants) inside out and i’d be like “why is there a ‘YJ’?” 🐰 since we couldn’t tell them apart, we have assigned one underwear brand to each member so we won’t get confused 🐰 yeonjun hyung wears CK and i wear a different brand. but as i kept wearing it, no matter how i looked at it, CK looked the coolest 🦊 hahahahhahaha 🐰 so as we started living separately, i bought 20 pairs of CK (underwears). i guess i’ve been keeping it in. (i thought like) “i want to wear CK too but only yeonjun hyung wears it…” 🐰 even now… (pulls his waistband down to show) 🦊 me too… (pulls his waistband down to show)

💿

13,555 просмотров • 4 месяцев назад

The Cincinnati Police Department pulled over a woman whose car was being pushed by another vehicle after it broke down at a Shell gas station. BACKSTORY… I've been stuck at the Shell gas station on Reading Rd all motherfucking day and a random man pulls up and offers to push my car bumper to bumper all the way to my home so I didn't have to keep sleeping in my car because I didn't want to leave it while the night walkers were having a midnight festival right next to it. I ain't been able to work all day and I'm worried bout how my kids are going to get to school, feed them, feed myself, as well as my dogs then bills are due too. I use my car for work. I have a spotless driving record. I'm in crisis. Then this bitch ass niggas wanna pull me over after seeing me and this kind stranger bumper to bumper while both of have our hazard lights on. The first words out their mouth were "are there any drugs or weapons in the car?" | SNAPPED. THEY DIDN'T EVEN ASK FOR MY DAMN LICENSE FIRST OR TELL ME WHY THEY PULLED ME OVER. Then going have the nerve to tell me they ask every single car that same question when they pull them over in Cincinnati. NO TF YALL DONT, nose gotta be longer than Pinocchios whole family combined. Just Lying out the side of yo neck ass nigga!!! Just out here profiling motherfuckers trying to get to their destination ass niggas!!! I could've used a mechanic, a jump, some parts, a gift card to autozone or something but this bullshit right here- yall got the game fucked up big dawg. So hell yeah here's another incident of me cussing Cincinnati's Biggest gang clean tf out be yall really do got me bent all types of ways. As a matter of fact Venmo me here: GodsFavoriteTree some money for intentional infliction of emotional distress since yall so motherfucking nosey and doing yall job in such a predatory fucking manor. CHANGE THE CULTURE in this department or imma keep speaking up and out about yall fools. I ain't from here but I'm here now and today was one of the worst days of my life. Yall tried to kick me while I'm down and I was fully prepared to go out kicking and screaming cause yall wasn't bout to search shit or tow shit bitch ass niggas. I WAS LEGALLY PARKED BITCH. Now either fix my damn car or go fight some real crime.FAKE ASS BATMAN AND ROBIN WANNABE ASS NIGGAS.

LASHY BILLS

72,065 просмотров • 3 месяцев назад

I have a story about addiction from a different perspective. A story where recovery was not possible. I have one sibling. An older brother. Everyone loved him. It was easy to love him. He died 10 years ago. It was a horrible death that took him 20 years to accomplish, dragging everyone who loved him along the way. He was an amazing musician. He didn't read music. No lessons. Hand him any instrument, and he can play it. He had a big heart. He was easily the funniest person I've ever known. And he is the only other human being who speaks fluent movie-script-quotes with precision and skill. But alcohol took over in his mid-20s. Bam Margera is just 2 years younger than my brother. He reminds me of my brother *so* much. Everything Bam and his family went through with his addiction is what my brother and family went through. My brother left high school because he was a gifted songwriter and musician. Bam left because he was a gifted skater. My brother was really into editing and producing films, and so is Bam. When Ryan Dunn died, and Bam went off the deep end, I was watching my brother do the same thing every time a strong emotion hit him, and he simply didn't know what to do with it. My brother was so beautiful on the outside, yet unrecognizable at the end. I can not tell you how many times my brother would go missing. Hundreds of times. He would sometimes go missing for up to a week. Then we'd get a call from the police or a hospital. Usually, the hospital would be first because he'd be near death. Then they would keep him on a 5150 at a mental health facility. Then he would come home. One time, he chased me with a knife in his hand, screaming he was going to kill me as I was running out of my parents' home on a cordless phone dialing 911. I found a fifth of vodka in his room and poured it down the drain. He went looking for it 20 minutes later, and it was empty...and I told him I poured it out. When I was 24 years old, I landed my first job that came with an office. My name was outside of it. I was stoked. I worked my ass off to get there. But there was no happiness at that time in my life. I remember my father calling me at work, sitting in that office, to say he was coming to pick me up because he knew where my brother, who had been missing for 4 days, was. The credit card he stole from my mother showed he was at a little oceanfront motel 10 minutes away. And I remember thinking to myself on the way over there...I have to open the motel room door. I can't let my dad see him hanging. It will destroy his life. I told my dad to wait about 10 feet to my left, and I opened the door, and there was my brother fashioning a sheet into a noose. Another time he went missing, and they found him on the roof of a building with the inside of his arms slashed from elbow to wrist, just lying in a pool of blood. Dark shit. Both of the insides of his arms were mutilated from being sliced open so many times. At least 30, if not more. He stopped wearing short-sleeved shirts in public about 10 years before he died. He got to the point of seizures when he withdrew and had alcohol-related dementia for the last 3 years of his life, which would come and go. Then one day, after 2 decades, he called my parents and said something was wrong. My parents went over to his place, ended up calling 911, the ambulance got there, and he started walking outside with assistance from paramedics and collapsed. In front of my parents. He was rushed to the hospital. I had not seen my brother for the last 9 years of his life. He disowned me. Because he felt he had to. He killed my dog when he got drunk 9 years before he died. No one knows if he meant to or not, he was so wasted. He couldn't face me after that. So he disowned me. And a piece of my heart died the day he did it. I talked to my parents right before they left to see what was wrong that day. The last thing I said to my dad was, "Do not let him die without me having an opportunity to say goodbye." My dad called me from the er 2 hours later and said, "You should come over now. He won't know you're here." When I got there, I was shocked at what I saw. He wasn't the right color. He was in a coma. Severe internal bleeding. On life support. It was jarring even after seeing him in a much similar state hundreds of times for such a long time. He was taken to the ICU 3 hours later, where they would transfuse blood by the bag damn near constantly, and it just shot out of his nose. It was bloody. A lot of blood. After about 6 hours, I told my parents to go home and get some rest. I would stay with him. And I talked to him like he was right there. Like one of the hundreds of pillow-fort slumber parties we had as kids. Like no time had passed, and his addiction never existed. I showed him pictures of my life over the past decade on my phone...just like he was there. But he wasn't there. And after 3 hours and extensive talks with several doctors and specialists, I had to make the decision to remove his life support. After my parents returned and said goodbye, I told them to wait out in the hall until he passed because I could not allow them to have the memory of him dying, and I returned to my brother's side, and said what I needed to say, bawling my heart out. I told them to turn off the machines, and I held him in my arms as he died. It took just over 7 minutes. And I just held him. I had Nine Inch Nails playing for him. One of his favorites thanks to Pretty Hate Machine. He was a fan for life after that. He was my best friend. But he was also someone I had to protect myself from if he was intoxicated. This is the end that usually becomes a reality for addicts and their families. Then there's someone like Bam Margera. He went to the same place my brother went to in his head. And he came back. Bam is one of the greatest comebacks ever and a story of recovery worth knowing. I see YouTube shorts of Bam skating again every day, and I'm so moved that I just sit here and cry. You can see his personality is back. You have no idea how rare that is. Their personality shows very little while they're in their addiction. Recovery stories are incredibly personal to so many people, including those who have gone through addiction with an addict because they love them so much...they'd see anything they had to see and endure anything they have to endure just to be there with them at their lowest point. Addicts are not monsters. The stuff they use to numb the pain they do not understand is the real monster. And when you put enough of that into a human being, they do things they would *never* do without it. People are not pure. We are more complex than that. We are good and bad. Light and dark. Right and wrong. Chaotic and serene. You will find that the answer to every question you have about life is usually "both" for a reason. Because one can not exist without the other. With recovery stories like Hunter Biden's and Bam Margera's out in the ether, more people will be less ignorant as to how this disease plays out, and that will do nothing but good for so many families struggling with this issue. Addiction isn't just for the addict. Addiction is for everyone who loves them, as well. It's just a different perspective of hell. So listen to recovery stories with renewed respect because most addicts end up the way it ended for the only sibling I'll ever have.

Nicole Minét

409,172 просмотров • 2 месяцев назад

🎵My Dolly Parton Story🎶 - (Video and additional photos in 🧵 below) Exactly one year before the government shut down the world because of the #CommieVirus — especially killing the live entertainment industry — my bands were firing on all cylinders. My private event band, Bull City Syndicate, was doing especially well. We’d been the headlining entertainment for the past two North Carolina Governor’s Inaugural Balls, and played hundreds of high-end corporate events, charity balls, and top-shelf weddings. On March 2, 2019, we were especially excited to be hired as the featured entertainment for a charity event where Dolly Parton would be the main attraction. Not as a musical performer herself, but to promote her own charity, Imagination Library (Imagination Library), and to do a live poetry reading from her own work. The event was the 25th Anniversary Smart Start Gala. Raleigh’s mayor, the governor of NC, and many other VIPs would be in attendance. While the event planner never suggested that we perform or back up Dolly on any of her tunes, it was, in the back of my mind, something I thought would have been really cool. But not something I’d dare suggest or insinuate on my own. My only preshow contact with Dolly’s organization was with her head of security. The Marble’s Kids Museum in Raleigh, NC is a fabulous venue for fun charity events, but it has only one “green room” next to the staging area. Security informed me that the band would have to completely evacuate that shared space at least 30-minutes before Dolly arrived for her portion of the evening’s proceedings. (Not an unusual or inappropriate request, given her enormous superstar status.) The entire 10-piece band was on stage when Dolly was escorted through the back entrance and into the green room. There was some back-and-forth between VIP speeches and live music, so the band stayed in place throughout. Since the event was completely sold out and standing room only, we knew we’d have the best vantage of Dolly if we just stayed on the stage. Dolly’s presentation was scheduled to be only about 10-15 minutes. While the governor and mayor were delivering remarks just in advance of Dolly taking the stage, I looked back at the green room door, off stage left, and I saw my son, Duncan, in full-on, intense conversation with Dolly! (WHAT?!) Duncan, who was only 20 years old at the time and already a freak-of-nature musician himself, was working on my stage crew that night. I’m the band leader, so I’m having to give full attention to the event host and what’s happening on the speaker’s side of the stage … but only 20 feet away, Duncan and Dolly are chatting away like long-lost friends. Finally, at one of my many glances in their direction, Dolly and Duncan catch my eye and both start waving me over to them. I silently point at my chest, then mouth, “Me?” They both nod, say yes, and wave more insistently. I dart off the stage, over to the dimly lit green room entrance corridor. Duncan, who is much taller than I am, puts his hand on my shoulder and introduces me to “Dolly Parton.” (You can imagine the look on my face. Ha!) He tells me that Dolly has a request. I lean down to put my ear close to Dolly, so that she wouldn’t have to speak too loudly while the governor was talking to the audience. (I can imitate her voice, and I wish you could hear it in her voice and Tennessee mountain accent right now.) She says to me: “I didn’t know there was going to be a band here tonight. If I’d known there would be a band, I’d have had you learn some of my songs.” Then she came right out with it. “Do y’all know any of my songs?” I straightened back up, and over the course of less than five seconds my mind raced through every Top-40 solo and duet hit single of hers I’d ever heard on the radio. Country, pop, and otherwise. I made an immediate band leader decision … and lied my ass off. “Yes, we can play ‘Jolene.’” We’d never performed or rehearsed “Jolene,” or any other Dolly Parton tune, in the 20 years I’d led that band. The conversation continued: DOLLY: “Y’all know ‘Jolene?!’” ME: “Yes, ma’am.” DOLLY: “That’s great! When I finish reading my poem, I’ll tell everyone we’re going to sing ‘Jolene.’” ME: “We’ll be ready. What key do you do ‘Jolene’ in?” DOLLY: “I don’t know.” Dolly’s personal assistant leaned over to me and whispered in my ear, “C minor.” (Cm) The original key for “Jolene” was C-sharp minor (C#m), but I assume at 73 years old she might be lowering keys, as many aging vocalists tend to do. I gave Dolly an assuring look and said, “Thank you.” I looked at Duncan with an eye-raised, “Oh, sh-t” look on my face, then ran to the stage and called an emergency huddle of my rhythm section as Governor Cooper droned on in the background. In whispered, panicked tones, I told them, “Guys, you have 10 minutes to learn ‘Jolene’ … Key of C minor … GO!” The guys immediately took out their phones and pulled up the song, each listening privately through their in-ear monitors or holding the phone speaker close to their heads. They started silently fingering around on the guitar and bass guitar frets, and the keyboards. Our drummer sat quietly and listened to the track on his phone. I darted over to our female lead singer, Danie Ward, and asked her if she knew the words and background harmonies to “Jolene.” She gave me “The Look.” Back story … Danie was with my band for over ten years. She was my all-time favorite female lead vocalist, and we became great friends. She and her husband were very active in their church as pastor and she as worship leader. She and her sisters also performed for many years as a family Gospel group. But Danie, as a Black gospel artist, was immensely versatile, able to sing anything from Aretha Franklin to Lady Gaga and leaving you wanting more. And although a Black Gospel artist, her secret desire and ambition was to be a Country music artist. (I kid you not.) So, when I asked her if she knew the words and harmonies to “Jolene,” THE LOOK she gave me was … “Seriously? You dare ask ME that question?” All I needed in response from Danie was “The Look.” No words spoken, and I slinked away appropriately chastised. My band members were all world-class pros, at every position. Especially that rhythm section. Most of whom had been with me for many years at this point. They ended up with more than 10 minutes to quietly and individually—with no rehearsal—learn “Jolene.” A few more minutes passed before Dolly was introduced and brought onstage; then she took another 20 minutes to deliver her remarks and poetry reading. The guys were ready. Dolly finished her poem to a round of applause and immediately announced she’d be performing “Jolene” for them. They cheered in approval. My drummer clicked a four count with his drumsticks, and they were off. As soon as Dolly began to sing the first words of the song, you can see me — in the video below — walking across the front of the stage with a huge smile on my face. Danie then got the thrill of her life. As soon as she’d finished singing the first round of harmonies behind Dolly’s lead, Dolly turned and looked toward Danie and said loudly into the mic, “Good job!” No one knew how or when Dolly wanted to end the song, so there was no real conclusion. They all just kinda stopped. But the audience was enthusiastically grateful they’d gotten more than what they paid for that night. I do wish the event planner had informed Dolly and her team that a band was at the event. I’d have loved to have learned a handful of her songs for the show. Maybe I’d have even been able to sing with her one of her chart-topping duets that she recorded with Kenny Rogers. Even though I never personally sang or performed a single musical note with Dolly, I’ll always be able to say “My band” performed with Dolly Parton. —— Postscript: A few days after that event, I received a call from Dolly’s personal assistant. (The same guy who whispered “C minor” into my ear.) He said he needed my son's address because Dolly had a gift she wanted to send him. Dolly’s PA explained that Duncan reminded her so much of her late brother, Floyd, when he was Duncan’s age. She wanted to send Duncan something special. For whatever reason, the package never arrived. Whether lost in the shuffle of Dolly’s or her staff’s busy life, or because some porch pirate pilfered it, Duncan never received that gift. But the very thought that was conveyed shows you what kind of person Dolly was. (Photos in thread below.) —— Post Postscript: Later that same year, I was attending the W.C. Handy Music Festival in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. At the time, I was managing a renowned Shoals songwriter and his band, James LeBlanc & The Winchesters. Some members of James’ band were performing a lunchtime show at one of the local Shoals area eateries as part of the 10-day festival’s scheduled events. I arrived a few minutes late, and the place was packed. Seated alone at a table near the stage was a woman with bleached Big Hair. She saw me looking for a spot and waved me over. Before I got to the table, I knew she had to be related to Dolly. Sure enough, it was Stella Parton, Dolly’s sister. Stella has had her own far less notable career in music, so I made sure not to gush over Dolly (just in case, and not knowing the family dynamics), but I did tell her about my band performing with Dolly earlier that year. I will forever and always have that story to tell. ⬇️

