Do Albums Go In Quotes

You see, I think drugs have done some good things for us. I really do. And if you don't believe drugs have done good things for us, do me a favor. Go home tonight. Take all your albums, all your tapes and all your CDs and burn them. 'Cause you know what, the musicians that made all that great music that's enhanced your lives throughout the years were rrreal fucking high on drugs. The Beatles were so fucking high they let Ringo sing a few tunes.

Being a nerd, which is to say going too far and caring too much about a subject, is the best way to make friends I know. For me, the spark that turns an acquaintance into a friend has usually been kindled by some shared enthusiasm . . . At fifteen, I couldn't say two words about the weather or how I was doing, but I could come up with a paragraph or two about the album Charlie Parker with Strings. In high school, I made the first real friends I ever had because one of them came up to me at lunch and started talking about the Cure.

I was not going to Honolulu because I wanted to see life reduced to a short story. I was going to Honolulu because I wanted to see life expanded to a novel, and I still do.

She's saying that's ok, Hey baby, do what you want I'll be your night lovin' thing I'll be the freak you can taunt And I don't care what you say I want to go too far I'll be your everything If you make me a star... Dirty Diana

Because . . . most of us think that the point is something to do with work, or kids, or family, or whatever. But you don't have any of that. There's nothing between you and despair, and you don't seem a very desperate person.' 'Too stupid.' 'You're not stupid. So why don't you ever put your head in the oven?' 'I don't know. There's always a new Nirvana album to look forward to, or something happening in NYPD Blue to make you want to watch the next episode.' 'Exactly.' 'That's the point? NYPD Blue? Jesus.' It was worse than he thought. 'No, no. The point is you keep going. You want to. So all the things that make you want to are the point. I don't know if you even realize it, but on the quiet you don't think life's too bad. You love things. Telly. Music. Food.

I had it bad for you. If the convention didn't make it obvious, I thought for sure the Fleetwood Mac album would do it. I've got it so bad for you, Hannah. Really, really bad. I tried to keep you out of here. But you won't go. You're never going to go. You just won't.

Mind you, you don't get albums written about really good people like Gandhi or Nelson Mandela, do you? Good people's places in Heaven may be assured, but nobody's going to have a chart-topping album full of songs about someone's good deeds.

I imagined that my own life was simple and sweet, and sometimes it was, but there were odd things going around town. There were rumors. There were stories. Everything was unmentionable but nothing was unimaginable. This mystical flirtation with the idea of “sin"–this sense that it was possible to go "too far”, and that many people were doing it–this was very much with us in Los Angeles in 1968 and 1969. A demented and seductive vortical tension was building in the community. The jitters were setting in. I recall a time when the dogs barked every night and the moon was always full.

This is happening; this is not fiction. And the thing about life? It doesn't have texture at all. Go ahead, feel the space around you. Do it now. See? It's nothing but air.

You know,” I tease, “you still haven’t told me why you’re here. You were…passing by? Wanted to brag about getting a week off from school?” “Oh. Uh, right.” Josh sort of laughs and glances out my window. “I was just wondering if you wanted to go out.” Holy. Shit. “I’m on my way to Album,” he continues, referring to a nearby comics shop. “Since we were talking about that new Sfar earlier, I thought if you weren’t busy, you might want to come along.” …Oh. My heart beats like a cracked-out drummer. Josh, don’t do that to a lady. I’m still clutching the book about the shipwreck, so I set it down to wipe my sweaty palms. “Sure".

Dear Daniel, How do you break up with your boyfriend in a way that tells him, "I don't want to sleep with you on a regular basis anymore, but please be available for late night booty calls if I run out of other options"? Lily Charlotte, NC Dear Lily, The story's so old you can't tell it anymore without everyone groaning, even your oldest friends with the last of their drinks shivering around the ice in their dirty glasses. The music playing is the same album everyone has. Those shoes, everybody has the same shoes on. It looked a little like rain so on person brought an umbrella, useless now in the starstruck clouded sky, forgotten on the way home, which is how the umbrella ended up in her place anyway. Everyone gets older on nights like this. And still it's a fresh slap in the face of everything you had going, that precarious shelf in the shallow closet that will certainly, certainly fall someday. Photographs slipping into a crack to be found by the next tenant, that one squinter third from the left laughing at something your roommate said, the coaster from that place in the city you used to live in, gone now. A letter that seemed important for reasons you can't remember, throw it out, the entry in the address book you won't erase but won't keep when you get a new phone, let it pass and don't worry about it. You don't think about them; "I haven't thought about them in forever," you would say if anybody brought it up, and nobody does." You think about them all the time. Close the book but forget to turn off the light, just sit staring in bed until you blink and you're out of it, some noise on the other side of the wall reminding you you're still here. That's it, that's everything. There's no statue in the town square with an inscription with words to live by. The actor got slapped this morning by someone she loved, slapped right across the face, but there's no trace of it on any channel no matter how late you watch. How many people--really, count them up--know where you are? How many will look after you when you don't show up? The churches and train stations are creaky and the street signs, the menus, the writing on the wall, it all feels like the wrong language. Nobody, nobody knows what you're thinking of when you lean your head against the wall. Put a sweater on when you get cold. Remind yourself, this is the night, because it is. You're free to sing what you want as you walk there, the trees rustling spookily and certainly and quietly and inimitably. Whatever shoes you want, fuck it, you're comfortable. Don't trust anyone's directions. Write what you might forget on the back of your hand, and slam down the cheap stuff and never mind the bad music from the window three floors up or what the boys shouted from the car nine years ago that keeps rattling around in your head, because you're here, you are, for the warmth of someone's wrists where the sleeve stops and the glove doesn't quite begin, and the slant of the voice on the punch line of the joke and the reflection of the moon in the water on the street as you stand still for a moment and gather your courage and take a breath before stealing away through the door. Look at it there. Take a good look. It looks like rain. Love, Daniel Handler

Remember, Thursday, that scientific thought -- indeed, any mode of thought, whether it be religious or philosophical or anything else -- is just like the fashions that we wear -- only much longer lived. It's a little like a boy band." "Scientific thought a boy band? How do you figure that?" "Well, every now and then a boy band comes along. We like it, buy the records, posters, parade them on TV, idolise them right up until --" ... "-- the next boy band?" I suggested. "Precisely. Aristotle was a boy band. A very good one but only number six or seven. He was the best boy band until Isaac Newton, but even Newton was transplanted by an even newer boy band. Same haircuts -- but different moves." "Einstein, right?" "Right. Do you see what I'm saying?" "I think so." "Good. So try and think of maybe thirty or forty boy bands past Einstein. To where we would regard Einstein as someone who glimpsed a truth, played one good chord on seven forgettable albums." "Where is this going, Dad?" "I'm nearly there. Imagine a boy band so good that you never needed another boy band ever again. Can you imagine that?

Why did you come back?” It felt like a trick question. My hard-won hermitage — begun by me, secured by Jeremy — was no small thing. It was a chance to be someone else, and how many of those do you get? And yet I’d left it behind. I came back because I had to. Because there was nothing wrong in the world except that I was getting older in it. Because Sam and Grace had told me I should go if that was what I wanted. What I wanted was: I wanted. Isabel — I wanted to make something. At the beginning of all of this, I had just been a kid with a keyboard. It was less the game of it, and more those hours I spent falling from song to song. “I want to make an album,” I said. “I miss making music.” I could tell he approved of my answer.

I think that any artistic decision that is based on whether or not you are going to make money it is not really an artistic decision. It is a business decision. And there are a lot of things that I can do to earn a living and a lot of things that I have already done to earn a living which produce the amount of capital needed to do this project. I came here to spend money on an English orchestra and record my music, so I can take it home and I can listen to it. And... if somebody else likes that kind of stuff, I will make it available on a record so that they can hear it. That is my part of the public service of spending the money to make this event happen. No foundation grant, no government assistance, no corporation, no comittee. Just a crazy guy who spent the money to hire English musicians to do a concert at the Barbican and make an album for Barking Pumpkin Records.

Music has become more pervasive and portable than ever. But it feels less previous in the bargain. I don't want to confuse artistic and commercial value, but it's just a fact that some kid who rips an album for free isn't going to give it the same attention he would if it cost him ten bucks. At what point does convenience become spiritual indolence? I realize this makes me sound like an old fart, but sometimes I get nostalgic for the days when the universe of recorded sound wasn't at our fingertips, when we had to hunt and wait and - horror of horrors - do without, when our longing for a particular record or song made it feel sacred.

There were only seven years between the first and last Beatles albums. That's nothing, seven years, when you think of how their hairstyles changed and their music changed. Some bands now go seven years without hardly bothering to do anything.

. . .when the album was done I loved it. It was a mixture of electric and acoustic solo performances with dubs. I called it Le Noise, after Dan. It was a French Canadian joke, a very English was of saying Lanois. I was doing a show that introduced a lot of the songs, and things were going great. I was very happy.

There was a Ringo album coming down the pike, and a reunion, at least by the three of them (Harrison, Lennon, and Starr), that was all planned out. That was going to be Lennon’s next move after the world tour,” Douglas continues. “He talked fondly about McCartney every night, and he always wanted to redo certain Beatles songs, but he really spoke more like he really loved those guys. The only person that he was pissed at was George, because George put out this memoir [I Me Mine] and John was really, really pissed about that. I remember him saying, ‘How do you write about your life and not talk about the guy whose band you were in?

As a minister of the Lord in whatever way the Lord decides to use you and with the gifts he gives you for the work, there is the tendency to start idolizing the work itself or the gifts that you forget it is the father who gave it to you. Who picked you up and dusted you from nothing and adorned you. You forget and make the work a god before him. Exodus 20:3 "You shall have no other gods before me". ----- This can be very subtle especially for social media ministry. You begin to love your social image over the word of God. You begin to dampen and tweak the word of God to appeal to a wider audience. You're suddenly no longer about the raw truth of the gospel. As the followers and likes increase you begin to get more and more addicted to the fruit of the works and the response to YOUR messages and posts. If a post doesn't do too well and get many likes and comments you are not happy. It hurts you deeply. That is how you know It has become about you. ------ If this is you and this message has touched your heart, if this post is like a mirror to your face, go back to God and ask for forgiveness. Ask God to forgive you for elevating yourself and your work as a god before him and return back to when it was just about loving him and preaching the good news. You probably may have noticed you lost the fire of inspiration you used to have at the beginning. This is why.

We need each other. Sometimes I’ll wonder what all art means after the sun explodes and we go extinct. No contribution is immortal and everything we do is for a temporary humanity. Books will burn, aliens won’t understand our albums, and movies will have no viewer. But something tells me that the sun’s bursting is just an impatient star longing to get its hands on some beautiful, fleeting human communication. Cheers to giving our sun the good read it deserves. And more importantly, a good world.

... and being part of Stan 'Twitter is much more fun than logging on just to frown at politicians or congratulate acquaintances on their new jobs. When I'm doom-scrolling through a timeline full of terrible news and inane bickering, it's a treat to come across all-caps excitement or an ultra-niche joke. Or to wake up and find that there is a conversation going on and that I understand it, and that people are excited about something and I am too. This is the type of thing that can buoy a person for an hour or so at a time. In the same way that holidays give shape to formless years, album promotion and single releases give color to the days that line up one after another. There is a reason to stay up late. There is a reason to wake up early. There is something to do at lunch when you feel like you'd like to cry and take a nap. There are people who swear they hacked into an airport security camera, and aren't you interested to see what they saw, even if you find that totally weird and ultimately quite scary? I like Stan Twitter because it is so peculiar, even as millions of people participate in it and it should have become generic.

Seamus tossed down two of his cards. “Hell. I’d train her if Tristan asked me. Wouldn’t mind seeing that pretty face every day.” I studied my cards, pretending not to hear him. “Maybe I should offer to work with her,” he said. “Free you up so you can get back to doing what you love.” My jaw tightened. “You go kill things, and I’ll show the lass some Irish moves. Win-win situation for both of us, right?” The cards in my hand began to buckle. “Ha!” Seamus gave Niall a victorious grin. “Pay up, bro.” Niall’s mouth turned down. “You don’t even like that album.” “I said it wasn’t my favorite one, but you know I like all of Johnny Cash’s stuff.” “Since when?” I stared at the two brothers with a mix of irritation and confusion. “What are you two going on about?” Chris asked. Seamus looked at me with a smug expression. “I told Niall you had it bad for the lass. He said she was too young and sweet to interest you. We made a friendly wager, which he just lost.” “You don’t have proof he’s into her,” Niall argued. “He just might not want your ugly mug around her.” Seamus snorted. “You do realize we’re identical twins.” “I’m still better looking.

If being transgender were a job, no-one would apply. Imagine actually applying to be an outcast everywhere you go, feeling out of place even inside your own body, even when looking in a mirror, at old family photo albums, being continually denied by family members you held dear, being barely recognized or even acknowledged by old acquaintances, school or college friends, and taking the brunt of bigotry and spitefulness from colleagues and supervisors? Does being excluded from family events, work parties, and being constantly attacked by religious groups and people sound like fun? How about constantly wondering if you will wake up with civil rights the next morning, or if you will be arrested or beaten up or murdered in the streets by someone you don’t know, or in your own home by someone you do know? How about the likelihood that your family would dress your dead body as someone else they would prefer you to have been for your memorial service, while dead-naming you and disrespecting the person you were and the things you had accomplished in your life? Sound like the job for you? Apply within. If there was a CHOICE, then my dears, EVERYONE would walk away.

The Logic of the Double or Triple Threat On “career advice,” Scott has written the following, which is slightly trimmed for space here. This is effectively my mantra, and you’ll see why I bring it up: If you want an average, successful life, it doesn’t take much planning. Just stay out of trouble, go to school, and apply for jobs you might like. But if you want something extraordinary, you have two paths: 1) Become the best at one specific thing. 2) Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things. The first strategy is difficult to the point of near impossibility. Few people will ever play in the NBA or make a platinum album. I don’t recommend anyone even try. The second strategy is fairly easy. Everyone has at least a few areas in which they could be in the top 25% with some effort. In my case, I can draw better than most people, but I’m hardly an artist. And I’m not any funnier than the average standup comedian who never makes it big, but I’m funnier than most people. The magic is that few people can draw well and write jokes. It’s the combination of the two that makes what I do so rare. And when you add in my business background, suddenly I had a topic that few cartoonists could hope to understand without living it.

When another great work inspires us to elevate our own, however, the energy is different. Seeing the bar raised in our field can encourage us to reach even higher. This energy of rising-to-meet is quite different from that of conquering. When Brian Wilson first heard the Beatles’ Rubber Soul, his mind was blown. “If I ever do anything in my life, I’m going to make that good an album,” he thought at the time. He went on to explain, “I was so happy to hear it that I went and started writing ‘God Only Knows.’ ” Being made happy by someone else’s best work, and then letting it inspire you to rise to the occasion, is not competition. It’s collaboration.