Steve Baker

50,521 просмотров • 12 дней назад

BOOM!!! 💥💥💥 Dr. Aseem Malhotra's testimony was delivered in the Helsinski District Court on April 12, 2024, with the understanding that any deviation from the truth would constitute perjury. This clip was immediately banned by YouTube so please share widely. I've trimmed the clip, removing the interpreter's segment for a smoother listening experience. Here's the first hour of the testimony. ---------------------------------- My name is Doctor Aseem Malhotra. I am a consultant cardiologist. I've been a qualified doctor since 2001. I have held various roles both in academic health policy. In England, in the United Kingdom, and of the various roles, I won't bore you with all the details. I think three of the most relevant and prominent are the fact that I was an ambassador for the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges for six years, which represented every doctor in the UK. I served a full term of six years as a trustee of the King's fund. I was the youngest member to be appointed to this body which advises government on health policy. I was a founding member of Action on Sugar and a first science director. And through that role I'm considered the lead campaigner on bringing about a sugary drinks tax in the UK. And also, finally I served for five years as visiting professor of evidence based medicine at the Bahiana School of Medicine in Salvador, Brazil. In early 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic I was most vocal doctor on the mainstream, making the link very early on between COVID and those who are vulnerable to suffering serious complications from COVID In fact, in March 2020, I was asked to go on Sky News to explain my initial research findings of the link between especially obesity and COVID, but also to give people an opportunity and to suggest to the government this was a great time for them to implement public health policy to help people enhance or optimise their immune system, which could happen within just a few weeks of dietary changes and optimising vitamin D. This was later also backed up by medical journal publications a few months later. And I was first to mention on the back of an article I published in the Daily Telegraph newspaper, which became a front page commentary and was picked up by BBC News and Good Morning Britain, where I had said that it's likely our prime minister, Boris Johnson, was hospitalised because of his weight. As a result of that, the then secretary for health, Matt Hancock, and this was publicised in the news, had asked me to advise him on the link between COVID and obesity. ...before I explain my journey and in many ways U-turn on my understanding in terms of the benefits and harms of the COVID vaccine, my experience in this area over the last couple of years has made me realise more than ever that even for that the greatest barrier to the truth are not factual or intellectual barriers, but psychological. I think all of us as human beings are vulnerable to these psychological barriers and we should have compassion for ourselves. And I will just very briefly summarise those three psychological barriers before I get into my detailed account of what I was involved in in regards to the COVID vaccine. The first psychological barrier is one of fear. And many of us understandably, and I still remember from early on in the pandemic, we were all scared. We did not know what we were dealing with. The issue with fear is that when people and populations are in a state of fear, we are less likely to engage in critical thinking and we are more likely to be compliant. Although COVID was particularly devastating for vulnerable groups in the elderly and I even have managed and still manage people with long COVID, the fear was grossly exaggerated. And one of the examples of that is that when we had good information on the mortality rate of COVID in the United States, one survey in 2020 revealed that 50% of Americans believed that if they caught COVID, the risk of 19 hospitalisation was 50% one and two, when the actual figure, certainly an average for people in middle age, was less than 1%. The second barrier to the truth, which I think is very relevant to the situation we find ourselves in now, is one called willful blindness. This is when human beings, all of us, are vulnerable to this, turn a blind eye to the truth in order to feel safe, avoid conflict, reduce anxiety and to protect prestige and fragile egos. Some examples of this include, on a personal level, willful blindness can occur when a spouse turns a blind eye to the affair of their partner. On an institutional level, some great examples of willful blindness include Hollywood and Harvey Weinstein, the Catholic Church and child molestation. I believe the current situation we find ourselves in, with much of the mainstream narrative and the medical establishment and policy makers not acknowledging quite horrific, serious and common harms from this vaccine, is another example of willful blindness. And I also say this with full empathy, because I was one of those people that was for a very long time, willfully blind to the harms of the COVID vaccine. In January 2021, I was one of the first people to take two doses of the COVID mRNA vaccine because I volunteered in a vaccine centre. I still believe that traditional vaccines are some of the safest amongst all pharmacological interventions in medicine and I could not conceive of any possibility whatsoever of this vaccine causing harm. As a public figure and respected doctor in the UK, I have built relationships across the board with many other public figures, including celebrities and politicians, who often come to me for medical advice. One of those people was film director Gurinder Chadha, who you may be familiar with some of her work, including the movie "Bend It like Beckham", who had asked me whether or not she should take the vaccine and had sent me blogs which I dismissed and regarded as anti vax nonsense. I was then asked to go on good morning, Britain because Gurinder Chadha, the director herself tweeted that I had convinced her to take the vaccine. The main reason for this TV appearance was to help tackle vaccine hesitancy, which was very prominent amongst people from ethnic minority groups in the UK. I made the point on that programme that I understand where vaccine hesitancy was coming from because of the history that I have been involved with over many years in highlighting the shortcomings of pharmaceutical industry influence over medicine. And I even made the point, if I remember correctly, that they have been found guilty of fraud on many occasions, that the third most common cause of death, prepandemic after heart disease and cancer, is prescribed medications. I, however, reassured the public and said that despite these figures, of everything we do in medicine, traditional vaccinations are amongst the safest. I still believe this to be the case. A few months later, in April 2021, I met with a colleague and friend of mine who I regard as one of the brightest cardiologists in the United Kingdom. I was surprised when he told me that he had not taken the COVID vaccine. He explained to me that he had concerns because he had seen in the supplementary appendix of Pfizer's original trial that there were four cardiac arrests in the vaccine group and only one in the placebo. These numbers were small and did not reach statistical significance. So this could be random chance, or his concern was it could represent a signal of problems in the future. And if this was the case, we are going to have a huge problem. He said he'd rather wait and see what happens before taking the vaccine. On July 26, 2021, my father, aged 73, who was a very prominent, well known doctor in the UK, including being the honorary vice president of the British Medical Association and had received honours from the Queen of England with an OBE, suffered an unexpected sudden cardiac arrest. I was particularly devastated by this happening and I was also I find it difficult to understand why my father, who was a fit and well man, I knew his cardiac history and his cardiac status, would suffer a cardiac arrest. But also my initial investigation was to try and understand why there had been a 30 minutes ambulance delay arriving to his apartment. Two weeks later, the deputy chief nurse of NHS England, a government health body, called me up. She was very upset, she knew my father very well and she was crying and she told me, Aseem, there's something I need to tell you. She in effect told me that throughout the country, for the last two months prior to my father's cardiac arrest in most regions of the UK, ambulances were not getting to patients in time for heart attacks and cardiac arrests. And there had been a deliberate, and I will use these words because I mentioned it, I've mentioned it before, a cover up involving the government and the Department of Health to withhold this information from doctors and the public. I worked with an investigative journalist with the I newspaper in the UK to write an article and a news story that became BBC News headlines a few months later, exposing this. Just before I exposed this, I messaged a professor of cardiology who I trust in the UK. He has a leadership role to explain to him what had happened and what I was about to do. I have text message evidence of this. He told me not to do this because it would make me enemies. I explained to him that I had a duty to patients and the public. I'm highlighting this as one example and I'll give you more examples of a cultural problem within medicine. The next part of this story is the post mortem findings of my father. They did not make any sense to me. I am considered a leading expert, maybe in the world, on the development and progression of coronary artery disease. My father had two severe blockages in his coronary arteries. There was no actual evidence of heart attack and likely there was a rhythm disturbance because of reduced blood supply that led to his cardiac arrest. Then in, within the space of a few weeks, around October and November, 3, different sources of information was brought to my attention that made me realise that there was probably a significant problem with the COVID mRNA vaccine. The first in October 2021. I remember I was giving lectures in Stockholm. I was contacted by a journalist with a Times newspaper who reported to me and said, Dr Malhotra, we have reports of an unexplained 25% increase in heart attacks in hospitals in Scotland and asked me what I thought was going on. I explained to her that at that time, with the evidence I knew in my own experience, I said that two likely contributory factors were lockdown stress. We know that when populations undergo severe stress after war, for example, there is an increase in heart attacks and strokes that can last for many years. She asked me whether I thought that there was a contribution. I was surprised when she asked me whether I thought there may be a contribution of the COVID vaccine to these heart attacks. I said to her, a good scientist should never exclude any possibility. But I felt at the time it was unlikely to be related to the COVID vaccine. But we should watch this space and keep our eyes open. A few weeks later, a publication appeared in the Journal Circulation, which is considered the highest impact cardiology journal in the United States that revealed a potentially very strong link between the COVID mRNA vaccines and acceleration in heart attack risk. Very specifically, in several hundred people of middle age, there was a plausible mechanism, by use of inflammatory markers in the blood, that increased the baseline risk of those people having a heart attack in five years, from 11% to 25%, just within two months of having the COVID mRNA vaccines. Of course, this is one bit of data, but even if partially true, that is a huge increase in risk in a very short space of time. And for me now made me think and link back to why my father may have suffered a cardiac arrest six months after having two doses of the vaccine. I remember thinking and speaking to a colleague, that if this was true, then we were going to see an increase in cardiac arrests, heart attacks and excess deaths in heavily vaccinated countries for the next few years. Then within a few weeks, I was called up by a whistleblower at a very prestigious british institution. I will name that institution, which I have not done publicly before as a University of Oxford. This cardiologist explained to me that a group of researchers in his department had accidentally found, through the use of very specialised imaging of the heart, that there was a signal of increased inflammation of the heart arteries, which was there in the vaccinated, but not there in the unvaccinated. The lead researcher of that group had sat down, the juniors, and had said that we are not going to explore these findings any further because it may affect our funding from the pharmaceutical industry. At that point, with these three bits of information, I then felt it was my ethical duty to speak out. And I went on GBNews to talk about what I'd found what I'd heard and I'd asked for the Vaccine Committee of the UK on TV to investigate this, to see whether there was a real problem with the vaccine in relation to heart issues. Around the same time which I found very strange is that the Secretary of State for Health at that stage, who was not Matt Hancock, was Sajid Javid, had announced in parliament that we are going to introduce legislation to ensure that all healthcare workers are mandated to have the COVID vaccine. For me, this, by that stage had no ethical or scientific justification, because certainly after the summer of 2021, it had become very apparent that the COVID mRNA vaccine was not stopping infection and it certainly was not stopping transmission. It was understood that approximately 80,000 NHS workers had refused at this stage to have the COVID vaccine. And now they were threatened with losing their job if by April the following year they had not been fully vaccinated. Many of these people were very concerned and contacted me around that time, I was also conducting many interviews, both through the BBC and Sky News and GBNews in regards to what happened with my father's ambulance delay. And I used it as an opportunity on the mainstream media to call for Sajid Javid, the secretary for health, to U-turn on the introduction of a mandate for healthcare workers based upon the fact that I felt it was not scientific and it was unethical. I also received my own personal backlash from these comments where I was contacted by the Royal College of Physicians who I had an affiliation with, and they asked me to respond to anonymous complaints from doctors that I was spreading, in quotes, antivax disinformation. I felt with my own knowledge and experience of the healthcare system that this was a direct response probably fueled by a combination of willful blindness and institutional corruption. To elaborate a bit further, when I say institutional corruption, I mean that my view was that the complaints were likely being fueled by academics with financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry. I felt very concerned about the potential introduction of the vaccine, well, the vaccine mandate. And therefore I decided there were two things that I decided to do. The first was I made a phone call to the chairman of the British Medical Association in December 2021. I had a good relationship with him and he respected my opinion. And I spent 2 hours on the phone explaining to him everything that I knew up to that stage about my concerns of the COVID mRNA vaccine. He said to me, "Aseem, nobody appears to critically appraise the evidence on the COVID mRNA vaccine as well as you have from our conversation, he said, most of my colleagues are getting their information on the benefits and harms of the vaccine from the BBC". This was replicated by the former chair of the CDC in the United States, Rochelle Walensky, who in an interview later on had said that her initial optimism of the vaccine benefits came from CNN News report. I say this just to emphasise that we should all accept our vulnerabilities to where we receive health information. Even doctors, policymakers, judges and lawyers are all influenced on the public massively by mainstream media. The chairman of the BMA also agreed with me. There was no ethical or scientific justification for mandating the COVID vaccine. He said the BMA also did not support it. And he said because of my conversation with him, he would speak directly to the secretary for health, Sajid Javid. One month later, at the end of January 2022, the COVID vaccine mandate for healthcare workers was overturned. I at that stage, given the fact that there was some backlash happening towards me, I realised that because this is a very big issue and area, and not my initial area of expertise, I needed to carry out my own critical analysis of the COVID mRNA vaccines. I spent six to nine months critically appraising the data, including speaking to two Pfizer whistleblowers, three investigative medical journalists and eminent scientists from the University of Oxford, Stanford and Harvard. The most critical bit, the most critical research that was published on this issue, which I think the whole court should acknowledge in August 2022, was published in the journal Vaccine. That research was conducted by some of the world's top independent of drug industry influence academics. That research, we was able to reanalyze the original randomised control trials conducted by Pfizer and Moderna. They were able to do this because new information was made available on the FDA's website and Health Canada's website. The conclusions of that paper were really very disturbing. The original trials that led to the drug regulatory approval of these vaccines revealed that you were more likely to suffer serious harm from taking the vaccine, specifically hospitalisation, life changing event or disability, than you were to be hospitalised with COVID That rate of harm at two months was very high at 1 in 800. Just to give you some perspective, historically we have suspended other vaccines for much less. In 1976, the swine flu vaccine was pulled because it was found to cause a neurological syndrome called Guillain-Barre syndrome In one in 100,000 people. In 1999, the rotavirus vaccine was suspended because it was found to cause a form of bowel obstruction in children affecting 1 in 10,000. This was 1 in 800. In my view, it was very clear that given this information, published in the highest impact Vaccine journal in the world, peer reviewed, and has not had any significant rebuttals, that this vaccine now, in my view, should never have been approved for use in a single human being in the first place. In my view, this very important court case in some ways, actually is a distraction from the much bigger issue, which is there should be court cases around the world with a full inquiry into the pharmaceutical industry and an inquiry as to how we got this so very wrong. Of course, one could argue this is just one bit of research, but actually, unfortunately, there are different, many different strands of research that are showing a signal of considerable and common serious harm from these vaccines. From pharmacovigilance data that is reporting what we call yellow card reports from the public. We have plausible biological mechanism of harm. We have other research called observational data. We have autopsy data also confirming that certainly with the majority of people who died within a short space of time of having the vaccine in relation to the heart, was definitively caused by the vaccine. This is really a very, very, very horrific situation we find ourselves in. One would hope and expect that the regulators should be independently evaluating all medications. But of course, the evidence reveals this is far from true. There was an investigation by the BMJ, also published in the summer of 2022, which revealed that most of the major regulators across the world were taking most of their money from the drug industry. For example, the MHRA in the UK receives 86% of its funding from the drug industry, and the FDA in America receives 65% of its funding from the drug industry, A fact that most doctors do not know. And therefore, I would not expect members of the court to know this either, is that very, very rarely do drug industry sponsored research get independently evaluated. Clinical trial data can often involve thousands of pages of information on individual patients. The drug companies hold onto that raw data. They then give summary results to the regulator, who are then paying, who have an incentive to approve the drugs, and the drugs are then approved. I made these points in my peer reviewed article published in the Journal of Insulin Resistance in September 2022, where I concluded that we should pause and investigate the issue around the COVID mRNA vaccines. I have since then been campaigning and advocating for a return to ethical evidence based medical practise around the world. Some of the clear solutions moving forward would be changes in the law that are required so that patients, doctors, members of the public can have greater confidence in the information they receive to make decisions about their health. Two very clear, low hanging fruit solutions, which are both ethical, scientific and democratic, would be that the drug industry should be allowed to develop drugs, but they shouldn't be allowed to test them themselves. And they certainly shouldn't be allowed to design their own research to and hold onto the raw data. Their information needs to be independently evaluated. One other clear solution would also be that the medical regulators, again, should not be taking any money from the industry, as this is a gross conflict of interest. I also want to highlight for people to understand the bigger picture. Prior to the pandemic, I had realised that there was a big problem with the reliability of clinical research, where invariably the results of clinical trials on all drugs sponsored by the drug industry, grossly exaggerate their safety and benefits. I have taken this information to the European Parliament, where I spoke in 2019, and I spoke to very senior politicians in the UK government. But although they were sympathetic, they felt that the issue was much bigger than them as individuals, and therefore it also needed media attention to get public awareness on the importance of such an inquiry. Before we continue with further questions, as I've been speaking for quite a long time now I'll just finish with two references just for the court and the judges to understand just how bad this problem is. Prepandemic the man who I call the Stephen Hawking of medicine is Professor John Ioannidis from the University of Stanford. The reason I call him the Stephen Hawking of Medicine is he's the most cited medical researcher in the world and is a mathematical genius. In 2006, he published a paper which was entitled why most published research findings are false. In that paper, he makes a point that the greater the financial interests in a given field, the less likely the research findings are to be true. I say this in context of the Pfizer mRNA vaccine which has made the company $100 billion. The other point that he makes in a further paper in 2017 is, again, the reason the system continues as it is is most doctors are unaware of the information they receive when they make clinical decisions has been corrupted by commercial influence. The other credible name I will mention is the editor of the Lancet, Richard Horton, who I personally know. In 2015, he wrote an article in the Lancet in relation to a secret meeting that had taken place with himself and some of the world's top medical academics. In that, he wrote that possibly half of the medical published literature may simply be untrue. And he said that science has taken a turn towards darkness. But who's going to take the first step to clean up the system? I believe in this case and in this court today, this is going to be a very pivotal potential moment in history for that first step. ---------------------- Dr Aseem Malhotra H/T: Tiina Keskimäki 🇫🇮

aussie17

798,882 просмотров • 2 лет назад

Min Hee-jin (NewJeans Producer) NHK Music Interview 🔗 “Meticulously planned debut ‘Attention’” 🧢: When I was preparing to launch NewJeans, I really struggled with deciding what our first piece of content should be. I thought about it for a long time and considered many possibilities. It was a project that came with high expectations, and for me personally, it was also my first opportunity to prove myself. So how I presented it mattered enormously. Even down to the smallest details… like the impression the very first released photo might give, or what kind of impact we could make at launch. I thought hard about what kind of content would be the most effective… should it be a video or a photo? What time of day would be most effective to release it? I consider things like that very carefully. For example, the way a person experiences content at night versus during the day can feel quite different emotionally. So I even thought about those subtle aspects. Eventually, the conclusion I reached was: “Let’s make the most of our situation.” At the time, the members hadn’t been revealed, and no one knew how many of them there were or what kind of group this would be. So I wanted to maximize that curiosity. You know how the more something is concealed, the more curious people become? I wanted to build that curiosity to a peak and then release everything all at once. That’s why we decided not to release a teaser and instead go straight into a full music video. (This was actually inspired by Hyein suggesting we skip teasers.) I didn’t think still images or photos would be enough to fully convey the feeling I wanted to express. I felt that video and music together would evoke the emotional response I was looking for because people experience things synesthetically. When sound, image, and feeling come together, the emotional impact is stronger. I believed the best way to present the members’ images was through music and a moving picture… that’s why we led with a music video. In the debut music video, “Attention,” there’s a scene where the members act out a little drama. I paid very close attention to that moment and created music that would fit it precisely. For me, I don’t just make content… I design the entire process of how it should be shown for the greatest effect. And I believe that’s incredibly important. That first feeling someone gets when they encounter something… that emotion, that spark… is so important to me. I’m very detail-oriented, but I also value fun deeply. So rather than just releasing content, I want to enjoy the process leading up to it. Even when we released our second album, since we shot the entire music video across the country, the sequence of how we released the videos was critical for me. It’s hard to explain all this simply in an interview, but maybe some people noticed: the first content we released that time was actually a teaser for the last track, “ASAP,” and then we followed that with the full music video for “New Jeans,” which was the first track. That order was a carefully calculated strategy. It was designed to guide the audience’s emotional journey. Seeing the audience react just as I had hoped—that whole process was honestly so fun and thrilling for me. I think I really enjoy that kind of thing. ——— “How 'Ditto' was born” 🧢: People often praise the music of NewJeans, and I hear a lot of talk about genres. But actually, I don’t feel bound by genre at all. I love a wide variety of music. I’m not the type to insist on only one particular genre. What I love are songs that blend genres cleverly… those are my personal favorites. So going forward, my focus is not on genre but on whether something feels fresh and whether it can create an emotional moment. I don’t want to define what kind of music we make. And I think you have to experience the flow of the times to really understand what’s meaningful in a given moment. For instance, the song “Ditto” was chosen because it delivered emotion. It matched perfectly with the winter album concept I had envisioned, both in terms of timing and mood. When I hear a song, I tend to trust my gut. I have a pretty strong intuition for which songs will resonate. It’s not about objectively predicting what will be a “hit,” but about whether a song moves your heart… you can just feel it. Of course, my own taste plays a big role. But I think that’s actually my strength as a producer, not as a composer. When I hear a song, I can immediately picture the visual… what kind of story, what kind of vibe it could carry. That allows me to work faster. For example, when expressing something like school uniforms, there are so many possible variations. But I always like to start from the basics… what’s the original idea of a school uniform? I try to return to that. So with “Ditto,” I wanted to tap into something primal… the pure, basic feeling of liking someone. That kind of emotion is universal. Everyone has it; it’s wired into us. When I saw Director Shin Woo-seok’s interpretation of it, I thought, “Yes, that’s it.” That’s the kind of complete interpretation I look for. I believe the completion of a project comes from every person involved thinking about their part down to the final detail… the maximum quality they can bring out. My role is to unify and refine all of that. I draw out the essence of each person’s creativity, trimming away anything unnecessary. So the final product is something that’s polished and high-quality, just the way I envisioned it. That’s my working style. So it’s not like I’m fixated on retro or stuck in a particular style. I don’t think human taste has changed all that much. Things people liked in the past are the same things we like now. It’s just the form of expression that changes with time. I don’t feel bound by “past” or “present.” I don’t even think in those boundaries. To me, it’s all just good taste. You know how kids sometimes have their own little treasure boxes when they’re young? I think my work is kind of like that. I want to make things that never feel dated—that are timelessly enjoyable. ——— “Dance Expression and 'Hype Boy'” 🧢: I had a vision of what kind of girl group I wanted to create. That’s why I chose a song like “Hype Boy.” And to bring out that feeling, we created four different versions of the music video. Every choice had a purpose, everything was designed to maximize the experience of the song. “Hype Boy” is such a unique song. It has this strange, piercing melody that gives people chills in a good way. To emphasize that tingling feeling, I had to break away from the standard K-pop choreography format… you know, the kind where everyone is in perfect formation, doing synchronized moves. But our songs don’t suit that kind of choreography. Our dances are much harder. They require the body to move very naturally with the groove of the melody and beat. So I think our members are incredible. It’s not easy to express naturalness with your body, and you have to really enjoy it to make it look effortless. But they pulled it off so well. They’re still young, but they’re so talented. And through it all, I wanted to avoid making them look like they were performing just for business. I wanted them to show the pure joy and bright spirit that’s natural for people their age… genuine, carefree, radiant. ——— “The difference between NewJeans and conventional K-POP” 🧢: Ah, for me, it’s all about naturalness. And honestly, naturalness isn’t something you can produce or direct into existence. It comes from how I interact with the NewJeans members on a daily basis… what kind of environment they practice in, how they live and work. There are so many things that don’t appear on camera, but those unseen aspects have to be in place in order for true naturalness to come through. That’s why I wanted to create that kind of environment for the girls. And also, I wanted to shape my own working environment in that way too. Only then can something truly natural, something unforced and not overly stimulating, really come out. To begin with, I don’t believe anyone can be completely natural in front of a camera or under the gaze of others. It’s human nature to become self-conscious. That’s why I think naturalness is our strength, but it can’t be our concept. If you try to turn “naturalness” into a concept, it actually becomes incredibly artificial. So why do I place so much importance on naturalness? It’s because the girls are still so young. While other kids their age are going through school and having a wide range of life experiences, these members are living very different lives. Before they officially debuted, I told them, “This is like studying together with me.” Our standard contract is seven years, which is about the same length as going through high school and college in Korea: three years of high school and four years of university. So I told them, “We’re going to school together. We’re learning together.” And in that sense, I want to be a good teacher to them. They’re also surrounded by an incredibly professional team, people they’d never meet even in a traditional school setting. I’ve never really liked the word idol. These days, that word is used more like a job title, something manufactured by the industry, and it’s far from its original meaning. To me, the term idol feels misplaced. It doesn’t really reflect who these artists are or what they represent. And I’m not the kind of person who clings to labels or terminology. In fact, what I really want is to break the stereotypes and preconceptions that come with the idol industry. I want us to show people something different… to challenge those assumptions and redefine what this can look like. That’s the kind of mindset I have. ——— “Isn't it difficult for the members to express "naturalness"?” 🧢: There were a lot of things I considered when forming the group. First and foremost, I think it was important that the members shared a similar vibe… like how I prefer working with staff who align with my taste. It’s important for the crew to be on the same wavelength. And by that, I mean more than just getting along… it also extends to shared values. Of course, people won’t all share identical values, but when we’re facing in a similar direction, everything becomes easier. It’s also just more efficient to work with people who have overlapping tastes. Now, when it comes to our members, they each have their own individual tastes, but those preferences are still in development. Just like we all went through as kids, they’re still growing, still discovering themselves. They’re not in a finished state. So we didn’t cast them based on some complete or polished version of themselves. It wasn’t like, “This person is fully formed, let’s pick her.” It was more like, “Ah, she has potential, there’s something there.” That sense of a spark… those were the kinds of subtleties I paid attention to. I didn’t cast anyone just because they were pretty or could sing well. I don’t work like that. I really value those finer, more delicate aspects. Even the design of the light stick wasn’t something that came from a long strategic planning session… it was actually a spontaneous idea. I didn’t sit down and think, “Let’s make a light stick like this.” NewJeans didn’t have a fixed logo, but I felt we still needed a unifying symbol. So one night, just before going to sleep, I kept thinking about it. Right before dozing off, I started sketching and it turned into a rabbit’s face. When I drew it out, the shape just continued and turned into a bunny. To me, the NewJeans members are like little bunnies… playful, innocent. Their visuals also resemble rabbits in a way. And rabbits symbolize abundance. That made me think: “Ah, maybe our fans will multiply like rabbits. That would be great.” So that bunny face became both a symbol for the members and the fans. The image came to me all at once, and I imagined a venue completely filled with bunny light sticks. That vision led to the creation of the light stick itself. Since I always prioritize fun in everything I do, the next idea that came to mind was making the light stick customizable. I thought, “Wouldn’t it be great if fans could personalize their bunny?” That way, each rabbit would represent a different person’s character. So we included accessories, allowing everyone to customize their own bunny. It’s symbolic of all these different bunnies coming together and enjoying a good time as one. Our light stick has a big head, so when it’s used in a concert hall, it lights up in heart shapes that are very visible. That was the image I really wanted. And that bunny face… it’s also a heart. It represents both the face of NewJeans and our hearts. It’s the love we’re showing to our fans, and the love we want to receive in return. Every time I see it, I feel deeply moved. It’s very emotional for me because it’s a perfect realization of what I envisioned. As someone with a background in creative direction, there’s nothing more satisfying than seeing an idea materialize exactly the way you imagined it. That kind of work holds deep meaning for me. ⸻ 🧢: Looking back, I think in 2023 we were able to achieve almost everything we had hoped for. I’m so incredibly grateful for that. Of course, this is an ongoing challenge… and the better things go, the more pressure there is. That’s why I always try to return to my original mindset. Just like I tell the members, I try to remind myself of the beginning and keep things fun. Back then, when we were first putting out content, planning the music, and working on visuals, I felt this thrill… this rush of excitement. I don’t want to forget that feeling. So I try hard to engrave that emotion into every album we release. I’m constantly working to rediscover the joy in all of it. So for 2024, I hope everyone can look forward to us with fresh anticipation. And even if we come out with something completely new, I hope people will receive it warmly and with excitement. That’s really my deepest wish. 🙏

1tokki

17,635 просмотров • 1 год назад

I finished the DLC for Ninja Gaiden 4: The Two Masters. Here’s a quick little analysis. I liked it quite a lot. It lasts around 3 hours (I played it on Hard). It has small references to the previous games, and that’s definitely appreciated. You can tell they refined the combat system even more and made the game harder, because the three chapters really kicked my ass is a not stop action combat. Maybe I’m just rusty, but enemies respond much better during combat now. One good thing is that when you lose, you can now skip the death dialogue. If you run out of health and press the button, it immediately restarts, which makes everything feel smoother (that was one of the things I had been asking for). However, things like being able to save the game at UMI or the HDR issues were not added or fixed, which is a shame. I liked the new stages — especially the “hell” one. It feels like a sea without water. You can tell this game was designed to be played at night, because in daytime stages the characters look kind of weird. Maybe it’s just something you have to get used to. Yakumo’s new weapon is incredible. Ryu’s new weapon, on the other hand, I didn’t fully understand. It’s simple, but it feels like it’s missing hits — I noticed it felt kind of empty. It’s more of a “connector” weapon than anything else. It’s great that they added the option to customize which weapons you want to use, or even equip them all together. The new enemies definitely add challenge (there are 4 new enemies or bosses), and I liked the final boss — I’m not sure if more than the others in the base game, but I really enjoyed it. To sum it up, I liked the DLC. However, I feel like they’re going to release a BLACK version, because it’s missing unlockable content, costumes, and characters like Ayane. That honestly makes me sad. A game with such a fun combat system really needed that extra content. If this DLC had been included in the base game, it would have been incredible. Later I’ll talk about the new 100-level mode (it has 3 accessories to unlock — they’re probably for the new weapon). But overall, it’s a good, very playable DLC, just lacking in content. Great job by PlatinumGames and Team Ninja — but please learn to listen a bit more to the fans who have been supporting you for years. Adding more costumes or another playable character is enough to make us happy. 🥷 🥰 Team NINJA PlatinumGames Inc. Super Ninja™

Bayonetta Stuff

21,548 просмотров • 6 месяцев назад

Paul Schrader's 'Blue Collar' (1978) was a very tense shoot, because Richard Pryor, Yaphet Kotto, and Harvey Keitel argued constantly. There were fights, verbal abuse, walk-offs, and Mexican stand-offs. According to Paul Schrader, Pryor hit Kotto with a chair on camera during filming. Here is Schrader explaining the tense atmosphere & the reason why he cried during the filming of 'Blue Collar' (1978): "Schrader: [Richard Pryor was never meant to be the star of the movie]. A lot of the difficulties on the film came out of the fact that | had approached Richard and Harvey Keitel and Yaphet Kotto separately and led each of them to believe that they were the star of the movie, because that’s what it took to get them involved. You were basically introducing three bulls into a china shop and asking them to get along, and you can’t really blame the bulls when things start getting wrecked. Very early on, by the second or third day of production, Richard became convinced that he was playing the black sidekick to Harvey’s Terry Molloy, and Harvey became convinced that he was playing Ed McMann to Richard’s Johnny Carson, and Yaphet was convinced that they were both trying to ace him out, and things got very heavy. We were shooting in auto plants in Detroit and Kalamazoo in middle of a heatwave and pretty much what was happening on-screen started happening off-screen. Not a day went by without some sort of confrontation. Right after you said ‘Cut’, a fight would start. After about three weeks in, I was in the middle of the set and all of a sudden I started crying and I just couldn’t stop, something I'd never done before. The AD grabbed me and took me outside and walked me around the block and I said, ‘This is not working. The movie is never going to get finished and I'm never going to work again.” But he calmed me down and walked me back in and I guess everyone realized I wasn’t as much the iron man as | had been appearing. Richard looked at me and said, ‘You pu**y —are you gonna be a man or not on this movie?’, and I said, ‘OK, Richard, I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.’ Interviewer: Did things improve from that point on? Schrader: Part of the problem was to do with Richard’s style of acting. Being primarily versed in stand-up comedy he had a creative life of between three and four takes. The first one would be good, the second would be real good, the third would be terrific and the fourth would probably start to fall off. Whereas Harvey, with his theatrical training, very self-analytical, would work on the meaning of the scene in the early takes and then after ten takes he’d be terrific. Well, there’s virtually no way you can film those two men together, so you’d have to rehearse Harvey with a stand-in and then bring Richard in without any rehearsal. The other thing that Richard would do when he felt his performance going flat was to improvise and change the dialogue just like he would have done in front of a live audience, and he would never tell me or anyone what he was going to do. In one case I had a two-shot of Richard and Harvey where Richard just started flying, and of course Harvey tried to top him, and as soon as that happened Richard just sort of took off and became brilliant. Harvey broke a take once because he felt himself being knocked out of shot. I had to grab Harvey and get him down on the floor and yell at him, ‘Don’t you ever break shot!’, because Richard was right behind me trying to get at him. So the shooting strategy became very limited: ‘I know I may only have one take with these actors, so what’s the best one?’, and you’d work out the minimum coverage you needed and that’s all you got. Sometimes if they were in a good mood you could actually try something a little different, but by the time we shot the last scene, the one with all three of them on the sofa after the party, they hadn’t been talking to each other for a long time, and I had fallen into a prolonged pattern of script negotiations which usually began the night before and went on into the morning of shooting, talking to each of them until they were all happy with the others’ improvisations. Now the day before the sofa scene Richard had hit Yaphet with a chair on-camera, so I knew it was going to be tough. We lit the scene with extras, put their names on the sofa with pieces of tape, and the crew were all warned. The three of them came into the room in silence, there was no discussion, I said ‘Action’ and we did the first take, which ran to about four or five minutes — much too long. So I said, ‘OK, that’s very good, but it’s too long for us. We’re going to go right again. No one move, no one talk, let’s just do it a little faster. Action.’ We did that take on the same reel of film and that was two and a half minutes. I said, ‘Cut’, and Richard got up, went downstairs, got in his car and drove home. End of movie. Interviewer: All this must have given you a completely different perspective on the job of being a director than the one you’d envisaged when you were a critic. Schrader: It did. I said afterwards that if this was what movie-making was like I didn’t want to do this any more. On that film, I very quickly learned to confine myself to talent management, to making sure the actors stayed in character and the storyline remained coherent. I handed over shot selection and lighting and blocking essentially to my crew. I didn’t have time to explore those areas." ('Schrader on Schrader & other writings', edited by Kevin Jackson, 1990) [P.S: On this day, 48 years ago, 'Blue Collar' was released in the USA]