Why are we still here, struggling to go on? We are now face to face with the truly Ultimate Ambiguity which is the human spirit. This is the most fascinating ambiguity of all: that as each of us grows up, the mark of our maturity is that we accept our mortality; and yet we persist in our search for immortality. We may believe it's all transient, even that it's all over; yet we believe a future. We believe. We emerge from a cinema after three hours of the most abject degeneracy in a film such as “La Dolce Vita”, and we emerge on wings, from the sheer creativity of it; we can fly on, to a future. And the same is true after witnessing the hopelessness of “Godot” in the theater, or after the aggressive violence of “The Rite of Spring” in the concert hall. Or even after listening to the bittersweet young cynicism of an album called “Revolver”, we have wings to fly on. We have to believe in that kind of creativity. I know I do. If I didn't, why would I be bothering to give these lectures? Certainly not to make a gratuitous announcement of the Apocalypse. There must be something in us, and in me, that makes me want to continue; and to teach is to believe in continuing. To share with you critical feelings about the past, to try to describe and assess the present—these actions by their very nature imply a firm belief in a future.

As part of the deal, Dylan appeared in a television ad for the iPod, featuring his new album, Modern Times. This was one of the most astonishing cases of flipping the script since Tom Sawyer persuaded his friends to whitewash the fence. In the past, getting celebrities to do an ad required paying them a lot of money. But by 2006 the tables were turned. Major artists wanted to appear in iPod ads; the exposure would guarantee success. James Vincent had predicted this a few years earlier, when Jobs had said he had contacts with many musicians and could pay them to appear in ads. "No, things are going to soon change,' Vincent replied. "Apple is a different kind of brand, and it's cooler than the brand of most artists. We should talk about the opportunity we offer the bands, not pay them.

To my children three. Life is like a movie, it starts and it ends.If you are reading this probably i'm gone. but my presence is always with you. All wanted to say how much I loved you. and I wanted to share my life journey with all of you. When I Conceived each of you, I can feel the butterflies in my tummy and I already fail in love with you. When each of you were born, tears dropped of my eye, I know it that was a happy tears. When you said dada, I was excited and happy to hear you saying it over and over. I see you growing like a flower and flying like a bird in front of my eye, in front of the pales a colorful garden who always stay blooming. Slowly you gew wing and all you flew away from the nest. All i'm left with good memories an album full of beautiful of pictures.from you baby showers, 1st word, 1st birthdays,1st trip to Disney or Universal Studios, each of you got to meet your favored TV characters. Your smiley faces was telling me I was doing ok as a parent, although I been told I'm the worst mom. But I know you did not mean that, you meant to say I love you mom. and I love you to my children, It was a nice journey. If I have to go back on time to change the way I raised you, I won't change a thing, beside some of your friends, but you were old enough and free to make your own choices. You have to make your mistakes and i'm pretty sure you learned from them. But at the end I never worry about you, because I'm pretty sure I give 200% as a parent. I know I taught, I armed and I shield you with everything including knowledge you need to survive in world. Remember don't matter how old are you, you always will be my babies. and I always be your Angel ! "Toko - Lock " te ka nana sho. Love Mom & Grandma!

He pulled a battered red photo album from his truck’s glove compartment and showed me pictures of green Azorean fields divided by hedges of lilac-colored hydrangeas. He showed me waves crashing against black volcanic rock and his ancient stone house next to the sea, the home where he returned every summer. “Over there the air is so clean, so nice. The ocean is right there. The fish are fresh, you catch and eat them, and the potatoes are so good, you won’t believe it. “We make wine. Put on shorts and get in there and smash grapes, and when you drink right away is sweet like juice. Every year when we get back from there, we’re fat,” Morais said. He loved his island house in the Azores so much that at the end of each summer, when he left, he had to have someone else close the door for him. “I’m a guy that came from the old country. I never go to school five minutes in this country, and still I work and I do good. I love my money. God bless this country,” he said. “But when I leave to close my door over there, I cry like a baby. I try so hard not to, but I cry.

But it seemed to me, or at least it had seemed to me in the few years I had been coming and going from this town, there was something finally ludicrous, finally unimpressive about even the people who had all the things to coveted by all the people who did not have them. It was difficult to say why. It might have been only a private blindness, a private indifference which prevented me from seeing how gratifying the possession of power or the possession of fame could be. Whatever money did, it didn't do the things it was popularly supposed to do, and I thought I could speak with a certain minor authority on the matter because [...] I no longer spoke with the suspect voice of poverty. My hostility, if there was still hostility in me toward the rich, now seemed to flow from another source: a feeling, not quite identifiable, that there was something sinister about the way these people lived. But then, how could this life possibly be sinister? What harm could there be in the Braque bought in an art shop in Paris and now featured over the low couch against the pale wall? What danger could accrue from the immense albums of records stored in the living room or the den with the brick fireplace and the spotless desk? Why should it strike me darkly that a huge refrigerator, with Coca-Cola perpetually on ice, and the grapes kept perfectly cold by a servant, stood on the patio beside the thirty-foot pool? Why did I persist in reacting so oddly to all their comforts, their acquisitions, their rarities, their cool, large and enviable homes? The fault, most likely, was in myself; they weren't, perhaps, sinister at all. It was only a kind of voracity which struck me so, an insatiety that gave off, perhaps, a slight aura of the sinister.

You didn’t marry?” Aunt Blythe asked Andrew. He glanced at me. “When I was a boy no older than Drew, I had a close brush with death. It always seemed to me a miracle that I lived.” Once more Hannah made an attempt to stop her brother with a poke of her cane, but Andrew went on talking, his eyes on my face, his voice solemn. “I often thought I’d been meant to die, so I decided to lead a solitary life. There’s no way of telling what one person might do to change the history of the world.” Before he could say anything else, Hannah patted Aunt Blythe’s arm. “I brought along an old photo album. Would you please fetch it from the car?” As soon as my aunt was out of sight, Hannah said, “If you don’t hush, Andrew, we’re going to leave the minute Blythe comes back. I swear I don’t know what ails you. You might as well be twelve years old!” She turned to me then and took my hand. “You know what I’m talking about, don’t you, Drew? He was an absolute imp when he was your age and he still is. All that’s changed is his outside.” I stared into Hannah’s eyes, faded now to the color of shadows on winter snow. “He told you, didn’t he?” “In some ways, I think I knew all along.” Hannah squeezed my hand. “I’m so glad we’ve lived long enough to see you again.” I flung my arms around her. She felt as thin-boned as a bird, and I was afraid to hug her too tightly. I didn’t want to hurt her. “It must be a shock to see us so old,” Hannah said. “I’m afraid I couldn’t climb a tree or shoot a marble if my life depended on it. Neither could Andrew, but I doubt he’ll admit it.” “If I put my mind to it,” Andrew said, “I could beat Drew with one hand tied behind my back. He was never any match for me.” Hannah raised her eyebrows. “It seems to me he outplayed you once.” “Pshaw. What’s one game?