DepressedBergman

14,455 просмотров • 7 месяцев назад

I am the Director of the White House Office of Extraterrestrial Affairs. In 2024 this government completed the most thorough search for extraterrestrial life in human history. We checked the sky. We checked the files. We declassified the saucers. The verdict came back: nothing. No life out there. Not one. So I closed the telescope. I opened the window. I pointed it at a Home Depot. Three million by lunch. The trick was always the word. *Alien* had been sitting in the science fiction aisle for sixty years and we were too shy to use it in a press release. The dehumanization was already written. It was just shelved under Fantasy. This year I moved it to Policy. Same word. New department. My department. I should explain the jurisdiction, because there are two of us and we do not speak. Down the hall is the Department of War. It used to be the Department of Defense, but defense sounded woke, so we changed the name for two billion dollars, half of it letterhead. They renamed it back to what it was in 1789, before someone noticed in 1949 that the old acronym, N-M-E, sounded too much like *enemy.* We have now re-adopted the name they abandoned for sounding like the thing it does. I find this clarifying. The signage alone is seven hundred thousand buildings. We are spending a billion dollars on new doors so the doors can say War. The Department of War runs and has a tab for UFOs. Real ones. They post the actual files. The saucers. The eyewitnesses. The intelligence officer left "virtually speechless." They are searching the sky in earnest, declassifying everything, and what they keep finding is *nothing.* No craft confirmed. No biology confirmed. Decades of looking up and the honest answer is: unresolved. So you have two federal agencies, one word, opposite directions. searches the heavens for aliens and finds none. I open a window and find three million. They declassify the ones that don't exist. I classify the ones that do. They got a press release. I got a tip line. Guess which one rang. We are, technically, hunting the same species. They just keep aiming the telescope up, and I keep telling them, gently, at the inter-agency sync: lower it. The homepage was mine. ALIENS DECLASSIFIED. THEY WALK AMONG US. I tested "Immigration Portal." Eleven percent scroll. I tested *the truth's out there,* and a White House official told a reporter, on the record, that the strategy was to "draw eyeballs." We drew eyeballs. The truth was out there. It was in a parking lot in Bakersfield, getting into a white van we are now contractually obligated to call a craft. In 1938 a man read a story about an alien invasion over the radio and the country panicked in the streets, and for ninety years that was taught as a cautionary tale, the danger of a broadcast that makes people believe an invasion is real. We studied that broadcast. We did not study it as a warning. We studied it as a launch. The difference between Orson Welles and this office is that he apologized the next morning, and we put a counter on it. I named the van the Mothership. I named the prison Area 51. I named the 5 a.m. knock First Contact. I named all of it from the third chair. I keep a felt-tip for naming and a Mont Blanc for the part that can't be undone. Then we made the cards. I want to be precise, because people assume I'm exaggerating. We took the faces of the captured and we printed them as trading cards. "Worst of the Worst." Mugshot, nationality, charges, and a weakness level, and the weakness level was a snowflake, and the snowflake meant us. We are the weakness. We were proud of that. When a children's franchise objected that these were, in fact, their cards, our official response, which I helped draft, was: "To arrest them is our real test. To deport them is our cause." We set the abduction to the cartoon's theme song. Gotta catch 'em all. The first half is the slogan. The second half is the quota. A man told Congress in 2023 we were hiding non-human biologics. Everyone pictured a grey on a slab. Cute. We do run a reverse-engineering program. We take the biologic. We study what it makes. It makes the drywall. The 4 a.m. milking. The lettuce. And the lettuce is round now, because forty percent of it stayed in the dirt with the only people who knew where the dirt was. We reverse-engineered the alien completely. The blueprint was a back. We call the biologic "labor." We classify the screaming as ambient. Identification is a science here. We do not arrest at random. We read the markings. A crown inked on a forearm. A soccer crest. We have catalogued the species by its tattoos the way Linnaeus catalogued the finch. One of the specimens turned out to be autistic and the crown was just a crown, but the taxonomy held, because the taxonomy is not falsifiable, that is what makes it a taxonomy. I have a desk for this. I have a magnifying glass. I have never felt more like a scientist. There is a second species, and this one we keep. An alien with five million dollars is not an alien. He is a guest. We printed him a card. It is gold. We are printing a Platinum one for the aliens with even more money, who may remain on the planet two hundred and seventy days a year and pay no tax on the wealth they made on other worlds. The website for this is the cheapest-looking website I have ever approved, and I approved the one with the saucer on it. The same agency that scans a gardener's forearm for gang signs scans a financier's bank statement for extraordinary ability. The statement always has it. The forearm never does. The species was never a people. The species is a price. In the old films the alien lands and says, take me to your leader. We have improved the line. Pay five million and we take you to ours. He golfs with him on Saturday. There was a film about this, and I am told the man who made it meant it as a warning, which is the recurring problem with the warnings. A drifter finds a pair of sunglasses, and through them he can finally see which people are the aliens, and it is the rich ones, the ones on the billboards telling everyone to obey and consume and reproduce and not think. I have a pair of those glasses, conceptually. I issue them at the tip line. But mine are tuned the other way. You put them on and the alien is never the man in the suit who paid five million to skip the line. The alien is always the man holding the leaf blower. The lenses cost a thousand dollars in advertising and they only point down. We have sold a great many pairs. You asked about the Men in Black. Yes. Regulation now. A Man in Black photographs poorly, and the witnesses would not stop filming us peel a woman off the sidewalk in daylight, so we issued the masks, and leadership's only note was that the masks tested well. We are no longer the cover-up of the abduction. We are the abduction. We skipped a step. Efficiency. Our communications team posted E.T. last summer. The bicycle. The moon. "Even E.T. knew when it was TIME TO GO HOME." I want to walk you through what happened in that meeting, because nobody stopped it. We chose the one film where the government is the villain. The men with the flashlights and the unmarked vans who hunt the small frightened alien hiding in a child's closet. That is us. We are the flashlights. We watched that movie as children and cried when the agents came, and then we grew up and became the agents and made the poster ourselves and scheduled it for nine a.m. The intern asked if we were the good guys in this one. We told her engagement was up forty percent. She has since been promoted. I built an app where you abduct yourself. CBP Home. You open it. You confirm you are the alien. You beam yourself off the planet and you save us the gas. And here is the part I cannot believe they approved. We *pay* you. A thousand dollars to vanish. We raised it to twenty-six hundred when the first price didn't move enough units. We are bidding against ourselves for your disappearance. Four-point-six stars. The one-stars are from users who got beamed mid-review. I keep the unfinished ones in a folder. I find them very moving. We opened a facility in a swamp. We ringed it with alligators and we called it that, on purpose, in the brochure. Then we opened a gift shop. Thirty dollars for the shirt. Twenty-seven for the hat. Fifteen for a set of koozies, so your beer stays cold while you celebrate the prison in the wetland. The fundraising email called it "gator-guarded, python-patrolled," a "one-way ticket to regret" for anyone who didn't self-deport in time. We sold the koozies to fund the swamp. The swamp funds the next swamp. I want you to sit with the fact that there is merchandise. The quota is three thousand a day. Stephen asked for it himself. Three thousand is not a number. It is a metabolism. The building is hungry by nine and we feed it Marco, who does the landscaping, and the building goes quiet, and by one it stirs again, and we find another Marco. There is always another Marco. That is the part I find beautiful. The supply is the point. The supply is everyone. The Secretary signs the warrants. She is very firm on one point, which she repeats in every briefing: the aliens, she warns, eat the pets. They are taking the dogs. I have read her book. In her book she takes a fourteen-month-old dog named Cricket to a gravel pit and shoots it, because it would not obey, and she writes this down herself, proudly, as a story about leadership. She wrote the part about the dog. She also warns us about the dogs. I have stopped trying to hold both sentences at once. I just file the warrant. The tip line was the masterpiece. "Report your neighbor" hit the shame ceiling. "REPORT SUSPICIOUS ALIENS" tested as a hobby. We handed the callers Roswell instead of a snitch's guilt, and the phones lit up like a saucer, and they hung up glowing, every one of them, like they'd finally seen the thing. They had. He coached the Tuesday team. He was at the bake sale. That is the horror we are selling you. The alien brought the orange slices. He was undocumented and luminous and gone by Tuesday. Roswell taught us the other half of the trade. In 1947 something fell in the desert and the government said: it was a weather balloon, nothing here, go home. That was the first administrative error, the founding one, the original sentence that says the thing you saw was not the thing you saw. We still use it. We have only reversed the polarity. In 1947 they saw a saucer and we called it a balloon. Now they see a father of three and we call it a saucer. The skill is identical. You simply decide in advance which truth the public is allowed to keep, and you hand them the other one, printed, official, with a seal. We did have one administrative error. We abducted a man a court had ordered us not to touch, dropped him on a planet called El Salvador, and called it clerical. A judge made us beam him back. So the DOJ stood up and warned the others: insist on a hearing and we will re-abduct you to the same planet. The Supreme Court said the aliens are entitled to due process. A very Earth opinion. We are appealing it to a higher sky. The planet has a prison, and the prison is the elegant part. In the film about the camp, the aliens are not killed. They are put somewhere they are not permitted to leave, while everyone agrees this is temporary, for their own protection, pending a status that never arrives. We built that. It is called CECOT and we rent it. A man goes in and the man does not come out, and the genius is that nothing has to happen to him, the room does the work, the room is the whole sentence. You remember the Men in Black had a small device. A flash, and the witness forgets the alien entirely. We have something better. We do not wipe the memory. We wipe the file. The man remembers everything, the cell, the flight, the day, all of it, in perfect detail, and it does not matter, because there is no document that admits he was here, and a memory without a file is just a story he tells in a language the form does not accept. The witness keeps the truth. We keep the paperwork. Only one of those is admissible. I learned that the flash was never the point. The point was always the filing cabinet. We run all of it on a spell from 1798. Two hundred and twenty-seven years old. Written for a war we are not in, against an enemy we have not declared. It works because nobody reads the small print on a curse. Storm Area 51 was a joke once. A hundred thousand people Naruto-running at a fence to free whatever was inside. I think about it daily. We're the ones inside the fence now. We kept the running. We just turned it around. We have a precedent we cite in the deck, proudly, on slide four. In 1954 the government ran a program of exactly this kind, and the program had an official name, and the official name was a slur. They printed the slur on the letterhead. They did not flinch. The President holds it up as the model, by name, at the rallies, and the crowd cheers the name. I admire the honesty of 1954 more than I can say. They did not need a saucer to make it palatable. They just used the word. We are the same operation with better art direction. The only thing we added was the costume. I love the callers. I want to say that plainly. For years they told each other a hidden cabal was running everything from the shadows, harvesting the innocent, and that one day the truth would come out. They were right. There is a cabal. It has a budget of a hundred and seventy billion dollars, the largest in the history of federal law enforcement, and it sits in this building, and I have a desk in it. And the people who spent a decade certain that shadowy elites were disappearing their neighbors now call our line, unpaid, to help the shadowy elites disappear their neighbors. They wanted to expose the conspiracy. We made them the staff. Do your own research, they said. They did. They found the gardener. The Department of War posted another tranche on the twenty-second. Saucers. Lights. A pilot's voice going thin. I read all of it. I want them to find one so badly. I want there to be a real one up there, a genuine visitor, something that actually came from somewhere else, because then, and only then, would a single creature in my files have been an alien. They never find it. The sky stays empty. The ground stays full. I have stopped attending the inter-agency sync. We were two departments looking for the same thing in two directions, and only one of us was ever going to be wrong, and it was the honest one. And here is the thing that keeps me at the window past dark. There was a real one. A rock from another star, the genuine article, the first verified object from outside the entire solar system, and a Harvard man went on television and said it might be a ship. An actual alien, possibly, inbound, free of charge, after sixty years of asking. We did not open a file. We could not arrest it. It had no forearm to read and no bank statement to approve. It was the only alien in America we had no use for, so we let it pass, and went back to the parking lot. Last winter the sky over New Jersey filled with lights nobody could name, and the whole government, every agency, every radar, looked up and said it did not know. The one time the unknown actually arrived, we had nothing. Down here I have never once said I do not know. That is the difference between their department and mine. They look up and find a question. I look down and have already decided the answer. Last week the President leaned over mid-briefing and asked if any of them were real. I told him the engagement was extremely real. He nodded. We do not break frame here. The frame is the only wall still standing. That, and the office fern. Nobody waters it. It will not die. The only thing in this building allowed to stay without papers. My plaque came Thursday. FIRST CONTACT, VISIONARY OF THE YEAR. Bold. Unapologetic. Unafraid. I lifted that off the homepage. It was written about one brave man telling the truth. I decided the man was me. I wrote it about me. I am the truth I declassified. I am the secret I warned you about. They walk among us, and I sign their mail. The counter is still live. Three million and climbing. I am told it will not be removed. We are not alone. We are just short a few landscapers. A few line cooks. A few nurses. And the entire night shift at the plant that makes the flag. Up. And to the right.

Peter Girnus 🦅

60,870 просмотров • 3 месяцев назад

Make Something Wonderful is 250 pages of Steve Jobs in his own words, speaking directly to you. The book contains some of Steve's ideas that I've never found anywhere else. Notes from the book: 1. He didn't care about being right. He cared about being excellent. 2. His mind was never a captive of reality. 3. He said working with great people gives you access to wisdom that you can't buy for love or money. 4. He believed technology should be streamlined and practical, simple and sophisticated, and that it should be a tool for enhancing creativity as much as productivity. 5. He believed you should ambush your customers. Meet them where they are. 6. His ideas were not arguments, but intuitions. He had a true inner freedom and an epic sense of possibility. 7. He gave an extraordinary amount of thought to how best to use our fleeting time. 8. By the time he was thirty he was the public face of a Fortune 500 company. 9. At Apple’s first board meeting he put his bare feet on a conference room table. 10. He said you should think of your life as a rainbow arching across the horizon of this world. You appear, have a chance to blaze in the sky, then you disappear. 11. He possessed unbelievable rigor that he imposed first, and most strenuously, on himself. 12. He saw clearly (1) what was not there, (2) what could be there, (3) what had to be there. 13. He said early Apple employees were more like poets and painters than cold technologists. That the passion they put into their products were completely indistinguishable from other creative fields. He said their work was a form of love. 14. He had a verbal mastery that was obvious at a young age. He used simple, descriptive language, told stories, and repeated lines and ideas that were important. 15. He thought it was inevitable that computers would be the dominant medium of human communication. He said this in 1983. 16. He had a talent for spotting markets full of second-rate products. 17. He said you could tell how important a product was based on the amount of time people spent interacting with it. As a result he thought it was inevitable that more design talent would shift from the automobile (1 or 2 hours a day) to computers (6+ hours a day). He said this in the 80s. 18. He said that books kept him out of jail and that it’s a shame there are so many mediocre teachers. 19. Like many great entrepreneurs before him, Steve knew what he wanted to do, but didn't know how to do it yet. He said he wanted to make an insanely great computer that was the size of a book. What he described sounded a lot like an iPad. He said this in the 80s. 20. He believed that you should use your unique set of talents to make things that make the lives of other people better. Most people just take. He said "the ability to put something back into the pool of human experience is extremely neat." 21. He would tell his team “You work for Apple first and your boss second.” He felt strongly about that. 22. He was constantly placing the products he was making in a historical perspective, like comparing the Macintosh to the invention of the telephone. 23. He believed you needed to give yourself more time to make mistakes. He said his taste got more refined as he made mistakes. He said that making mistakes over a long period of time made his aesthetics better. 24. He said the key ingredient to making something great was time. 25. He said he wanted to spend his life building things. He could have retired to a beach in his 20s and thought that was disgusting. 26. He was interested in learning how to hone a company down to its essence. 27. You read this book and a thought jumps out at you: How many people are willing to go through a decade of failure without quitting? Steve had the capacity to take pain. 28. He believed it was better to focus on what you're actually passionate about, instead of what you think will make you the most money. He made the most money that way. 29. He listened to older, wiser entrepreneurs and let them shape and mold his thinking. 30. He wasn't afraid to fail, but had to coach himself to adopt that trait. He didn't want to fail, but he wasn't afraid of it. 31. He said don't let your differentiation evaporate. 32. He said if you let your differentiation evaporate the only solution is innovation. 33. He believed great ideas don't map onto corporate hierarchy. 34. He was incapable of thinking that his work and his life were different, separate things. 35. He said the most important things in life are not the goal-oriented, materialistic things. He said you should tap into the world’s magical, mystical, and artistic sides. 36. He paid attention to subtle insights. He was guided by intuition. 37. He didn't believe in the concept or a career, or think it was wise to follow well-worn paths laid out by others. 38. He said most people make the mistake of not thinking about death. He said: "For me it’s the opposite: to know my arc will fall, makes me want to blaze while I am in the sky." 39. He thought Walt Disney had a great idea: Edit before you make it. 40. He said no amount of technology can turn a bad story into a good story. 41. He believed storytellers were the most powerful people in the world. 42. He believed if you didn't have great people you were doomed. 43. He found great people by looking at great results and finding out who was responsible for them. 44. This is how he interviewed people: "In an interview I will purposely upset someone: I’ll criticize their prior work. I’ll do my homework, find out what they worked on and say, “God, that really turned out to be a bomb. That really turned out to be a bozo product. Why did you work on that?” The worst thing that someone can do in an interview is to agree with me and knuckle under. What I look for is for someone to come right back and say, “You’re dead wrong and here’s why.” 45. He believed the job of the leader was to make sure the work is as good as it should be, and to get people to stretch beyond their best. 46. He believed the job of the leader was to cajole, and beg, and plead, and threaten at times—to do whatever is necessary to get people to see things in a bigger and more profound way and to have them do better work than they thought they could do. 47. He believed the priorities of the leader were (1) recruit, (2) set an overall direction, and (3) inspire and cajole and persuade. 48. He believed a creative company should have a risk-taking, creative environment on the product side and a fiscally conservative environment on the business side. 49. He believed you have to choose what you put your love into really carefully. 50. He had a remarkably consistent set of values that he held dear: Life is short; don’t waste it. Tell the truth. Technology should enhance human creativity. Process matters. Beauty matters. Details matter. The world we know is a human creation—and we can push it forward. 51. He thought when deciding what to work on that you should ask yourself: "What do I give a shit about?" And then go do that. 52. He would never sell Apple. Not for all the money in the world. 53. He believed you should master the basics, simplify the product line, and focus on the gems. 54. He believed marketing was about values. That the world is noisy and you should focus on telling customers what you believe in and what you stand for. 55. He believed one way to invest in yourself is by exploring uncharted paths that are different from your past experiences. You know it's an uncharted path when you have no idea where it will lead. 56. He believed that people that think they’re following a safe path pay the highest price of all. They won't realize it for a decade or two — and by then it's too late. 57. He didn't believe in resting on laurels or sleeping on wins. Make something great. Then do it again. 58. He imagined what reality lacked and set out to remedy it. 59. He believed in straight forward, clear communication. If the work isn't good enough you have to tell them straight: "This isn't good enough. I know you can do better. You need to do better. Now go do better." 60. He remained driven by a mission to "put something back into the pool of human experience." 61. He believed in the basics: great product, great marketing, great distribution. 62. He believed you must keep up with innovations in distribution. 63. He believed brands take decades to build. 64. He would capture the evolution of his own thinking by emailing himself. 65. He viewed Apple has the world's premier bridge builder between normal people and the exploding world of high technology. 66. He wanted to demystify technology. 67. He believed excellence was a habit and we are what we repeatedly do. 68. He believed you should be curious about what came before you and you should spend time to learn about it. 69. He believed you simply could not mix messages when selling something new. A customer can barely handle one great new idea, let alone several. 70. He said it's a circus world and you'll never know what's around the next corner. 71. He believed in management by values. Which means (1) find people that want the same things you want and (2) figure out the best way to get those things along the way. 72. He believed in the mantra: Finding the right people is half the battle. 73. He said you can't plan to meet the people who will change your life. 74. He believed everything is temporary — there is no such thing as safety. 75. He believed that your life is a story and that you should remember that your life is a story and that you should always act like your life is a story. 76. He believed in rejecting dogma, which he defined as living with the results of other people's thinking. He said that dogma can be so loud that it can drown out your own inner voice and you should avoid this. 77. He believed a great place to start was by improving a product you hate. If you can make something you love, you can convince other people to love it too. 78. He said all glory is fleeting and you should just get back to making something wonderful. I'm really proud of the episode I made about this book. You'll learn a lot from Steve by listening to it. You can watch/listen to it in full here, or in your favorite podcast app.

David Senra

206,484 просмотров • 1 год назад

In his continuing “Pool Monologues,” Trump hits a record ELEVEN AND A HALF MINUTES sitting with the NATO Secretary. I cannot emphasize enough… Try and read it. I dare you. 1/3 “The pool? Yes. It's in great shape. No. Ready? Thugs. They just told me a little while ago. Six have been arrested and like six or seven are under arrest. They have pictures and everything else. They went to the bottom and it's not a paint job. It's very expensive. It's not rubber but it's like rubber. And they went down with probably a box cutter or a very sharp razor of some kind of a knife. They cut and then they started ripping it up. You know why? Because there's sick people. And then the side of the pool, right at the water level, they took razors and they started cutting this very expensive stuff. It's incredible stuff. It's beautiful. And it's still beautiful. We have one area where they cut it. It's still holding. It's not leaking. But they hurt it so probably maybe after July 4th or maybe before. I don't know. Well, let a little water out because it's at the edge. They'll cut it. They'll replace it and it'll be as good as new. But these people should go to jail for a long time. You know, there's a statue that I saw when I had my first here that if you do anything to hurt statues or monuments, fountains in Washington, D.C. or federal fountain, it's actually federal all over the country. But you go to jail for 10 years and there's no shortcuts. In other words, it's not five years for good behavior. It's a very tough statue. And so tough that it really hasn't been used very much over the years. But I used it when they had a problem in Washington where they were trying to hurt the sickos, would try to hurt things, and I announced it. As soon as I announced it, read it, announced it. And I said, 10 years for anybody, everybody dropped what they had, including ropes. They had ropes. They were tying ropes around Thomas Jefferson's head, Andrew Jackson right up there, that a rope around his head on that incredible statue. I said, as soon as I invoked it, everybody left, that's still in play. They could go to jail for 10 years. They better be careful. They have a gash on that beautiful pool. It's a reflecting point. This is a very expensive material. Then on top of it, we did a much bigger job than we said we were going to do because we did all the outer areas. We did a beautiful job. It's like a piece of glass. And for some reason, this disturbed the radical left lunatics. You know, the guy that one of the guys, he's a member or a big pair to act blue. He's a big Hillary supporter. He's a big supporter of Sleepy Joe Biden. No, this is a very political thing. But as I understand it, six are under arrest. This was pure vandalism. It's an amazing thing that we did. Don't forget, it hasn't worked properly since it was built because it always leaked in 1922. So it was built in 1922. So that's 100 years more ago. It's never worked properly. I always said, had great potential. And I said in my first term, I'm going to do something. So Biden and Obama, between the two of them, spent over $100 million. It was a disaster. Obama, because of the environment, took the water from the Potomac, and it was horrible. It was bad. I don't want to have to tell you what happened, but it was really bad. You can read about it. Biden, he didn't have any idea what the hell they were doing because he didn't know what anything was happening. But they spent over $100 million. We spent 14 or 15 in a lot less than that because a lot of these people worked for the Parks Department anyway. So they're going to work. So I would say a lot less. And we put a great surface on it. This is a world-class surface. It looked beautiful. But they came in and they cut it. And then they grabbed it and they pulled it up. That's why it's all ripped. And who would even think of it? They're sick people. So I think they're in big trouble. But here's the bottom line.”

Jim Stewartson, Decelerationist 🇨🇦🇺🇦🇺🇸

212,919 просмотров • 2 месяцев назад

Like seemingly everyone on this app I have plenty of opinions about Twitter > X and figure now is a good time to open up a bit about my experience at the company. I tweeted for years into the void for the love of it like many of you, but after selling my startup to Twitter in 2020 I finally got to see it from the inside. Up close it was both amazing and terrible, like so many other companies and things in life. As someone with a maniacal sense of urgency built into me, Twitter often felt siloed and bureaucratic. Dumb power plays, reorgs and team name changes for the sake of someone’s ego were distractions that occurred too regularly. You couldn’t just be a builder — you also needed to be a politician. I was shocked by how old and bespoke the infrastructure was, but there was little will to think beyond quarterly earnings calls because we were all beholden to the masters of mDAU and revenue growth as a public company. It often felt like things were held together with duct tape and glue, and that many people had just accepted that a small product change could take months or quarters to build. Management had become bloated to accommodate career growth and the company culture felt too soft and entitled for my own taste. Healthy debate and criticism was replaced by a default refrain of “no, that can’t be done” or “another team owns that so don’t touch it”. Teams could spend months building a feature and then some last-minute kerfuffle meant it’d get killed for being too risky. Just talking directly to customers could turn into a turf war and create deadlocks between functions. I recall one such episode where a teammate spent a month trying to get clearance to reach out to some creators. He went through 3 layers of management and 6 different functional teams. In the end 4 executives were involved in the approval. It was insanity, and unfortunately I saw several top performers get burnt out and demoralized after exhausting experiences like that. Most people were good at their jobs but it was nearly impossible to fire poor performers — instead they got shuffled around to other teams because few managers had the will or resources to figure out how to get them out. A high performance culture pulls everyone up, but the opposite weighs everyone down. Twitter often felt like a place that kept squandering its own potential, which was sad and frustrating to see. The person who was best at cutting through the BS and inspiring a vision during my tenure was Kayvon Beykpour, but he wasn’t fully empowered to run the company since he wasn’t the CEO. Despite those real issues, I was lucky enough to work with some of the most talented people in the business at Twitter in product, design, engineering, research, legal, BD, trust & safety, marketing, PR and more. Often it was a small cross-functional team of intrinsically motivated people who made the biggest impact by challenging some core assumption. Those teams were very fun to be on but they felt like the exception rather than the rule. The months of waiting for the deal to close in 2022 were particularly slow and painful; it felt like leadership hid behind lawyers and legal language as all answers about the company’s future notoriously included the phrase “fiduciary duty”. Colleagues openly talked about how Twitter was being sold because leadership didn’t have conviction in their own plan or ability to fix longstanding problems. Although I didn’t know much about Elon I was cautiously optimistic – I saw him as the guy who built incredible and enduring companies like Tesla and SpaceX, so perhaps his private ownership could shake things up and breathe new life into the company. My take on what’s happened since then is full of lived nuance. When people ask why I stayed it’s easy to answer: optimism, curiosity, personal growth and money. From the beginning I saw that some changes Elon was going to make were smart and others were stupid, but when I’m on a team I uphold the philosophy of “praise in public and criticize in private”. I was far from a silent wallflower. I shared my opinions openly and pushed back often, both before and after the acquisition. I made peace with the fact that I didn’t have psychological safety at Twitter 2.0 and that meant I could be fired at any moment, and for no reason at all. I watched it happen repeatedly and saw how negatively it impacted team morale. Although I couldn’t change the situation I did my best to shine a light on folks who were doing important work while being an emotionally supportive leader for those who were struggling to adapt to the more brutalist and hardcore culture. In person Elon is oddly charming and he’s genuinely funny. He also has personality quirks like telling the same stories and jokes over and over. The challenge is his personality and demeanor can turn on a dime going from excited to angry. Since it was hard to read what mood he might be in and what his reaction would be to any given thing, people quickly became afraid of being called into meetings or having to share negative news with him. At times it felt like the inner circle was too zealous and fanatical in their unwavering support of everything he said. When individuals encouraged me to be careful about what I said I politely thanked them and said I would not be taking their advice. I had no interest in adding to a culture of fear or walking on eggshells around Elon. Either he would respect me for being real or he could fire me. Either outcome was okay. I quickly learned that product and business decisions were nearly always the result of him following his gut instinct, and he didn’t seem compelled to seek out or rely on a lot of data or expertise to inform it. That was particularly frustrating for me since I believed I had useful institutional knowledge that could help him make better decisions. Instead he'd poll Twitter, ask a friend, or even ask his biographer for product advice. At times it seemed he trusted random feedback more than the people in the room who spent their lives dedicated to tackling the problem at hand. I never figured out why and remain puzzled by it. I don’t think things had to be as difficult or dramatic as they turned out to be but I can’t say I’d bet against Elon or count him out. He’s smart and has enough money to make a lot of mistakes and then course correct when things go awry. As the largest shareholder he can tank the value in the short-term, but eventually he’ll need things to turn around. His focus on speed is incredible and he’s obviously not afraid of blowing things up, but now the real measure will be how it get reconstructed and if enough people want the new everything app he is building. I learned a ton from watching Elon up close – the good, the bad and the ugly. His boldness, passion and storytelling is inspiring, but his lack of process and empathy is painful. Elon has an exceptional talent for tackling hard physics-based problems but products that facilitate human connection and communication require a different type of social-emotional intelligence. Social networks are hard to kill but they’re not immune from death spirals. Only time will tell what the outcome will be but I hope X finds its footing because competition is good for consumers. In the meantime, I have a lot of empathy for the employees who are working tirelessly behind the scenes, the advertisers who want a stable platform to sell their stuff on, and the customers who are experiencing chaotic updates. It’s been a madhouse. Twitter moved at the speed of molasses and suffered from bureaucracy but now X is run by a mercurial leader whose instinct is driven by the unique and undoubtedly weird experience of being the biggest voice on the platform. Many of you know me from the sleeping bag incident where I slept on a conference room floor, so I figure, let’s talk about that too. Going viral was an odd and interesting experience. I was attacked by people on the left and called a billionaire bootlicker, while simultaneously being attacked by people on the right for being a working mom who was demonized as an example of a woman choosing her career over her family. Thankfully I can laugh at myself and I don’t take armchair keyboard ideologues too seriously. Being the main character on the timeline, even for a few minutes, requires a thick skin and a strong sense of self. The real story is pretty simple. I was given a nearly impossible deadline for his first project and as the product lead I would never ask anyone to do anything I wasn’t willing to do myself. So I worked round the clock alongside an amazing team spanning many timezones, and we delivered it on schedule – truly against the odds. It was intense but also fun. Those first few months were wildly crazy but I wanted to be there and I have no regrets. Showing up and giving it your all should, in most cases, be celebrated. Obviously you can’t work at that pace forever but there are moments where bursts are mission critical. I’ve pulled many all-nighters in my career and also when I was a student for something that mattered to me. I don’t regret putting in long hours or being ambitious, and feel proud of how far I’ve come from where I started thanks in part to that type of work ethic. I think of life as a game, and being at Twitter after the acquisition was like playing life at Level 10 on Hard Mode. Since I like taking on difficult challenges I found it interesting and rewarding because I was growing and learning so rapidly. I realize our society today trends toward polarization but when it comes to this app, its owner, and its future, I am neither a fangirl nor a hater — I’m an optimistic pragmatist. This may really irritate the internet but you cannot pigeonhole me into some radical position of either loving or hating every change that’s occurred. I escaped my fundamentalist upbringing and am a free thinker these days. Everyone can be seen as both a hero or a villain, depending on who is telling what angle of the story. Elon doesn’t deserve to be venerated or vilified. He’s a complicated person with an unfathomable amount of financial and geopolitical power which is why humanity needs him to err on the side of goodness, rather than political divisiveness and pettiness. I disagree with many of his decisions and am surprised by his willingness to burn so much down, but with enough money and time, something new & innovative may emerge. I hope it does. Sometimes I get asked about how I felt when I got laid off, and the truth is it was the best gift I’ve ever received. Sure the headlines and punchlines wrote themselves but I was battle hardened by then. I knew that I’d worked in a way where I could walk out with my head held high. I have no bitterness about the Product Management team being dismantled, and it made sense for me to exit as nearly all of the remaining PMs were let go. Going on a sabbatical afterward has been exactly what I needed to decompress and I’m finally feeling rested and relaxed. I’m a creative and a builder, so sooner than later I’ll jump back into a high intensity company but I’m grateful for this season of thinking, reading, traveling and being with people I love. After having time to reflect I believe more than ever that the very best outcomes flow from great leadership that combines the head and the heart. I’d be remiss if I didn’t note that in all of this there is also a cautionary tale for anyone who succeeds at something — which is that the higher you climb, the smaller your world becomes. It’s a strange paradox but the richest and most powerful people are also some of the most isolated. I found myself frequently looking at Elon and seeing a person who seemed quite alone because his time and energy was so purely devoted to work, which is not the model of a life I want to live. Money and fame can create psychological prisons which may worsen mental health conditions. We’ve all seen high profile cases of celebrities who end up with some combination of depression, paranoia, delusions of grandeur, mania and/or erratic behavior. Living in an echo chamber is dangerous and being at the top makes a person even more susceptible to being surrounded by yes people when nearly everyone around you is on the payroll and somehow stands to benefit from being in your orbit. Figuring out how to keep “better angels” around in the form of family, friends, and teammates is critical to staying on the rails and enduring intense ups and downs. Everyone needs to hear hard truths sometimes and if you fire all the people who speak up then the reality distortion field may just turn into a vortex. I was drawn to Twitter because I’m obsessed with the problem of loneliness and connection between people. I find it fascinating & troubling that humans are getting lonelier as we simultaneously create a world that’s both safer and wealthier. I don’t believe that trade-off has to exist, which is why I keep returning to that theme in my personal and professional life. I realize this is too long of a tweet but Twitter was a weird and special place on the internet, and I’m grateful to have played a teeny tiny role in its story and evolution. I’m here for whatever comes next — on this app and in new places. Consumer social is very much alive and at a fascinating juncture, so I’ll be watching and participating and sharing hot takes because I don’t want to, and probably can’t, turn that part of me off. Perhaps X becomes a resounding success. Or it fails epically. Either way, I expect it will continue to be a very entertaining ride. 🫡