David Greene was kind, and he had a sense of humor. He made your mother laugh.” That was all Gran could muster up? “Did you not like him?” “He wasn’t a big believer in Tarot. Humor aside, he was a very practical man. From New England,” she added, as if that explained everything. “I’d been wearing Karen down about the Arcana—until she met him. Before I knew it, your mother was pregnant. Even then, I sensed you were the Empress.” “He didn’t want us to live up north?” “David planned to move there.” Her gaze went distant. “To move you—the great Empress—away from her Haven.” That must have gone over well. “In the end, I convinced them not to go.” ...... I opened up the family albums. As I scrolled through them, her eyes appeared dazed, as if she wasn’t seeing the images. Yet then she stared at a large picture of my father. I said, “I wish I could remember him.” “David used to carry you around the farm on his shoulders,” she said. “He read to you every night and took you to the river to skip stones. He drove you around to pet every baby animal born in a ten-mile radius. Lambs, kittens, puppies.” She drew a labored breath. “He brought you to the crops and the gardens. Even then, you would pet the bark of an oak and kiss a rose bloom. If the cane was sighing that day, you’d fall asleep in his arms.” I imagined it all: the sugarcane, the farm, the majestic oaks, the lazy river that always had fish jumping. My roots were there, but I knew I would never go back. Jack’s dream had been to return and rebuild Haven. A dream we’d shared. I would feel like a traitor going home without him. Plus, it’d be too painful. Everything would remind me of the love I’d lost. “David’s death was so needless,” she said. “Don’t know what he was doing near that cane crusher.” “David’s death was so needless,” she said. “Don’t know what he was doing near that cane crusher.” I snapped my gaze to her. “What do you mean? He disappeared on a fishing trip in the Basin.” She frowned at me. “He did. Of course.” Chills crept up my spine. Was she lying? Why would she, unless . . .

Ah! you cliques of the city!—don’t you know you had forebears with handlebar mustaches, who came down to the river in the morning bearing masts and booms on their shoulders? who killed their own bulls with a mighty club? who made their own clothes and tilled their own earth? For a million of your clever fashionable phrases, would you exchange one single such accomplishment? I know I would—and Oh God but I’m just as futile as you are, you city vermin; I too am vermin, vermin trying to struggle back to manhood, with small success. Here is our second illuminative nugget, with no emotions this time: that the fear of the family album is pursuant to the city’s general fear of time and particularly of the past (“Oh the stupid Victorian 19th Century!” they keep crying, as though Victorianism were the whole sum of that great century). Fear of the past is in the city, thus a love, a frantic need of the present—with all the hedonistic overtones involved, the psychological doctrines of “alertness” and the so-called liberation of sexuality: in other words, giving the moment over to the dictates of sexuality (divorce is such a dictate) and leaving time, the future—which is to them equivalent to the past, as a moral factor rather than a hedonistic factor of the “pulsing present”—leaving the future to the dogs, childless marriages, or one-child “families,” broken-up families, and thus leaving the future of mankind and the race to the dogs: to the destruction at the hands of a society’s inward atom bomb of organic-familial-societal disintegration: in short, the end of a race, as in Rome. This fear of reaching back into the past, into lineality and tradition, and of extending similarly forward into the future, is like a plant drying up, dying. Where I say this, they speak of the “reality of the moment” and the danger of suppressing the urges of the moment for any reason—but I find good reason if it is to spell the continuation of our own cultural mankind. Perhaps that’s what they don’t want, like children who resent all brothers and sisters burgeoning in their mother’s womb, resenting the future after them, feeling they should be the last, final men, that none must follow—a childish emotion. But to give oneself over to childish emotions is the aim of these city intellectuals, they abstrusely find much to “scientifically” substantiate this desire in the cult of psychoanalysis and its sub-cults, the Orgone “Institute” for one splendid example, and so they go ahead blithely, and I am not the one to oppose their concepts, their march off the ship’s plank—since I am marching to a plank of my own, since I do not wish to be reviled as a neurotic and an atavistic neo-fascist, since the other night, when mentioning these objections of mine, a city intellectual had apoplexy right before me. Oh

FLETCHER: The truth is I don’t think people understand what it is I did at Shaffer. I wasn’t there to conduct. Any idiot can move his hands and keep people in tempo. No, it’s about pushing people beyond what’s expected of them. And I believe that is a necessity. Because without it you’re depriving the world of its next Armstrong. Its next Parker. Why did Charlie Parker become Charlie Parker, Andrew? ANDREW: Because Jo Jones threw a cymbal at him. FLETCHER: Exactly. Young kid, pretty good on the sax, goes up to play his solo in a cutting session, fucks up -- and Jones comes this close to slicing his head off for it. He’s laughed off-stage. Cries himself to sleep that night. But the next morning, what does he do? He practices. And practices and practices. With one goal in mind: that he never ever be laughed off-stage again. A year later he goes back to the Reno, and he plays the best motherfucking solo the world had ever heard. Now imagine if Jones had just patted young Charlie on the head and said “Good job.” Charlie would’ve said to himself, “Well, shit, I did do a good job,” and that’d be that. No Bird. Tragedy, right? Except that’s just what people today want. The Shaffer Conservatories of the world, they want sugar. You don’t even say “cutting session” anymore, do you? No, you say “jam session”. What the fuck kind of word is that? Jam session? It’s a cutting session, Andrew, this isn’t fucking Smucker’s. It’s about weeding out the best from the worst so that the worst become better than the best. I mean look around you. $25 drinks, mood lighting, a little shrimp cocktail to go with your Coltrane. And people wonder why jazz is dying. Take it from me, and every Starbucks jazz album only proves my point. There are no two words more harmful in the entire English language than “good job”.

Eno again: “I know he liked Another Green World a lot, and he must have realised that there were these two parallel streams of working going on in what I was doing, and when you find someone with the same problems you tend to become friendly with them.” Another Green World (1975) has a different feel to Low, but it deploys some of the same strategies. It mixes songs that have recognisable pop structures with other, short, abstract pieces that Eno called “ambient”—with the emphasis not on melody or beat, but on atmosphere and texture. These intensely beautiful fragments fade in then out, as if they were merely the visible part of a vast submarine creation; they are like tiny glimpses into another world. On the more conventional tracks, different genres juxtapose, sometimes smoothly, sometimes not—jazzy sounds cohering with pop hooks but struggling against intrusive synthetic sound effects. The end result is a moodily enigmatic album of real power and ingenuity. One structural difference between the two albums, though, is that while Eno interspersed the “textural” pieces across Another Green World, Bowie separated them out and put them on another side, which provides Low with a sort of metanarrative.

I nearly dropped my fork. “Say that again?” “Human servants, so we can go where—” “No, not that, the second part. The stupid part. You guys are actually Satanists? Like real, no-kidding, play your heavy metal album backward and bark at the moon Satanists?” Mack blinked. Zeke looked like he was fantasizing about killing me. “It’s not stupid,” Mack said. “We have a place of high honor awaiting us—” “Yeah, it is. It really is. So this is how Prince Malphas ropes you dopes in. Don’t suppose he’s told you that nobody’s even seen Lucifer in over a thousand years? He took a walkabout and never came back. Hell had a civil war when he left, geniuses. How do you think the whole feuding-courts thing came about?” “That’s not true,” Mack said.

We were a band,” Seiwell contended. “We’d just done all this touring, we’d knit as a unit, and at the rehearsals in Scotland, everybody was giving their all. So I said to Paul, ‘Can’t we just postpone this for a month? That studio in Lagos will still be ready for you, but let’s first break in a new guitarist, so we can go down and record the album as a band.’ And he said, ‘No, I don’t want to do that. Let’s just go down, and it will be like Ram—we’ll just get the basic tracks and do overdubs.’ That didn’t sit well with me.

I don’t have an MO on my album. I literally just put down what I’m feeling at the time, and if it all comes together as ‘Fuck the alt-right,’ or ‘Word on the street you’re a Libtard,’ that’s cool. These are issues that I’m feeling and talking about now. But I was also talking about them when no one was looking, no one cared, no one was reviewing my songs. I’ve been talking about this shit since my first album, when I was 18. This is just what I care about and how I operate. So, if people want to put that on me, I don’t mind. But I don’t feel like I have a responsibility or owe anyone anything. If people see me as some flag bearer for ‘Fuck the alt-right,’ that’s fine, but people need to accept that I’m just being myself—I’m not trying to get likes or go viral. I’m just saying what I mean. I just hope that I don’t get pigeonholed like, ‘We want you to do this and nothing else.

Perhaps because McCartney was principally a guitarist and bassist, and a drummer only when necessary, he was less hands-on with Seiwell. “He never told me what to play, except for one song. I think that’s why he hired me—he didn’t have to tell me. I used to channel Ringo. I’d think, ‘What would Ringo do here?’ And I listened to the way Paul played on the McCartney album. I knew what he liked as a drummer. I would always craft some sort of a part that was going to be down that vein at least. I knew he was going to like it.”22

I think all my other albums were, like, sad. And this time it’s more happy and angry. I live in my own house that I pay for. I bought all this equipment myself. I control my own life now. No one has any say over what I do or where I go or when I do it.

But why the obsessions? And why these specific subjects? Experts think predictability is a factor. Most autistic people’s hobbies can be categorised or are logical or predictable. Horses or birds belong to animal species and have certain characteristics. Computers do what you tell them to do. (And if they don’t, that’s usually because you – or the software developer – made a mistake. A computer can’t just go and decide to do something wrong because it doesn’t like you, no matter how many people say it can.) Stamps can go into an album, bicycle race results can be compared. And sorting, categorising and calculating simply makes most autistics very happy.

Everything was unmentionable but nothing was unimaginable. This mystical flirtation with the idea of “sin”—this sense that it was possible to go “too far,” and that many people were doing it—was very much with us in Los Angeles in 1968 and 1969.

Part: 1 July This one more of how where I remember these days. Photos online, and cam videos all that are my memories- of me to others. Part: 2 August Compare… them then and now- naked slut girl or 1940s modesty. I remember having the old photo album spread out on the bedroom floor. Oh! Wow! Look at this one… do you like how she was remembered better than me? (Photo) Part: 3 It's- September More of the same- I have become a cam-whore!!! Nothing more… Part: 4 OCTOBER …And yah- a, ah- pics that would make you blush, and hard, you boys would love to see me, now, wouldn’t you? Part: 5 NOVEMBER Making cummie videos is my life. Part: 6 DECEMBER Coming 7 hours out of the day is taking time away from other things. Part: 7 WAKING UP …After fraping till- I passed out all hot gross and sweaty, I did not remember falling asleep- with mom and dad- sis and the world seeing me as my door to my trashed bedroom- all jammed open- and’s- and’s- AND’S- did not care at this point. (SAY IT WITH exhausted SLURRING.) JANUARY yet how- ga-gives- a ________. Ef… E- un- mm- ah- in-n… Whatever… I am making 50 G’s in a night… so that makes it okay. (A photo of me lying in bed with all this money!) Part: 8 TIME PASSES Craziness… look at my life here… all board… ‘I am home,’ I mumbled, confused- not even more. ‘What did I do?’ I felt my face wrinkle. It was so unfair. My behavior… here is wow… After that first week… of doing this… How do I look… which neither of us ever mentioned what we do? I hadn't missed a day of school or work. My grades were perfect. Yet this show is all going to shit- no? This is what I did here… showing everything that makes me a girl! Now I am passing down- to her- yah me- is it wrong? I must live with it. #- A cam video and all these photos of her online now are worth 1,000 words! #-0-okay then what does this one says then? My little sis- and she is frapping harder than I do- in this- damn, she is my Minnie me! She started younger than me even- yet that is all girls, her age. Here is one with her dressed wow seem weird to see her with something on anymore- (Swipe- and the phone in your hand would make a click sound…) Oh, this one- She loves these beautiful white lace kid’s girls’ shorts- so girlie- girly- from Wal-Mart, yet she was banned from wearing them in school without anything under them, yet I look around and all other girls do it. Yet, on Facebook- and Instagram 1, you get one persona and on Google images a whole other- just like Snapchat you have her as your girlfriend for the night yet have- yet she is your striptease only- and the other Instagram- that grammar should never- ever see- yet this is how to get popular- and stay popular. Besides then there is the community of internet nudists- on MFC. And the profile- she now has too, a legacy to be remembered by, no? Yet, when you have no education to speak of and working for some d*ck head is just out of the question, over they think you’re not worthy of their time- were you're not making anything, and at this point in Pa she too young to work, yet is old enough to have unprotected sex… Um- and then I wonder- yet she needs the money- for school coming up because your mommy and daddy don’t have it, and all for fun, boys, and a girl's night of fun- and partying- and being crazy. Money is everything… and why girls do what they must do…

The town is attracting a whole load of yobs who just want to roam around picking fights and getting into trouble. I’m not surprised Russell’s dad was really worried about him being out late.’ ‘Russell can look after himself, Dad. He’s not some sad little wimp.’ ‘He could be Mr Muscles Macho Man. It wouldn’t make any difference if a whole gang started in on him.’ ‘You’re getting totally paranoid, Dad.’ ‘Maybe. I don’t know. But how about if you and Russell met up after school and then he went back home around nine?’ ‘Dad! We’re not Eggs’s age!’ ‘I know, I know – but you’re as precious to me as Eggs and I don’t need another night like Thursday. Look, you’re still supposed to be in the doghouse for that. I’ll let you see Russell, but I’m going to stick to this nine o’clock curfew for the time being. I think that’s more than fair.’ ‘I don’t!’ ‘Well it gets dark by nine – so you couldn’t do any sketching then, could you?’ says Dad, smiling. I smile back weakly. I don’t know who’s bluffing who. But at least I can see Russell – even if it’s only in daylight! I go up to my bedroom and read his letter again. Several times more. Then I go downstairs and ring Nadine and tell her that it’s all OK and that Russell walked round and round the town looking for me, practically knocking at every house door. Nadine isn’t quite as impressed as I’d hoped. She’s got her Claudie album playing full blast (her family are obviously out) and she’s singing along instead of concentrating fully. I need to ask her something. ‘Nadine, do you really think Russell looks seriously shifty?’ Nadine herself sounds as if she’s doing some serious shifting the other end of the phone. ‘No, no, Ellie, not at all. I was just, you know, saying stuff to comfort you. I don’t think his eyes are too close together either. I think it was just his intense expression when he was sketching you.

Before joining Fleetwood Mac, Californians Stevie and Lindsey had released one album, Buckingham/Nicks (Polydor), but it quickly found its way into the cut-out bins (“We were tax write-offs,” says Lindsey) and they were dropped from the label. Emotional entanglements or not, they weren’t about to slam the door in the face of success. “Really, each one of us was way too proud and way too stubborn to walk away from it,” Stevie recalls. “I wasn’t going to leave. Lindsey wasn’t going to leave. What would we have done? Sat around L.A. and tried to start new bands? Nobody wanted to do that. We like touring. We like making money and we like being a band. It was just grit your teeth and bear it.