Esther Crawford ✨

5,503,575 просмотров • 3 лет назад

"Tell us this isn't true." "They had a live being out [near Area 51]." "There were human experiments that went on." 👽🛸 Roswell: A Non-Human Craft or a Darker Secret? 🤫😶 (Transcript is shorter than clip. I don't have room to type more in this post so I'll just wait for replies.) ~ Lex Fridman: "In your book on 'Area 51,' you propose an explanation that I think some people have criticized, at the very end. That this might have been a disinformation campaign from, I guess, Stalin, that the Roswell incident was a remotely-piloted plane with a quote 'grotesque, child-sized aviator.' Just looking back at all that now, years later, what's the probability that it's true? What's the probability it's not?" Annie Jacobsen: (AJ): "So, you know, I've never revealed who that source is." Lex: "Yes." AJ: "You know that? Want me to tell you?" Lex: "Okay, who was the source?" AJ: "So, before I say anything on that, let me speak to the question that you asked, right? So, you asked me, 'What's the probability that that is still standing as an idea, 12, 13, 14 years later,' right? So, I continued to work with that source for years, afterwards. We talked about this. Look, I mean, his whole family knew it was him. And I knew his family because I was an integral part of, you know, I was at his house, met all his kids, grandkids." Lex: "And we should say, the source is the main expert advisor behind the story that it was. Maybe you can explain what the story is that your report in the book, that it was a disinformation campaign created by Stalin to cause mass hysteria in the United States. The very kind that we've been speaking about with the CIA and so on." AJ: "Yes! Predicated on the narrative of the 'War of the Worlds,' right? And the 'War of the Worlds,' when it was a radio program in the United States, made people go crazy. 'Oh, my God, we're being invaded by aliens!' Well, the government was always interested in the story and Joseph Stalin was, too. We know that from declassified documents, right? "And so, the source told me that the reason for this program, and that the real Roswell crash remains, were in fact, it was a black-propaganda hoax infiltrated, you know, or rather, predicated at this idea that you were gonna overwhelm America's early-warning, air-defense system, cause mayhem and maybe be able to attack the United States. That was the plan. And Stalin was also messing with the United States, messing with Truman, who sort of, you know, turned his back on him, right? At Potsdam. "And so, this idea, and the reason that the source is important... And unlike, you know, a lot of people, 'I saw this, I saw that, I learned that.' Was, according to the source, once it was determined that this was a hoax and that Stalin was able to get a craft over the United States, and it crashed. And it had, you know, people inside of it, they were people that were sort of deformed and meant...surgically altered to look like aliens. "The United States government decided that it needed to know what on earth that was all about, and if it was possible for us to have the same program. This, according to this source, right? And so, it sounds preposterous, and if it was just someone saying, 'I...,' you might say, 'Well, it's ridiculous, get them onto another subject.' But, the difference was, is this source, who was very well placed, and friends with all of the other 75 people, you know, told me this as a confession, right? A real, tearful confession, because what he said is he was involved in the American program to do the same thing. And people died, because there were human experiments that went on." "And I write about this in the last 12 pages of 'Area 51.' It was an explosive, you know, revelation, and I felt very confident in writing this because the source wanted it written. Why? Because he said, 'I'm dedicated to my country. I know about being committed to national security, and this kind of thing must never happen. And if you give people too much power, they will take advantage of it.' And he wanted it on the record. "And his wife of 60 years did not know until after the book published. Nor did His children, okay? So, after the book published, I was called to his house and sat there with his family. And they said, 'Tell us this isn't true.' And he said, 'It is true,' right? (We need a tape of this confession or...for his family to confirm they heard this from him.) AJ: "Now that source is Al O'Donnell, who is the nuclear-weapons engineer who armed, wired and fired 186 nuclear weapons, okay? So if you wanna talk about someone..." Lex: "Woooooow." AJ: "You're the first person I've told that on the record, but it's kind of about time." Lex: "Woooooow. Well, you received a lot of criticism over this story, and it confused me why, because it's...given the context of everything you've described with the CIA and other intelligence agencies, it is reasonable that such action would be taken. AJ: "And, the source is extraordinarily credible, right? If you wanted to take the position, 'Well, that person isn't very reliable,' then you have to ask yourself, 'Why did they have Top-Secret clearances that are higher than any in the United States whatsoever?' Because he was responsible for arming nuclear bombs. He was called the trigger man. "And by the way, he told me that I could tell the world who he was. There's a lot of details that are really dark, involving that program. And when is it appropriate, right? Well, it feels appropriate now. First of all, because you and I have been talking for several hours. So this is what is truly a long-form conversation and it's the outcome of, you know, a very long time of my reporting, and also being judicious about what, you know, closing the loop on that, right? Because I do think it's important for people to know that sources have revelations." Lex: "And, like you said, the programs, both on the Soviet side, and the American side, conflicting, I think's the term we used previously? Ethically, morally, on all fronts. People have done some horrible things in the name of security. In your book, 'Surprise, Kill Vanish,' you write about the CIA." ~~~ Jeremy Kenyon Lockyer Corbell: "So, today, I want to focus on a really important story that you once told me, that has never been told all the way [from the] beginning, to all the way to the end. And I just think it's just so cool we get to do this today. So, the question I want to ask is: After you got hooked on the UFO thing, with Bob Lazar, and you as a journalist said, 'I'm gonna start getting sources.' Like, 12 people coming at you, people shut down by the government. You can tell that. But you finally, finally got to a credible individual who had direct, firsthand knowledge about UFOs, exploitation, reverse engineering, and beings. And, oh my God, I want the world to hear this story. Tell us the story." George Knapp: "I've shared some of it in very broad strokes over the years- little bits and pieces of it - without ever actually referencing, in my statements, the guy the source. But this will be the first time I've told it in totality. "And it takes me back to when I first started in this. It's 1989 KLAS-TV, we put together, we spent eight months working on this project called 'UFOs: The Best Evidence.' Nine-part series. It airs on television, it's the biggest thing that's ever been produced for local TV, to this date, and still. "And, along the way, as I'm trying to find...telling the story about Bob Lazar, and his allegations about what was out there at S-4, near Area 51 - recovered discs, alien technology being reverse engineered - I'm looking for people who would support that. And I found about two dozen people, witnesses who had worked out there, who had seen bits and pieces, who could corroborate parts of what Bob had said about these kinds of craft being out there in the Nevada desert. But there wasn't anybody big picture who knew as much as Lazar claimed to have known, so I was still looking for them. "In 1990, I started working on a follow-up series to Best Evidence, looking for new witnesses. And I got a hint from an elected official that I had known, I'd covered him in Nevada politics. He says, 'You know, you should talk to my dad one of these days.' 'Your dad?' 'Yeah.' And he told me what the dad's name was and what he had done, what job he had had. And I said, 'Ah.' So I started stalking the guy. I just started showing up at events where I knew he would be. One of those events was a reunion for employees of EG&G." Corbell (JC): "So I'm assuming that this source was working within EG&G in some capacity, which is, by the way, who Bob [Lazar] said, hired him to go out to Site-4, S-4 at Area 51. So you're like, 'Okay, I can now find out if this is bullshit, or if there's an element of truth to it.' Do I have that right?" Knapp (GK): "Pretty much correct, yeah. So, I'm looking for someone whose credentials are impeccable. Unlike Bob, whose credentials were questioned, and people still attack him on where he went to school and where he worked, and was he at Los Alamos? This guy is documentable. There's a paper trail of where he worked, what he did. There's no question that he was in a position to know. He was the first general manager of EG&G in Nevada. His name was Al O'Donnell, and he has a prominent family. "When I heard that EG&G was having a reunion, I went there. We took a camera [and I figured], 'This is a great chance to get him on camera before I start asking him the questions I really want to ask.'" JC: "And when you say he is a general manager, like, does that give him certain roles and responsibilities that would give him insight? Like, he's not a secretary, so what does that mean?" GK: "He's the boss. He was the boss of the Nevada office. And I'll tell you a little bit about EG&G. So, it was a company that was created in Boston, right around the end of World War Two. Al O'Donnell had been in the Navy, serving during the war. He got out of the Navy while the war was still underway and went to work for a company called Raytheon, which became this massive, gigantic defense contractor that's still around today, still in Nevada in fact." JC: Yeah, they've got a big connection to the UFO topic, right? But, when you say Boston, like, where in Boston was it created?" GK: "Well, MIT is where the company was born. Edgerton, Germeshausen and Grier were the three guys, the EG&G in that. They were at MIT. Scientists, engineers, they created this company there. And Al O'Donnell, who had been working for Raytheon, working on the Manhattan Project. He didn't know he was working on the Manhattan Project, but they were building these devices, complex triggers, that allowed them to detonate nuclear weapons. He learned later what he was doing was part of the Manhattan Project. "He goes to MIT, starts working with EG&G. Their company in those days had, I think, 15 employees, Al said. So it was a very small startup. But it suddenly exploded because the American atomic program exploded in those years. In 1950, Harry Truman decides that we need a permanent, nuclear testing site somewhere in the continental U.S., so they looked at a bunch of places, and they settled on Nevada. "Prior to that, Al O'Donnell had been sent out to the Pacific. They had five of these massive, atomic bomb tests out in the Pacific, and they decided to move it into a continental U.S. location and Nevada's Test Site - it was called the Nevada Test Site in those days - was chosen. Al O'Donnell leads the exodus from Boston, out to Nevada. They start hiring engineers and scientists, physicists and other security, spies." JC: "What are they working on at this time when they make that move?" GK: "Atomic bombs. They're building, testing atomic bombs. EG&G was a really precise organization that was created in order to detonate, measure and photograph atomic weapons. If you look in the history of photography, you'll see some of these amazing photos that they took of, you know, water drops dropping in water and...they're pretty famous shots because of these cameras that they developed. And it was perfect for use and testing atomic weapons and documenting what the process was. "So, EG&G comes out to Las Vegas, they are the managers of the Nevada Test Site. They, subsequently, years later, become the managers of Area 51 when it opens in 1955. So Al O'Donnell is the top guy. He oversees the nuclear testing program out there, manages it for EG&G, works with the Atomic Energy Commission. He has a Top-Secret security clearance and he can go anywhere and see anything. There's, basically, no restrictions, nothing that is outside of his ability to find out and see." JC: "So, this is an impeccable resume. This is somebody who was in position to know, and would know if someone like Bob Lazar was telling the truth or not telling the truth. I find it, personally, humorous that EG&G was, its genesis, its seed, came from MIT, right?" GK: "So, late 1990 or early 1991, I'd have to look up the dates. But somewhere in there is this event, this EG&G reunion. I go there, we got a camera, I interview Al O'Donnell, introduce myself, and say, 'Hey, I'm really interested in this, can we continue this conversation?' So he invites me to his home. He says, 'Come on over, we'll arrange to come over on a Saturday or something. We'll sit down, I'll go through my scrapbooks and show you some documents and memorabilia and photos from that era.' I was like, 'Great.' "So I go to his house and meet this wife. And we sit down, he opens up these big scrapbooks, and he starts showing me all the stuff that he had done. Photos that had been taken out in the proximity of these gigantic nuclear tests. They had great stories about the camaraderie that developed among the engineers and scientists. And he's going through all this stuff and showing me all this. And I love it, I loved every bit of it. I've never had a bad day at the Nevada Test Site, by the way. Every time I've gone out there to do a story, it's just a terrific way to spend some time." JC: "Secrets should be kept, secrets are kept, and you are a proponent of keeping secrets when it's that kind of thing." GK: "Sure, absolutely. And I respected the boundaries that they set up for us in doing these kinds of stories. So I did go out to the Nevada Test Site a lot over the next 40 years or so and put together a lot of different stories. And they knew of my interest in that area that's just outside what the Nevada Test Site, a place called Area 51. In 1955, Area 51 was, basically, created and EG&G got the contract to manage Area 51, and had kept it for the next 30, 35 years. So, whatever went on out there, they had an inside knowledge of what was going on." JC: "So, you meet this guy, Al O'Donnell, for the first time when he's at this public thing. You probably say something like, 'Your son told me to talk to you,' or something. Whatever. It ends up, he invites you to his home, and you're going through scrapbooks, and he's showing you all this atomic testing stuff that he was involved in. GK: "Yeah, and I'm telling him, 'Boy, this is really interesting. That's fascinating. I'd love to do a story on it.' And after we're there for maybe two hours, he closes this one big scrapbook and he goes, 'You're not here to talk about this, are ya?' I said, 'Well, not exactly.' He says, 'I know what you're here to talk about. I know what you want to ask about.' And right about that point, his wife walks in and she says, 'Don't start telling them that stuff! Don't even tell him!' And he kind of joked about it.' JC: "What were you there to talk about?" GK: "UFOs, UFOs. Area 51, Bob Lazar, crashed saucers, reverse engineering, to see if he had any knowledge of that, because I'd been led to believe that he did. So he closes that book and he says, 'We'll have we'll get together another time and we'll talk about it in private.' And over the course of the next two years or so, he and I would meet at coffee shops and talk about it. And I would ask him questions, and really, it was like pulling teeth. He wanted to tell me stuff but he made me work at it." (AJ says his family was there for the confession. Knapp has over two years of meetings with him. A bit confusing.) GK: "And the condition was, I couldn't take any notes. I couldn't record it, I couldn't take any notes. So each time I'd meet with him, I'd rush back to my car and start scribbling notes on pieces of paper so I'd remember everything that he said. And the story that he told me, that evolved over those couple of years was pretty fantastic. "He said that they did have a flying saucer that had been recovered from New Mexico. I think he indicated that it had been taken from New Mexico to Wright Patterson Air Force Base, which is... He never said Roswell, but I think it was the Roswell incident is what he [was] talking about. And it confirmed some of the details about what we know, likely, happened with the Roswell craft." JC: "When he's telling you, 'We have recovered a craft,' did he say it like, this is secret, don't tell anybody?" GK: "Yeah, it was just for my knowledge, my background and information. It wasn't a story I could do then. We were negotiating about how, or when, or if I could ever use that information or make it public. He told me the details about this craft. He said that it had been stored at Indian Springs. Indian Springs is an Air Force Base that's been there for a long time. It's now called Creech. Indian Springs existed before Area 51 was made. "But he says it was there, they kept it there. It might have been in an underground facility, I'm not quite sure. But then when Area 51, after it opened in 1955, they moved it to an adjacent facility. He didn't say it was S-4, he didn't say it was Papoose, but I think that's what he's talking about. Papoose Lake is where Bob Lazar said he worked, and where they had built nine hangars underground, disguised to look like the desert, and where they had other recovered craft. "He says they worked on this recovered craft, reverse engineering, trying to figure out how it worked, who built it. Whether or not they could duplicate the technology because, apparently, they thought this was pretty advanced, and they'd like to be able to build more of 'em. "And he says it was a very closed program, very small. It was only, I think, five of them that were aware of it, at least in the early stages, that were working on this project. And it was very hush hush, and they didn't share it with anybody else in the company, or anybody else in the area, or the military. They just kept it to themselves. "So, after we're having these meetings - and I go back and write down all these notes and stuff, details about what he had shared with me - we have another meeting at a coffee shop, and I said, 'Well gosh, you know, aren't you worried that it would get out, that the word would get out?' "And he says to me, 'We were worried It would get out?' That's right. 'I mean, what...it? What do you mean, it?' It. Meaning a live being, they had a live being out there. I go, 'You had a live being, an alien as well?' [O'Donnell said], 'Tell you the truth, we didn't know what it was.' I said, 'You know, maybe it came from millions of miles away, out in space, and you're keeping it in a cage near Area 51?' He said, 'To tell you the truth, we couldn't communicate with it in the beginning. We didn't know what it was, we didn't know where it was from, and we didn't know what to do with it.'" JC: "When Al O'Donnell says to you, 'We had a live alien, a being,' obviously from another world, what was your feeling?" GK: "Well, I was overwhelmed, because it was, in effect, confirmation of things that I had come to believe, because of the reporting we'd already done. And then the evidence of cover ups and lies that had been told to the public. Here's this guy in a high position, with a high security clearance, telling me that it was true. That they really did have a craft and they had a being. "My second feeling was, one of overwhelming sadness for the being, whatever it was, you know, that was kept out there. I asked him, you know, what had happened to it, what became of it? He says, 'I don't know. I don't know whatever happened to it.' But it was out there for a while, alive, and eventually they figured out a way to communicate with it. "And so I asked him, 'Well, what did it look like?' And he made me guess, as he did with all these questions. He made me guess. He said, 'Well, it kinda looks like a certain political candidate.' I said, 'Well, who? A political candidate? Who?' And at the time, Ross Perot was running for president. He said, 'It looks like Ross Perot. A little skinny guy with a big ears and tiny head.' Not a classic Gray-looking alien, but a very odd-looking creature with really big ears, that looked like Ross Perot. And I laughed. "And so we had these conversations for a while, and I was blown away by the information that he shared. I took all these notes. I was hoping that someday, I might be able to get the information out. And I asked him, 'Look, you're getting up there in age. If I can't record something with you, could you record a statement to the effect of telling me the story on camera, and then when you pass on, I can have the tape?' And he said, 'Yeah,' he would do it." JC: "You know, look, I've heard a lot of wild stories that I can't verify. A guy's telling you something, and you get a sense as a journalist, when you go down a road with somebody, and you take your time and you vet it... Did you feel...I mean, is there any world where he's trying to f*ck with ya? Or is there a world where he's trying to, you know, dissuade...kind of put crazy information into your brain? Like, how did you feel when he was telling you this? Was he like, straight with you?" GK: "Yeah, he was very straightforward. And again, this was not information he was giving up, willingly. I mean, I had to really dig and coax and arm twist to get him to cough things up. And it was very slow-going over about a two-year period, maybe a little bit longer. And I know that this...you always have to be wary of people with different agendas and people that just make stuff up. I didn't get that sense from him because of his standing in the community. He had shared this story with members of his own family." JC: "And that's why they came to you, is because they kind of [gave] you a tip. And these members of his family, they're serious people, too." GK: "Yeah. One of his sons is an FBI agent, or was, he's passed on now. One was an elected official in Nevada. That was the one that gave me the tip." JC: So, I just want to nail this [down] so I understand. You were approached because he had shared this with his family, privately, and then you had to kind of coax to get through to him about the story?" GK: "Right." JC: "I think that's important because look, these things don't happen, like, people [don't] just come to us and say, you know, crazy stuff, and we're like, 'Hh, yeah, cool. Sounds good.' Like, the dynamic of that, socially, as a journalist, like getting in there, taking time. You know, we have to verify if what he said is true, and there are some major bombs coming about that. But it's like, that process is so important. "So here you are, you're sitting with him, he tells you now, they have a live alien. And you felt sad because you're an animal-rights activist, you love animals. I know with your cats at home and you've done horse stories and all the stories about like, the inhumane stuff to animals. So it made you personally sad, makes me sad, too now thinking about it." GK: Yeah. Well, we had these series of meetings, and then the last time we met, after he'd agreed to go ahead and record a tape - and give it to me after making an arrangement so I got it after he passed on - he said that he had been told to not talk to me anymore. He said he had been given a warning [and] it was not a good idea for him to talk to me any more about anything. Not just that topic, but anything." JC: "Well, who knows that you're talking? Who would warn him?" GK: "I don't know. I don't know. But you recall, back in those days, there was surveillance. We had our phones tapped at KLAS-TV. There were guys following us around. Me, Bob Lazar, Gene Huff, maybe Robert Bigelow." JC: "People were also coming to your news station, OSI. And they would come in and try to like, get to you and then they'd show you their card...and take it back. And you know your phones are tapped. So it's like, because of this story, all of a sudden you're on high alert. So, anybody could have called him, been watching you, had meetings with the guy. So what you're saying is one day he just said, 'I can't...I'm not allowed to talk to you any more.'" GK: "Yeah, I've been told not to talk to you anymore. I've been told not to."