In this scene, Freddie Mercury is depicted as being cornered psychologically. He was exhausted—with Queen’s enormous popularity, their schedule was accordingly hectic, the press was digging into their personal lives, and as a result, they were flooded with every kind of misunderstanding and criticism. When Freddie Mercury says he no longer wants a life that’s a repeat of albums and tours, Brian May answers back: That’s what bands do. Album, tour, album, tour. Like Queen, BTS couldn’t escape “what bands do.” Going back a little in time, to between the release of the album YOU NEVER WALK ALONE in February 2017 and LOVE YOURSELF承 ‘Her’ in September of the same year, BTS had performed thirty-two concerts across ten different countries and regions as part of the 2017 BTS LIVE TRILOGY EPISODE III: THE WINGS TOUR.

6. “Sojourner” by Rapsody (2018) Stop whatever you’re doing and go add Rapsody to your playlist RIGHT NOW. Her latest album, Eve, is a masterpiece from beginning to end. This song is just one of many that displays her brilliance. If Bri were real, she would strive to be as dope as Rapsody.

Manuel raises his eyebrows. “Interesting.” He peers down at Greyfoot. “How do you like our Festival, then? Never gotten the opinion of a local, but here we are of all places. Huh! Life is funny. So I assume you’ve been witness to Santiago de Tarragona’s Greatest Hits and Whistles. What do you think?” He waits, as if expecting an actual response. Greyfoot stares at him blankly. “That’s the name of his record,” says Marjani. “We have it on vinyl.” “His songs,” someone calls out. “On his album.” Greyfoot is not going to get through his particular interaction without some sort of answer. He sees that now. He clears his throat. “I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve heard it.

I know why I’m hearing this phrase so often. It’s because my co-star Ariana Grande is a burgeoning pop star who misses work regularly to go sing at award shows, record new songs, and do press for her upcoming album while I stay back and angrily hold down the fort. I understand on a surface level why she has to miss work. But at the same time, I don’t understand why she’s allowed to.

So Stephen’s pain is over. He is no longer trapped in the static of his mind. Tormented by stabs of clarity, like a drowning man surfacing above the waves before being engulfed again. There will be no further decline. From here on the decline will be all hers. The pain all hers. She is glad of it, deserves to endure it. It feels like penance. Penance for helping to kill Stephen? Is that right? No. Elizabeth doesn’t feel guilt at the act. She knows in her heart that it was an act of love. Joyce will know it was an act of love. Why does she worry what Joyce will think? It is penance for everything else she has done in her life. Everything that she did in her long career, without question. Everything she signed off, everything she nodded through. She is paying a tax on her sins. Stephen was sent to her, and then taken away, as a punishment. She will speak to Viktor about it; he will feel the same. However noble the causes of her career were, they weren’t noble enough to excuse the disregard for life. Day after day, mission after mission, ridding the world of evil? Waiting for the last devil to die? What a joke. New devils will always spring up, like daffodils in springtime. So what was it all for? All that blood? Stephen was too good for her tainted soul, and the world knew it, so the world took him away. But Stephen had known her, hadn’t he? Had seen her for what she was and who she was? And Stephen had still chosen her? Stephen had made her, that was the truth. Had glued her together. And here she lies. Unmade. Unglued. How will life go on now? How is that possible? She hears a car on a distant road. Why on earth is anybody driving? Where is there to go now? Why is the clock in the hall still ticking? Doesn’t it know it stopped days ago? On the way to the funeral, Joyce had sat with her in the car. They didn’t speak because there was too much to say. Elizabeth looked out of the window of the car at one point, and saw a mother pick up a soft toy her child had dropped out of its pram. Elizabeth almost burst into laughter, that life was daring to continue. Didn’t they know? Hadn’t they heard? Everything has changed, everything. And yet nothing has changed. Nothing. The day carries on as it would. An old man at a traffic light takes off his hat as the hearse passes, but, other than that, the high street is the same. How can these two realities possibly coexist? Perhaps Stephen was right about time? Outside the car window, it moved forward, marching, marching, never missing a step. But inside the car, time was already moving backward, already folding in. The life she had with Stephen will always mean more to her than the life she will now have going forward. She will spend more time there, in that past, she knows that. And, as the world races forward, she will fall further and further back. There comes a point when you look at your photograph albums more often than you watch the news. When you opt out of time, and let it carry on doing its thing while you get on with yours. You simply stop dancing to the beat of the drum. She sees it in Joyce. For all her bustle, for all her spark, there is a part of her, the most important part, locked away. There’s a part of Joyce that will always be in a tidy living room, Gerry with his feet up, and a young Joanna, face beaming as she opens presents. Living in the past. Elizabeth had never understood it, but, with intense clarity, she understands it now. Elizabeth’s past was always too dark, too unhappy. Family, school, the dangerous, compromising work, the divorces. But, as of three days ago, Stephen is her past, and that is where she will choose to live.

What are bad recommendations you hear in your profession or area of expertise? Great, great question. In the world of writing, everyone wants to succeed immediately and without pain or effort. Really? Or they love to write books about how to write books, rather than actually writing . . . a book that might actually be about something. Bad advice is everywhere. Build a following. Establish a platform. Learn how to scam the system. In other words, do all the surface stuff and none of the real work it takes to actually produce something of value. The disease of our times is that we live on the surface. We’re like the Platte River, a mile wide and an inch deep. I always say, “If you want to become a billionaire, invent something that will allow people to indulge their own Resistance.” Somebody did invent it. It’s called the Internet. Social media. That wonderland where we can flit from one superficial, jerkoff distraction to another, always remaining on the surface, never going deeper than an inch. Real work and real satisfaction come from the opposite of what the web provides. They come from going deep into something—the book you’re writing, the album, the movie—and staying there for a long, long time.

By age thirty, I was living a life that most people only dream of living. But it’s a strange phenomenon. When you’re caught in the whirlwind, it begins to feel commonplace. Suddenly, you begin to forget all the years of walking through the kitchen to play the wedding. You forget the people throwing quarters at you on some makeshift stage. It all becomes a distant memory. You feel elevated. People treat you differently. Now that you can afford things, you seem to get a lot of things for free. The guitar strings that I used to buy—free. The guitar itself—free. Clothes, sneakers, tennis rackets—you name it, we were being offered it. Now that we had a best-selling album and were a household name, everyone wanted us to use their brand of whatever. It was crazy. The money wasn’t bad either after all those years of eating every other day and sleeping four to a room. I remember when we got our first big royalty check. The business manager that we had used for years called John and I and said, “Come see me, I have a check for you both.” When John and I went to see him, he handed us both an envelope. I opened mine first and looked inside. When I saw the amount, I said, “Oh, this can’t be for us.” I asked, John, “How much is yours?” He said, “Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. How much is yours?” I said, “Two hundred and fifty thousand.” All we could do was laugh. This was crazy money to us. When we started out I remember thinking, if I could make $50,000 at this I’ll be happy. Now, it looked like we were going to make a little bit more. I didn’t spend elaborately when we started making money. But I did have my little splurges. For instance, I bought a Jaguar. I remember the Jaguar salesman warning me, “Now are you sure you want to buy this car? I don’t want you spending all your money.” Eventually,

Life is like a book, Seth,” I tell him. “Just like the photo album. Pages go by, but you can turn back to them anytime, even when the last page has been read. All you have to do is open the book back up and pick a page to reread.