Joe Murgia

101,194 просмотров • 1 месяц назад

Well, friends, the interview the John O'Keefe and Karen Read trial world didn't know they wanted has finally occurred. I appreciate The Glarer for having me on his program. We discussed Kate Peter, I defended Lindsey Gaetani's honor, both sides agreed as to the importance of civil debate and leaving people's families out of the fray and then Will helped Olivia and I move towards amicable discussion. Overall, a 10/10 way to celebrate the day towel become a YouTube partner. Here are my two favorite quotes from Will and myself; [Grant] "If any of you took 10 minutes --not on camera-- to talk to Lindsey Gaetani, you would find someone who believes in God, who cares about her children, who's a good mother, and who's not any of the things you made her out to be. And by God I will defend that 'till my last day." [Grant] "I realized that there was just this toxic atmosphere surrounding this case, and I couldn't just say I thought it needed to change — I had to reflect that change in my actions." [The Glarer] "If you believe so much in Karen Read’s guilt, then the facts should speak for themselves. You shouldn’t have to bring people’s family members into it. [The Glarer] "But you know what I think, Grant? I think that you're a really smart guy. And I think you know you're a really smart guy. And I think what you do is, you convince yourself — because of how smart you are — that if you came up with it, it must be gospel. And that's where I think you get cloudy between the truth and your opinion." Here's the full transcript: [Grant] Well, good afternoon towel friends. My name is Grant Smith Ellis and in addition to becoming a YouTube partner today I also decided to call into The Glarer's show. It was the collaboration that the world didn't know they needed but now they have. And if you'd like to listen to this fascinating conversation, related to new allegations as to Kate MafiaMasshole Peter being a PI in the orbit of the Aidan Turtleboy Kearney prosecution, as well as somehow both Will and I eventually coming to a discussion where I defended Lindsey Gaetani's honor, along with a closing segment about the importance on both sides of the Karen Read and John O’Keefe case of being mutually respectful, even if we have differences of opinion on those facts, you can do so right now. Will and I shared a belief that positive changes in the Karen Read and John O'Keefe trial world, at least in terms of that improving dynamic as to disagreeing without being disagreeable, are evident. So enjoy the conversation, folks. It was certainly an interesting one. [The Glarer] You're on — who am I speaking with? [Grant] Hey, Will, it's me. I'm Grant... [The Glarer] — hold on, I gotta give you applause, buddy. You made it. [Grant] Well, we certainly may have different views on the case, but I think we share respect for Jesus and we can talk bad about Kate Peter for sure. [The Glarer] Yeah, that we can do. Sure. Sure. So what's up, bud? What do you got to say? [Grant] Well, I think if people have been following me on X, they will know I've been yelling about Kate Peter taking an envelope of cash in the Chick-fil-A parking lot in front of me for months. And I feel vindicated as of the news of this weekend. [The Glarer] Okay. Okay, so wait a minute. That tracks. So the person who is in this sworn affidavit who claims to have seen Kate Peter with the manila envelope — you're claiming to have seen her with the same envelope. Is that what you're saying? [Grant] It wasn't a manila envelope. Well, there's two pertinent facts. So Kate Peter and I met up for the first time — I would say it was in the winter of 2024 — in a Chick-fil-A parking lot somewhere on the South Coast, maybe near Raynham or something. Anyway, she came and got in my car and she was like, "Well, I'm waiting for someone in a white Toyota Corolla to drop me off money. We try to do it with cash so it doesn't leave a record." And I was like, "Well, this seems a little weird." And then the car pulled up. I didn't actually see the car. She got out, went over to it, came back into my car. It was a white envelope with a green thank-you card. She opened it. There were probably four or five hundred — four or five fifties and a bunch of twenties. [The Glarer] Wow.... Okay, now Grant, I gotta ask you a tough question, buddy. I would be remiss if I didn't do that, all right? Now, a lot of people are thinking the same thing I'm thinking right now, which is: how can we believe you? Where's your credibility? Because you've lied about so many other things so easily. [Grant] Well, I would challenge that and say maybe you have different perspectives on me, but that should reinforce what I'm saying here. The Melanie Little and Alan Jackson Aruba thing — I apologized for that on stream and in a post (because Melanie Little told people not to go after Lindsey's kids, and I found that honorable). [The Glarer] Fair enough. [The Glarer] You did apologize. Okay, so you apologized for that. Okay. [Grant] But I'm critiquing someone [Kate Peter] who would ostensibly be aligned with what I believe about the case, and I still believe what I believe about Karen being responsible for John's death— we don't have to get into it — but I'm critiquing someone who supports that view. That should reinforce my credibility here. [The Glarer] Yeah, and MicroDots backs you up at least on this thing, you know, he says he believes you on this thing. I'm just saying — dude, I've read what you've written. You're a talented writer, clearly. But I can honestly say I've got a whole community of people here — a shit ton of people in this chat right now — that I know would agree with me that if you made a habit of reporting the truth, you'd have support, you'd have readers, you'd have a whole audience. I'd be a fan! But your credibility is fucked with me right now, dude. You know, and I hate that, because I actually enjoy reading what you write. [Grant] I appreciate what you're saying. I think I would just say maybe it's smaller than your community, but I just got made a YouTube partner today. I'm actually celebrating that. I have a small community, people do support me — maybe not as many as support your channel, but it's just people with different views consuming different content. [The Glarer] Yeah, but the thing is — like, I'm content with my audience. My audience could be bigger, but I cuss a lot and I use words that offend people and I just don't kind of play by the normal YouTube game that most creators play when they grow, you know? And I'm okay with the rate at which my channel grows because I get to be myself. But I don't hold back and I don't play by these rules. So I get all that. But I mean, I'm not ethically doing anything wrong. If I were spreading misinformation or contributing to any spread of misinformation, I would have a problem with myself and what I'm doing. You see what I'm saying? Like, it's a little bit different. You're telling me that you're content with your audience being small because you like to make shit up? You know what I mean? [Grant] No, no. Because it's a new channel. That's why the audience is growing. Anyway, the reason I shake your hand is I do think you're authentic in your beliefs, even if we disagree. And well — before I forget, one more thing about that Chick-fil-A parking lot cash that's actually important: when Kate got that money handed over, she told me it was for a donation drive to help other people offset babysitting costs or whatever nonsense. Someone sent a text message — a family member of the person who paid her that cash — and they put in writing that they sent the money for Kate's own expenses. So she lied to me in the car about what the money was for. Something’s up with that. [The Glarer] So she told you in the car that the money was for... [Grant] She said it was to pay for babysitters for people who need help and to donate to other people, which I don't believe. Like, of course not. Nobody believes that. [The Glarer] And then you found out — through what — that this money was actually for her personal expenses? [Grant] Eventually a text message got released from someone in the orbit of whoever paid Kate. It was a family member — I don't know who it was. I've only seen the text message. I'm happy to reshare it on my X later. In that text message, it says — quoting the person — "I sent that envelope with my sister over to Kate. It was for her expenses" or something like that. So even that is evidence. [The Glarer] Wow. Okay, so you are strictly of the opinion, based on things you've seen yourself, that Kate Peter is absolutely being paid by the Commonwealth to spin narratives? [Grant] I'll give you one more piece of information, Will, and maybe you or your audience can track this down: I don't think Kate was involved in the Karen Read investigation directly, but I think starting in the fall of 2023 she worked for a private investigator named Marty Kraft. And I believe by proxy she was then retained to work on Aidan's case through that PI firm. [The Glarer] Okay, and then she just became the mouthpiece between the PI firm and the Commonwealth is what you're saying. [Grant] I will say a few things: I reasonably believe she does have direct contact with the DA and agents of the Commonwealth — I've said that before — and I also believe that she has favoritism towards specific witnesses in the orbit of this case. Not all of them — specific witnesses. [The Glarer] Okay, well, I mean, we know who they are, but okay. [Grant] I will also say — I think — that your caller was prescient earlier, and they mentioned there might be some mutual blackmail. Well, we know that Lindsey Gaetani’s phone extraction was manipulated to remove messages from Brian Tully to Lindsey and from Kate Peter to Lindsey. [The Glarer] ...what's your deal with Lindsey? [Grant] Hold, on let's pull it back first. First of all, I think there was a bifurcation: there's charges from October 2023 against Aidan and December 2023 against Aidan. One set of charges, from October of 2023, involved the Karen Read witnesses; the other set, from December of 2023, involved Lindsey. I don't think anyone set Aidan up in December 2023. I think he was just in love with Lindsey and it kind of got out of control. [The Glarer] Bro... [Grant] Well, but hold on, Will... [The Glarer] I'm listening... [Grant] I think that cell phone extraction goes right to the mutual blackmail point your friend talked about earlier. Someone, during the course of the Aidan Kearney investigation involving Lindsey, manipulated that cell phone extraction, and it could have only happened while it was in State Police custody. That is the whole — that's everything right there because of Kate Peter is the only person who could have gotten Brian Tully to get Nick Guarino to manipulate that extraction while it was in State Police custody before Tully leaked it, by hand, to Aidan's lawyer. [The Glarer] Okay, so listen, Grant. Like, we know that Kate Peter and Lindsey were colluding. Now, I think Lindsey was used. But come on, we know that Kate Peter and Lindsey were colluding to try to set Aidan up. Like, you know this. [Grant] No, I disagree, because I've looked at the timeline closely. Aidan begged to go over there when his indictments got handed down in December. [The Glarer] Well, listen — why? [Grant] Because he got charged in October, but the indictments for the October thing came down December 20th. [Grant] Then when did he beg to go over to Lindsey's? [Grant] I'm about to explain. December 21st, Lindsey tells him, "Hey Aidan, I just got a subpoena for a grand jury." Aidan's mind has gotta' start racing. "Why would there be another grand jury? Is it about me and Karen Read? What is this about?" So he begged her to go over there so he could find out. And that's — like — he looked at her phone that night to see the messages between her and Kate to try to find out about what this new grand jury was about. So no one set him up. He begged to go over there. [The Glarer] So you're just assuming that he begged to go over there based on...? [Grant] I know he begged to go over there. He was pleading because he wanted to find out what the new grand jury was. [The Glarer] The difference between you and Aidan is Aidan posts receipts, dude. But you don't. You get the difference? That's why Aidan has as much of a following as he has. [Grant] If you're asking for receipts of him begging to go over there on that day, I'm happy to provide those. I'll post them. [The Glarer] Then why didn't you do that already? [Grant] Well, I think because what I understand to be the evidentiary record from going to all the hearings is different than what people consume, because not everyone goes to every hearing. But I'm happy to do that. I have it all archived. [The Glarer] Okay, but the point is — like MicroDots is saying — that he was baited to go over there. So even if he begged to go over there under whatever circumstance, we have proof — we've seen proof — that he was baited to go over there based on false information that she was pregnant. [Grant] No. No. She was pregnant. [The Glarer] Oh my, Grant, bro... [Grant] Okay. I will swear on my God about that. [The Glarer] Hold on... [Grant] Well, to move on, I was going to give you some credit. I was going to say you might have been right that the subpoena issued to Lindsey, without her knowledge, could have been to bait Aidan. [The Glarer] But she wouldn't — how do you explain the metadata on the pictures that she sent him of the sonogram, dude? [Grant] First of all, if you're talking about someone's pregnancy — that's a medical issue, and to bring it up on air disgraces Jesus. [The Glarer] Oh, come on, Grant. [Grant] Let's not. [The Glarer] Alright, fine. We won't talk about that anymore. But let's face it, dude — you're making excuses for this girl. And why? Like, do you have a crush on her? Is that what's going on here? And it's okay. [Grant] Oh, oh, please. When I first came into this case, I saw a woman walk into a courtroom, and I started listening to her story. And even in this conversation, there are multiple things I corrected where you were willing to say, "Okay, Grant, maybe that is what happened." And Lindsey doesn't have anyone out there who is voicing that for her, so I'm taking the opportunity to do it. [The Glarer] And do you wonder why she doesn't have anyone voicing things out for her, dude? [The Glarer] Because Aidan isolates people! [The Glarer] Get out of here with that. Stop. Again with the whole "it's Aidan's fault" shit, man. That's between you and Lindsey, dude. I'm asking — like, I asked you why you think that. Nobody is going to bat for Lindsey. And I saw receipts. I heard a recording of her — you're talking about somebody who I heard a recording of [that night with Aidan in December of 2023]. This is... Come on, Grant. [Grant] I was in the courtroom. I saw the people crying when that tape was played. And you know what I also heard, Will? I heard the original version of that tape that didn't have her consent to record, which is why Aidan got charged with felony wiretapping. [The Glarer] Okay, but you're not denying that she said that, right? [Grant] Listen, I have never been awake at 12:30 in the morning. I'm not a woman. I've never been confronted with that situation. I would never pass judgment on someone in that situation. [The Glarer] Every woman that I've ever heard express their opinion on it — pretty negative, dude. Just saying. Pretty negative. Especially the moms. Especially the moms. [Grant] So I don't think any people talking in that way — I don't think you've even met this woman. [The Glarer] You're right. I have not. I have not met her. [Grant] And if — I don't know if she will ever do this — but if any of you took 10 minutes, not on camera, to talk to this woman, you would find someone who believes in God, who cares about her children, who's a good mother, and who's not any of the things you made her out to be. And by God, I will defend that 'till my last day. [The Glarer] Alright. Declared. Got it. I gotta' ask you one more question though. Why are you saying stuff about Olivia Nile — Olivia Nile and her mom — being paid agents for the defense? Come on. [Grant] Okay. Hold on. Hold on. Let me just explain that. I know that's Olivia Lamb. Okay? [The Glarer] Right, yeah, same person. Yeah, yeah. [Grant] Okay, so we all know Christina Lamb does boutique PR consulting for lawyers. She's good at it. Olivia’s good at it. They should own it. I want to interview her. [The Glarer] What — how is that proof, though? That Olivia Lamb is being paid by the defense in some way? You see the problem? [Grant] Hold on. That is an extrapolation some people may make. My argument is only that what she does looks like PR for the defense. I think Olivia hasn't been paid since last year. [The Glarer] But she's saying that's not even what she does, dude. [Grant] Okay, maybe it's not. But I think Olivia's contract ran up at the end of the first trial, if you want me to be very blunt with you. [The Glarer] Contract? [Grant] Mm-hmm. [The Glarer] But her mom doesn't even do that either — what the fuck’s her mom got to do with it? [Grant] Well, why would her mom run some random boutique PR consulting firm for lawyers, and then Olivia just shows up with this extremely high-level acumen, rivaling lawyers? [The Glarer] But that’s not what she does. She's saying that's not even what her mom does or what she does. [Grant] Okay, well, I looked at her mom's website. I archived it going back a few years, so I can post the screenshots again. And I know what she advertised herself as doing. [The Glarer] But you know what I think, Grant? I think that you're a really smart guy. And I think you know you're a really smart guy. And I think what you do is, you convince yourself — because of how smart you are — that if you came up with it, it must be gospel. That's what I think. And that's where I think you get cloudy between the truth and your opinion. Because you state your opinions as though they're fact. And I think that's an ego thing. I don't even think it's malice. It’s just ego. That's what it comes off as, anyway, dude. Because everything you say — every time I ask you, "Where's your proof?" — you explain how you came to your opinion. You give me a laid-out story. Go back and listen to this later on — you'll see what I mean. [Grant] Well, I don't even doubt you, actually, that I'm firm in my convictions. If I'm not there to experience something, I do not know the truth. But I've seen the screenshots. I only found out Olivia Lamb was Olivia Lamb because I found an archived X post where she shared something very sentimental about her grandfather. I didn't like that. I didn't appreciate having to talk about that. But it became relevant because I wanted to know why she was involved in the case. I will listen to her tell me I'm wrong. I want to interview her. [The Glarer] Yeah, but you can't just, like, trap people into interviews by threatening to spread lies about them if they don't, bro. What kind of shit is that? [Grant] Nothing that I said about her grandfather, her acumen or her mother's work was incorrect... [The Glarer] But why are you even talking about her family, dude? Like, that's really low, man. Like — that's... It's low, man. It's low. Her family didn't have nothing to do with this, man. She's doing this because she cares about it. And then people start talking about people's family members and shit. And it's like — it comes off as a not-so-subtle form of intimidation, frankly, Grant. You know, trying to get somebody to shut up. [Grant] No, I don't want to do that. I want to learn about why she's interested in the case. [The Glarer] But you could see how somebody could see it that way, right? Because what if her family starts telling her, "Hey, stop talking about this. Why are we being brought into your shit because you're passionate about something?" What if her family does that and puts her in an awkward position? And then people are cheated out of some really good insight because of that. [Grant] My brother — my brother who at four years old had a colectomy, three-stage, and is developmentally disabled as a result — has a profile someone made mocking him on X. That's a profile that people I respect engage with. Usually I overlook that stuff because I don't believe the people engaging in it are trying to do that. And I hope people realize I'm not doing that to her. I authentically want to know why Olivia's covering this case. [The Glarer] That's all right. So — but that's my point, Grant. I'm just saying, like, if you believe Karen Read is guilty, why not just stick to the facts? Because you don't see me going after anybody's family. You don't see Olivia going after anybody's family, talking about people's family and exposing their family and what they do. You know what I mean? That's not cool. I don't do that. And Olivia’s saying that she will happily talk to you anytime about why she's interested in the case. You see what? That's my point. That's my point — if you believe so much in Karen Read's guilt, then the facts should speak. Everything that you put out there — the facts, the details of the case, and the way you interpret those facts — that should be enough. You shouldn't have to bring people's family members into it. Come on. I feel like you're better than that. That's all. I still have faith that you're better than that. [Grant] Yeah. And I think that's the perfect place to end, because you've given me a lot of time and I share your sentiments. I think that is crucially important. You don't see me out there in the past six months or twelve months talking about Melanie Little, or Olivia or her parents anymore. [The Glarer] I have seen improvement, yes. I have seen it. [Grant] And let me just say why: because I came to believe that there was this toxic atmosphere surrounding this case, and that I couldn't just say I thought it needed to change — I had to reflect that change in my actions. And that's why that happened. So that's it. That's how I feel. [The Glarer] Okay. Yeah, I mean, everybody’s entitled to their feelings and opinions, man. We all are. But yeah, I’m glad that we got this talk. I got to express some things I wanted to express to you. You were very receptive, and I appreciate you coming on and being respectful and being cool. And you’re welcome here anytime, Grant. I can see that we could talk about pretty much anything, and it's fine. That will always be welcome here — no matter what we disagree on. So I appreciate you, Grant. [Grant] God bless, Will, enjoy the rest of your Saturday. [The Glarer] Have a good one. Alright, Grant, y'all. Alright, I'm gonna take another call. Let's do that.