By Lawrence Van Alstyne December 24, 1863 As tomorrow is Christmas we went out and made such purchases of good things as our purses would allow, and these we turned over to George and Henry for safe keeping and for cooking on the morrow. After that we went across the street to see what was in a tent that had lately been put up there. We found it a sort of show. There was a big snake in a showcase filled with cheap looking jewelry, each piece having a number attached to it. Also, a dice cup and dice. For $1.00 one could throw once, and any number of spots that came up would entitle the thrower to the piece of jewelry with a corresponding number on it. Just as it had all been explained to us, a greenhorn-looking chap came in and, after the thing had been explained to him, said he was always unlucky with dice, but if one of us would throw for him he would risk a dollar just to see how the game worked. Gorton is such an accommodating fellow I expected he would offer to make the throw for him, but as he said nothing, I took the cup and threw seventeen. The proprietor said it was a very lucky number, and he would give the winner $12 in cash or the fine pin that had the seventeen on it. The fellow took the cash, like a sensible man. I thought there was a chance to make my fortune and was going right in to break the bank, when Gorton, who was wiser than I, took me to one side and told me not to be a fool; that the greenhorn was one of the gang, and that the money I won for him was already his own. Others had come by this time and I soon saw he was right, and I kept out. We watched the game a while, and then went back to Camp Dudley and to bed. Christmas, and I forgot to hang up my stocking. After getting something to eat, we took stock of our eatables and of our pocket books, and found we could afford a few things we lacked. Gorton said he would invite his horse jockey friend, James Buchanan, not the ex-President, but a little bit of a man who rode the races for a living. So taking Tony with me I went up to a nearby market and bought some oysters and some steak. This with what we had on hand made us a feast such as we had often wished for in vain. Buchanan came, with his saddle in his coat pocket, for he was due at the track in the afternoon. George and Henry outdid themselves in cooking, and we certainly had a feast. There was not much style about it, but it was satisfying. We had overestimated our capacity, and had enough left for the cooks and drummer boys. Buchanan went to the races, Gorton and I went to sleep, and so passed my second Christmas in Dixie. At night the regiment came back, hungry as wolves. The officers mostly went out for a supper, but Gorton and I had little use for supper. We had just begun to feel comfortable. The regiment had no adventures and saw no enemy. They stopped at Baton Rouge and gave the 128th a surprise. Found them well and hearty, and had a real good visit. I was dreadfully sorry I had missed that treat. I would rather have missed my Christmas dinner. They report that Colonel Smith and Adjutant Wilkinson have resigned to go into the cotton and sugar speculation. The 128th is having a free and easy time, and according to what I am told, discipline is rather slack. But the stuff is in them, and if called on every man will be found ready for duty. The loose discipline comes of having nothing to do. I don’t blame them for having their fun while they can, for there is no telling when they will have the other thing. From Diary of an Enlisted Man by Lawrence Van Alstyne. New Haven, Conn., 1910.

Helen, a junior high math teacher in Minnesota, spent most of the school week teaching a difficult “new math” lesson. She could tell her students were frustrated and restless by week’s end. They were becoming rowdy so she told them to put their books away. She then instructed the class to take out clean sheets of paper. She gave each of them this assignment: Write down every one of your classmates’ names on the left, and then, on the right, put down one thing you like about that student. The tense and rowdy mood subsided and the room quieted when the students went to work. Their moods lifted as they dug into the assignment. There was frequent laughter and giggling. They looked around the room, sharing quips about one another. Helen’s class was a much happier group when the bell signaled the end of the school day. She took their lists home over the weekend and spent both days off recording what was said about each student on separate sheets of paper so she could pass on all the nice things said about each person without giving away who said what. The next Monday she handed out the lists she’d made for each student. The room buzzed with excitement and laughter. “Wow. Thanks! This is the coolest!” “I didn’t think anyone even noticed me!” “Someone thinks I’m beautiful?” Helen had come up with the exercise just to settle down her class, but it ended up giving them a big boost. They grew closer as classmates and more confident as individuals. She could tell they all seemed more relaxed and joyful. About ten years later, Helen learned that one of her favorite students in that class, a charming boy named Mark, had been killed while serving in Vietnam. She received an invitation to the funeral from Mark’s parents, who included a note saying they wanted to be sure she came to their farmhouse after the services to speak with them. Helen arrived and the grieving parents took her aside. The father showed her Mark’s billfold and then from it he removed two worn pieces of lined paper that had been taped, folded, and refolded many times over the years. Helen recognized her handwriting on the paper and tears came to her eyes. Mark’s parents said he’d always carried the list of nice things written by his classmates. “Thank you so much for doing that,” his mother said. “He treasured it, as you can see.” Still teary-eyed, Helen walked into the kitchen where many of Mark’s former junior high classmates were assembled. They saw that Mark’s parents had his list from that class. One by one, they either produced their own copies from wallets and purses or they confessed to keeping theirs in an album, drawer, diary, or file at home. Helen the teacher was a “people builder.” She instinctively found ways to build up her students. Being a people builder means you consistently find ways to invest in and bring out the best in others. You give without asking for anything in return. You offer advice, speak faith into them, build their confidence, and challenge them to go higher. I’ve found that all most people need is a boost. All they need is a little push, a little encouragement, to become what God has created them to be. The fact is, none of us will reach our highest potential by ourselves. We need one another. You can be the one to tip the scales for someone else. You can be the one to stir up their seeds of greatness.

I was also skeptical about what all the grunge bands would do on their second albums. There were a lot of great first albums, but what would they do once they were platinum acts instead of kids living in roach-infested garages? I mean, if they were so miserable, once they had money, they could all go see shrinks.

You gotta go and get angry at all of my honesty You know I try but I don't do too well with apologies I hope I don't run out of time, can someone call a referee? Cause I just need one more shot at forgiveness I know you know that I made those mistakes maybe once or twice By once or twice I mean maybe a couple of hundred times So let me, oh let me redeem, oh redeem myself tonight Cause I just need one more shot at second chances Is it too late now to say sorry? Cause I'm missing more than just your body Is it too late now to say sorry? Yeah I know that I let you down Is it too late to say that I'm sorry now? I'm sorry, yeah Sorry, yeah Sorry Yeah I know that I let you down Is it too late to say sorry now? I'll take every single piece of the blame if you want me to But you know that there is no innocent one in this game for two I'll go, I'll go and then you go, you go out and spill the truth Can we both say the words and forget this? Is it too late now to say sorry? Cause I'm missing more than just your body Is it too late now to say sorry? Yeah I know that I let you down Is it too late to say that I'm sorry now? I'm not just trying to get you back on me Cause I'm missing more than just your body Is it too late now to say sorry? Yeah I know that I let you down Is it too late to say sorry now? I'm sorry, yeah Sorry, oh Sorry Yeah I know that I let you down Is it too late to say sorry now? I'm sorry, yeah Sorry, oh Sorry Yeah I know that I let you down Is it too late to say sorry now?

You must not build your hopes on peace on account of the United States going into a war with England. She will be very loathe to do that, notwithstanding the bluster of the Northern papers. Her rulers are not entirely mad, and if they find England is in earnest, and that war or a restitution of their captives must be the consequence, they will adopt the latter. We must make up our minds to fight our battles and win our independence alone. No one will help us. We require no extraneous aid, if true to ourselves. But we must be patient. It is not a light achievement and cannot be accomplished at once. I wrote a few days since, giving you all the news, and have now therefore nothing to relate. The enemy is still quiet and increasing in strength. We grow in size slowly but are working hard. Affectionately and truly, R. E. Lee

I think there's a lot more freedom in doing the solo thing. It's almost like switching bands every time I do an album. Once this fourth one is out, I think it's going to be apparent that every record is not going to be the same.