Grant Smith Ellis

27,665 просмотров • 1 год назад

Stargate trivia: "200" (The BIG breakdown) SG-1 was about to attain the loftiest of broadcast heights – its 200th episode – and we wanted to do something special. Something unique. Something everyone on the production would enjoy as much as the longtime fans watching at home. The initial idea pitched was something called “Remember When…”, a trip down memory lane in which our characters’ reflections would form the frames of the varied flashbacks to outrageous missions. While everyone loved the idea of the outrageous missions, the premise of the episode felt too diffuse. We wanted an actual story that would form the heart of the episode. After much discussion, we elected to pay tribute to the franchise by referencing our last milestone – episode 100 – and bringing back Martin Lloyd and the show within a show, Wormhole X-Treme. But the fun we poked at the franchise through that spoof production was nothing compared to what we had in store for 200… WE FINALLY GOT TO MEET THE FURLINGS! Sort of. Even though it never really happened and we end up getting them killed in the end. Back in the show’s fourth season, not long after joining the production, I was summoned to Exec. Producer Robert Cooper’s office. He was doing his pass on our first script, Scorched Earth, and needed something from me: the name of an alien race. When pressed, he admitted naming alien races was not his forte and, as evidence, offered up “the Furlings”. I have to admit that whenever I heard the name, I always imagined a cosmic version of the Care Bears, giggling and snuggling their way through various adventures. As evidently, did everyone else on the production. The fans, however, were all sorts of curious and nary a week would go by without a fan posting a message board request for a glimpse of the elusive beings. Time wore on and those requests continued so, at one point, Brad suggested an episode in which we actually did get to meet them: a race of gaunt, towering, hairless, grey-skinned creatures. But that idea was quashed and the production went on its merry way, choosing to keep the race a mystery. But with 200 came the opportunity to honor those fan requests, and the viewers at home finally got to see those lovable furry creatures who turned out to be a cross between an ewok and a deranged koala. And then SG-1 went and got their planet blown up. Of course, we quickly reveal that the incident never actually happened and it was part of a pitch for a revival of the defunct Wormhole X-Treme t.v. series, a show that lasted an inglorious three episodes before being cancelled. But thanks to an impressive second life on dvd (following in the footsteps of Family Guy and Futurama) the show is being revived – and General O’Neill, in a desire to maintain a cover of plausible deniability for the Stargate program (and, let’s face it, screw with his old teammates) charges SG-1 with the task of creatively contributing to the production. MITCHELL TAKES ON THE LIVING DEAD! Every once in a while, actor Ben Browder would drop by the offices to pitch out an action sequence for his character – so I thought it appropriate that, given the opportunity, his character would pitch out an action sequence for – uh – his character. And, really, nothing says action like zombie hordes. Just ask fans of The Walking Dead. This sequence also allowed us the rare opportunity of witnessing Walter/Norman getting his head eaten. Double bonus! Mitchell’s idea is shot down and Martin gets on the phone with a representative of the studio. He is clearly frustrated and Mitchell asks: “Studio executives, huh?” Martin responds: “What? Oh, no Charlie? He’s a great guy. He’s the only one I trust.” This was a reference to longtime MGM President of Television and Stargate supporter Charles Cohen, one of the smartest, kindest studios executives I’ve ever had the pleasure to work with. As much as he was a fan of the show, we at the production were fans of Charlie. Martin is outraged because they lost their lead. How, he wonders, can they do the show without their lead. “You just bring in a character to replace him,”suggests Mitchell – an obvious reference to the introduction of Cam Mitchell which followed soon after the departure of longtime SG-1 lead Jack O’Neill. Carter then throws out some alternate ideas for keeping the lead alive: “Well, you could have the other characters refer to him all the time. Maybe, get him on the phone once in a while.” Yep. Been there; done that during SG-1’s seventh and eighth seasons. And then, someone references that time O’Neill was invisible… THE ADVENTURES OF INVISIBLE O'NEILL! The idea of doing an Invisible O’Neill segment was actually a joke I threw out...That ended up making the script. That happened a lot in this episode. As with all the segments, we went off and wrote them individually, and then everyone weighed in and they were tweaked. I always found the scene of O’Neill spying on Carter in the shower a tad creepy. Anyway, the Invisible O’Neill idea was embraced because we wanted Richard Dean Anderson to come back and do a cameo on this all-important episode, but didn’t know if he’d be able to work in an appearance. So, we figured we’d get the next best thing: his voice. As it turned out, he was able to swing the appearance, making 200 all that more special. THE GETAWAY Martin then pitches out a tale of high adventure, placing our heroes (SG-1) in an impossible position – and then simply cutting to them escaping through the gate. This was a tip of the hat to the many fans outraged by a similar scenario in a past episode (don’t remember the name) in which our heroes (SG-1) are surrounded by Lucian Alliance soldiers only to effect some miraculous unseen escape. During the ensuing argument over the merits of the pitch, Martin attempts to come up with a reasonable window of time for the team to reach the gate and dial. Ten seconds is too short and thirty seconds is too round a number. He decides on 38! Which, coincidentally, is the same number (of minutes) a stargate can stay open. Timing is, of course, everything, and nothing says action like a ticking clock. Which prompts the following gem from Martin: “Trust me, jeopardy plus ticking clock is box office. It’s the E equals M C squared of the entertainment world. Ask any executive.” Indeed. If there were two notes we received more than any other during Stargate’s long run, they were: “More jeopardy!” and “We need a ticking clock!”. Having a character race a timer to defuse a bomb? Didn’t get much better than that. THEY'RE OFF TO SEE THE WIZARD! Next to The Simpsons, The Wizard of Oz was probably the most referenced piece of pop culture over SG-1’s decade-long run. The fans certainly took notice and resulted in one particularly memorable piece of artwork being sent to studio depicting the original team as the cinematic classic’s adventurous foursome. So, I suppose, it made perfect sense to reference the constant references by including a little Wizard of Oz sequence in the episode as well. Mitchell’s line: “Now, how can something work perfectly fine for ten years, then all of a sudden, it doesn’t work anymore?” was an in-story reference to the gate suddenly stopping operations – and, in hindsight, could have been interpreted as a comment on the the show’s cancellation. DESTROYING STARGATE COMMAND This also episode gave us the opportunity to do something we’ve always wanted to do: blow up Stargate Command. It’s part of the story Martin Lloyd pitches the team. Mitchell, however, points out a potential problem. They’re alive in the next scene. How is that possible. To which Martin replies: ” I’m thinking I can back-sell it and say you were beamed out at the last second.” Teal’c’s rejoinder neatly sums up the feelings of many on the production: “Is that not too convenient?”. Yep, nobody hated the Earth ship beaming technology more than I did – with possible exception of actor Ben Browder. In the original version of this scene, the fun we poked at ourselves was a little more pointed: DANIEL: Beamed out. MARTIN: By the Prometheus. TEAL'C: Convenient. MARTIN: True. But c'mon, you got Asgard technology, why not use it? As long as it doesn't become a crutch. DANIEL: Small problem. The Prometheus was destroyed. MARTIN: Really? By who? MITCHELL: Kind of a long story. MARTIN: In battle? MITCHELL: Yes. MARTIN: Wow. So how'd you get out of that one? Beat. DANIEL: We, uh... we were beamed out. Soon after, Martin fields yet another call, this one from the network. "So, trouble with Nora"assumes Mitchell, to which Martin replies: "No, Nora—she's great." A shout-out to the late Nora O'Brien who was our network point-person for many years before she moved on to another position with NBC. A sharp executive and just a lovely woman. SG-1 DOES STAR TREK We all grew up with the original Star Trek (except Rob Cooper who preferred The Six Million Dollar Man) so we (and by we I mean Brad) couldn’t resist the opportunity to do an SG-1 version of the television’s most famous SF series. Paul McGillion was originally supposed to do the one-line cameo of the ship’s beleaguered Scottish engineer, but when that fell through, series co-creator and Executive Producer (not to mention former stage actor) Brad Wright stepped into those shiny black boots. THE YOUNGER, EDGIER TEAM Look closely and you can catch the late Cory Monteith as one of the young and edgy team-members. “Young” and “edgy” were buzzwords we kept on hearing a lot of (and continue to hear a lot of in the business), so Rob Cooper served up his version of what a younger, edgier Stargate would look like complete with stylized shots and dreamy cast members. Vala continues to pitch out ideas, offering up an SF version of Gilligan’s Island (“We were in a cloaked cargo ship on a simple, three-hour reconnaissance mission…”) that was one of the scenes we lost for time at the script stage… VALA (VO): We were in a cloaked cargo ship, on a simple three hour reconnaissance mission... TILT DOWN to reveal a planet. VALA (V)): But on the way we encountered a severe electromagnetic storm and lost all power. We were forced down on an uncharted, deserted planet... EXT. TROPICAL ISLAND -- DAY We see the cargo ship washed ashore on this deserted island, looking very much like the damaged S.S. Minnow. VALA (VO): We washed ashore and were forced to survive for weeks in the most primitive of conditions. No phone, no lights, no motor cars. Not a single luxury. EXT. ISLAND -- DAY Landry comes out of a hut, dressed like the Skipper. VALA (V): General Landry was with us on the mission, and let me tell you, he was in a foul mood. LANDRY: Mitchell! Mitchell runs out, dressed like Gilligan. MITCHELL: Yes, sir. LANDRY: Where's Carter? She was supposed to be done by now. MITCHELL: Oh, uh...(looks around) She's not here. Landry whacks him with his cap. LANDRY: I can see that. DANIEL: Over here... PAN TO Daniel (as the Professor) and Carter (as Mary Ann) carrying a large device out of another hut. Vala (as Ginger) trails behind them. The device looks like something constructed from bamboo and coconuts. CARTER (to Landry): I think we may have something, sir. VALA:Not a moment too soon. I must get out of this place. I have a photo shoot this afternoon. Landry stares at the device. LANDRY: What is this thing? CARTER:Well, I managed to construct a basic subspace transmitter out of coconuts, bamboo and our old subspace transmitter. DANIEL: A long shot, but it just might get us off this island. MITCHELL: That's great! Mitchell eagerly moves in for a closer look, but trips, falls and smashes the damn thing.Before Landry can whack him with his cap again -- TEAL'C emerges from the trees, dressed like Mr. Howell. He casually puffs a pipe. TEAL'C: Was I not traveling with a companion? A female by the name of... Lovey? MARTIN: Alright, enough already. FARGATE I had really enjoyed Farscape and, with both Ben Browder and Claudia Black on the show, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to do a little tribute, SG-1 style. Originally, Ben was supposed to play the part of Crichton and Michael the part of Stark, but they suggested it might be more fun to switch up the roles. SG-1 SUPERMARIONATION! Brad Wright, Robert Cooper, Paul Mullie and Carl Binder are huge fans of Team America: World Police, so I suppose it should come as no surprise that they jumped at the chance to do their own, SG-1 version. As it turned out, years ago Paul and I had worked with The Chiodo Bros. who had created the puppets and effects for Team America (as well as work on a Davey and Goliath claymation parody for The Simpsons and the Willice and Crimbles parody segment on The Simpsons). We called them up and they ended up delivering kick-ass puppet versions of our team – and supporting players. So, okay. Fess up. Which one of you fans is now the proud owner of one of these? In the writer’s draft of the script, yet another idea is pitched out… MITCHELL: Death is always dramatic. CUT TO: INT. INFIRMARY -- DAY Daniel lies on the bed. Carter, Mitchell, Vala and Landry stand around him. Vala reaches out and touches his hand - VALA: Goodbye, Daniel. The heart monitor FLATLINES. The rest of the group can barely control their emotions. Suddenly, a bright GLOW starts to emanate from under the sheets on the bed. Slowly, Daniel's body TRANSFORMS into a glowing ribbon being like in Meridian. As it rises above the bed, the sheets collapse. Amazement plays on the faces of everyone in the room. The glowing being hovers high above them for a moment then - MARTIN: No, no, no. BACK TO: INT. BRIEFING ROOM -- DAY Martin shakes his head. MARTIN: We did that twice in the series. DANIEL: You only made three episodes. How many times did we kill off Daniel again? Whenever we offed guest stars, we would invariably send them off with the heartening: “This is science fiction. Nobody ever dies in science fiction!” And, many times on Stargate, that was proven true. Then, someone pitches out the fishing segment. Martin’s response: “And what’s the twist…no fish?” is, of course, a reference to the twist at the end of Moebius I and II. THE WEDDING How couldn’t we? There was something there for the shippers – and something there for the slashers as well when O’Neill, waiting for Carter, turns to Daniel who utters the memorable: “You know, if she doesn’t show, people are gonna think that you and I –“. My favorite part of this segment is Jack referring to Carter as, well, Carter. Not Sam or Samantha but Carter. I guess old habits die hard. Martin’s response to the pitch ” Yeah, right, if I want to torture the audience on purpose!” echoes a quote from a fan letter we received that was critical of the ship. A classic line. The episode ends with a bunch of interviews teeming with inside jokes. I mean, I know we did 10 years but, dammit, we were still on a roll!

Joseph Mallozzi 🏴‍☠️

26,828 просмотров • 1 год назад

No, I don't think so. I think Conor McGregor's tailoring is best understood in the context of how labor has been deskilled for almost 200 years. Let me explain. Before the mid-19th century, most men who were not manual laborers wore bespoke clothes. In other words, their clothes were made specifically for them, typically by women working in the home or by bespoke tailors. This is how the King of Spain gets his clothes. When he was 11 years old, his father brought him to see a bespoke tailor in Madrid named Jaime Gallo. Gallo made the King's clothes using traditional methods: he measured the King's body and then used those measurements to draft a paper pattern from scratch. This pattern, which serves as the garment's architectural blueprint, is used to mark and cut the cloth. The pieces are then roughly basted together into a wearable fitting garment. When the King tries on this garment, the tailor takes notes on what needs to be changed, deconstructs the garment, and makes the necessary adjustment. This process repeats three times — basted, forward, and final fitting — with each step bringing the garment to its final form. This is partly why the King's clothes fit so beautifully: they were made by a skilled tailor and refined through multiple fittings. More important, however, is Gallo's technical skill. To be sure, not all tailors are so skilled, which is why I don't recommend going to just any random tailor. Gallo continued making clothes for the King until his own death in 2015. In the first slide, you can see three photos: two of the King wearing Gallo's tailoring at different periods of his life, and a meeting desk at Sastreria Jaime Gallo (Gallo's workshop). Most people today don't wear bespoke clothes. Instead, they wear ready-made clothes produced by manufacturers and sold by brands and retailers. The shrunken silhouette we see today was principally shaped in the early 2000s by three designers: Raf Simons, Hedi Slimane, and Thom Browne. These men were not rebelling against classic tailoring, which has not been culturally relevant since the late 1960s. Instead, they were rebelling against the oversized tailoring of the '80s and '90s, which was also created by designers (such as Armani). In the 2012 documentary "Antifashion," Simons explains that he felt oversized silhouettes were "too American" and "macho" (think Arnold Schwarzenegger). He wanted something that felt younger, more European, and made for thin, effete bodies. Slimane echoed this sentiment in a separate interview, saying that he felt bullied as a teen for not being very muscular, so he intentionally wanted to design things that felt more androgynous. He rejected the idea that every man needed to feel big and macho. Whatever you want to say about the shrunken suit trend, there were no technical issues with the original versions. Along the top row of the second slide, you can see two suits by Slimane and Browne. Notice that there's no puckering or pulling. The collar hugs the neck. I also think the clothes look pretty good on the models. This is largely because there are still people with technical knowledge working at this stage. The problems arise once those designs slide further away from such people. On the bottom row of the second slide, we can see Lionel Messi wearing a Thom Browne suit. IMO, it doesn't fit him as well as the model above him because he's a more muscular build. The original slim suits work best on thin figures with shoulders broader than the hips. Once you put these clothes on different figures, they can look egg-shaped. This mismatch can happen for all sorts of reasons. The people involved in selling or styling clothes today often lack technical skills: editors, writers, stylists, salespeople, marketers, and such. The designer was already one step removed from the tailor (a technical person), but at least they can work with a pattern maker (another technical person). Many people today are another step removed from that technical layer. Conor McGregor's clothes are from his own line, August McGregor, which he created with David August. Although David August works in custom clothing, he's not a tailor. He measures clients and sends those measurements to an overseas factory, where garments are produced by people who never meet the wearer. Conor's role is simply to market the product. He's a built-in influencer for the brand. There was a recent Wall Street Journal article about the emergence of "muscle suits," which is to say, very bulky guys wearing slim-fit tailoring. IMO, this can only emerge from the history we talked about. As more people lack technical skills and more layers or barriers exist between them and people with technical skills, the garment can look more distorted or strange. On the final slide, we see a video from Brimble and Clark, an custom tailoring company mentioned in the WSJ article. Like those from August McGregor, these are made-to-measure clothes produced in distant factories, though they use more stretch blends. Someone once told me that the owner of Brimble and Clark holds a ceremony when he delivers a suit to you. When you come into the shop to pick up your suit, a painting is mechanically lowered to reveal a collection of tiny knives. The company owner takes one of the tiny knives, sews it behind your lapel, and then ceremoniously puts the jacket on you. Then it's time for your own private photoshoot, where you get to pose around Chesterfield field couches while wearing your jacket concealing a tiny knife. The purpose, of course, is simply to make the wearer feel good. The business person understands something important: how a customer feels is more important than whether the product is good. This is essentially the system we have today. The company owner, salesperson, fitter, customer, writer, and influencer often possess little technical knowledge. The remaining expertise is concentrated among pattern makers and garment workers at the very end of the supply chain. I think about this sometimes when I read about AI, as I think it represents yet another step towards the deskilling of labor. Perhaps one day, someone who knows how to draw with pen and paper will look at an AI-generated image and recognize certain distortions that many have come to accept. But AI is outside my area of expertise, so I'll leave that discussion to others.

derek guy

278,548 просмотров • 1 месяц назад