But you’re a better singer, baby,” he said. “Then why won’t God let me have that success?” I asked. “I don’t understand what He wants from me.” At the mention of God, my dad slipped into preacher mode. “He is allowing you to go through this struggle so that He can build a strong foundation in you,” he said quietly. “So that when it comes time for you to have that success, you will appreciate it. And know how much work it takes. ‘If you remain in me and my words remain in you—’ ” “Ask whatever you wish, and it will be given to you,” I said, finishing John 15:7 for him. You can take the girl out of youth group, but you can’t take youth group out of the girl. “That’s a beautiful promise, isn’t it?” he said. “Yes,” I sighed. The verse did minister to me, though I also knew my dad didn’t really think fulfillment resided solely in sticking to scripture. Otherwise we’d still be in Richardson, and I wouldn’t have to be working so hard to prove my worth. I started to hear voices when I was alone at night, waiting for the sleeping pill to kick in. Half asleep, I would examine myself for flaws in the mirror, and a mental chorus would weigh in. They were intrusive and so mean that I was really convinced Satan was behind them. “You’re never going to be good enough, Jessica. Look who your competition is.” “Could your zits be any bigger?” “What happened to your hair? It used to be so much thicker and longer.” “Do more sit-ups, fat ass.” These thoughts derailed me just as I had to work harder to sell the album. It should have been no different than back when I stood next to the stage at a small Texas rodeo, selling my very first album. Back then, I knew if I just kept at it, people would respond. But now I was running on fumes, then beating myself up for that, too. I was fully aware that I was being unreasonable with myself—I would even beat myself up over beating myself up—but like a lot of times in my life, just because I could name the problem didn’t mean I was ready to do anything to fix it. Looking back, I see how my anxiety amplified the very real pressures on me, but I didn’t have that perspective then.

In July, we started work on my next album, and Tommy wanted to go all in on making me a combo of Britney and Mariah. He said he would be even more involved this time and said I needed to be doing more dance pop over the ballads I loved. I also had to get even skinnier. I started the Atkins diet hardcore, envying and resenting anybody who could just eat. Off the diet, I obsessed over how I looked 24/7; on the diet, I was also hyperfocused on food. It made me nervous. My anxiety had something to hold on to, and instead of examining my emotions, I could just block them out by focusing on carb counts and waist sizes. If I focused on controlling my outward appearance, I could avoid thinking about my emotions and fears. My mother sometimes, with the best of intentions, fed into it. Her aerobics-teacher past would kick in, seeing a problem to fix and giving a solution she thought would help. When she urged me to exercise or told me she was going for a long walk and maybe I should come along, I knew what she meant. We ended up doing the Atkins diet together.

If you want an average, successful life, it doesn’t take much planning. Just stay out of trouble, go to school, and apply for jobs you might like. But if you want something extraordinary, you have two paths: 1) Become the best at one specific thing. 2) Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things. The first strategy is difficult to the point of near impossibility. Few people will ever play in the NBA or make a platinum album. I don’t recommend anyone even try. The second strategy is fairly easy. Everyone has at least a few areas in which they could be in the top 25% with some effort. In my case, I can draw better than most people, but I’m hardly an artist. And I’m not any funnier than the average standup comedian who never makes it big, but I’m funnier than most people. The magic is that few people can draw well and write jokes. It’s the combination of the two that makes what I do so rare. And when you add in my business background, suddenly I had a topic that few cartoonists could hope to understand without living it. I always advise young people to become good public speakers (top 25%). Anyone can do it with practice. If you add that talent to any other, suddenly you’re the boss of the people who have only one skill. Or get a degree in business on top of your engineering degree, law degree, medical degree, science degree, or whatever. Suddenly you’re in charge, or maybe you’re starting your own company using your combined knowledge. Capitalism rewards things that are both rare and valuable. You make yourself rare by combining two or more “pretty goods” until no one else has your mix. . . . At least one of the skills in your mixture should involve communication, either written or verbal. And it could be as simple as learning how to sell more effectively than 75% of the world. That’s one. Now add to that whatever your passion is, and you have two, because that’s the thing you’ll easily put enough energy into to reach the top 25%. If you have an aptitude for a third skill, perhaps business or public speaking, develop that too. It sounds like generic advice, but you’d be hard-pressed to find any successful person who didn’t have about three skills in the top 25%.

My first blog post sucked. My next blog post sucked. I have written dozens and dozens of sucky blog posts, and I can only hope that I will continue to do work that sucks until the day I die. Because it’s in the process of doing that bad work that the good work comes out. Singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran said that he writes four or five songs a day when he’s working on an album. He says, “if you turn a dirty tap on it’s going to flow shit water for a substantial amount of time, and then clean water’s going to start flowing.” Hemingway had a similar philosophy. He said, “I write one page of masterpiece to ninety-one pages of shit.

Now, this meeting would have taken place in mid-to-late 2004, over two years after we started recording, and a lot happened between that summit and the album coming out. One of them was that terrible tsunami in Indonesia on Boxing Day. Because of that, the record company got cold feet on Barney’s cover image, fearing a possible media backlash, and Alan Parkes from Warners had to go to Pete’s studio, pleading with him to do another sleeve. Pete was insistent. ‘No, I don’t want to do one. I don’t want to do it,’ but Alan was just as persistent, until at last Pete got fed up and wrote ‘NO’ on a piece of paper, gave it to Alan and said, ‘There’s my answer,’ and Alan went, ‘That’ll do,’ and took it. I like it. I think it’s one of his best sleeves.

The sessions for Some Girls always had a following wind from the moment we started rehearsing in the strangely shaped Pathé Marconi studios in Paris. It was a rejuvenation, surprisingly for such a dark moment, when it was possible that I would go to jail and the Stones would dissolve. But maybe that was part of it. Let’s get something down before it happens. It had an echo of Beggars Banquet about it—a long period of silence and then coming back with a bang, and a new sound. You can’t argue with seven million copies and two top ten singles out of it, “Miss You” and “Beast of Burden.” Nothing was prepared before we got there. Everything was written in the studio day by day. So it was like the earlier times, at RCA in Los Angeles in the mid-’60s—songs pouring out. Another big difference from recent albums was that we had no other musicians in with us—no horns, no Billy Preston. Extra stuff was dubbed later. If anything the buildup of sidemen had taken us down a different path in the ’70s, away from our best instincts on some occasions. So the record was down to us, and it being Ronnie Wood’s first album with us, down to our guitar weaving on tracks like “Beast of Burden.” We were more focused and we had to work harder. The sound we got had a lot to do with Chris Kimsey, the engineer and producer who we were working with for the first time. We knew him from his apprenticeship at Olympic Studios, and so he knew our stuff backwards. And he would, on the basis of this experiment, engineer or coproduce eight albums for us. We had to pull something out—not make another Stones-in-the-doldrums album. He wanted to get a live sound back and move away from the clean and clinical-sounding recordings we’d slipped into. We were in the Pathé Marconi studios because they were owned by EMI, with whom we’d just made a big deal.

*(Interviewer: Do you consider Veteran a political record?)* Peggy: Hell yeah! Not in the traditional sense of like, ‘Just go out and vote!’—it’s political in that it’s how average people talk about politics, how everyone speaks casually about politics in day to day life. So, I wanted to pose it from everyone’s perspective rather than this sort of intellectual, ‘Read this book and go vote’ kind of vibe. With everything I do, I just present my observations and people can make their own conclusions—that’s how I operate. I look at things and I take into account everything that’s going on, and apply it to my own life. So, yes, it’s a political album, but a millennial political album. It’s new age, for people like me.