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Post by Deleted on Jul 9, 2015 11:34:10 GMT -5
Michael,
It's always good to breathe. : )
Life adds in all this stuff....floods, geography, family, real life economics...it's a constant pull of yin and yang. I hear you Michael and I'm sending hugs for you and your lovely wife.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 9, 2015 15:33:26 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Jul 10, 2015 11:03:31 GMT -5
I don't even know if I should dip my toe into this one....but...
But it hurts worse than any news today...
Late Tuesday, the Memphis, Tennessee, City Council voted unanimously to dig up the remains of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest and his wife, Talking Points Memo reported Wednesday. The council also voted to remove a statue placed in Forrest's honor. The move came after Mayor A.C. Wharton called for the bodies to be dug up and relocated.
Tuesday's vote is not the end of the story, however. According to WREG, the Chancery Court would also have to approve the removal of the remains and Forrest's family would also be involved in the decision.
Forrest and his wife are currently buried beneath a statute honoring the general in a park which had been named after him until two years ago. The park is now known as Memphis' Health Sciences Park.
Officials with Elmwood Cemetery -- the location of Forrest's original resting place -- said they would be willing to help move the remains but said they did not want to become the new home of the statue. It is not known where the statue would go if the Tennessee Historic Commission approves its removal. The commission is not set to meet before October.
"It is no longer politically correct to glorify someone who was a slave trader, someone who was a racist, on public property,” said City Council member Myron Lowery. WREG said Lowery spearheaded the effort to remove Forrest, his wife and the statue. The move to relocate Forrest is part of what many now see as a Stalinist effort to purge U.S. history after the tragic shooting in a Charleston, South Carolina church that left nine dead.
Not everyone is celebrating the vote, however. Lee Millar, a spokesperson for the Sons of the Confederate Veterans, said the shooting proves the need for the statue to remain.
“I think it’s disgusting that people use the shooting in Charleston and use those victims to forward their own agenda and join this anti-Confederate hysteria that’s going on,” he said. “To attack something like that now I feel is just really misguided,” he added, calling the response in Memphis and other places a knee-jerk reaction.
Katherine Blalock, an area resident whose great grandfather served with Forrest in the Confederate Army, agreed. “We need to have a coming together of people, not a divide and conquer,” she said.
But it seems that dividing the country is exactly what some want. Not content with removing the Confederate battle flag from the national memory, some now want to see the Jefferson Memorial taken down. Retail stores have yanked the battle flag and the House has voted to forbid sales of the battle flag at National Parks. As we reported Wednesday, one former academic called the U.S. Constitution a Confederate symbol and said it should be edited.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 10, 2015 11:11:14 GMT -5
After all this...the last sentence got to me...why are they inciting?
By "they" I mean the upper middle class...the ones that never set foot in the ghetto.
Are they not the ones who are making these changes?
Do "they" really think people of color are ignorant too.
Just because you change the curtains does not mean that the inside is any different.
Just made that one up^^^.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 10, 2015 11:13:49 GMT -5
I need to watch this one later...hope it is good.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 10, 2015 15:14:06 GMT -5
^^^Bad Video...sorry folks!
It is amazing how much energy and talent is spent making these though.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 10, 2015 15:16:56 GMT -5
Onto other Taylor news...
Taylor Swift is steadily building a reputation for influencing company policies. First there was Apple Music, which she got to pay artists over its free 3-month trial period, and now she's pushed the crowd sourcing website GoFundMe reshape its donation limits.
Alessia Cara Gets Mad Love From Taylor Swift for 'Bad Blood' Cover: Watch
The pop star's victory here was less contradictory than against Apple, but noteworthy nevertheless. While GoFundMe had previously held a donation limit of $15,000, on Tuesday Swift donated $50,000 to a young girl named Naomi battling leukemia through the website, making Swift the largest donor in the service's history.
"Taylor Swift's donation was so generous that it required us to increase the donation limit on the platform," said GoFundMe CEO Rob Solomon said in a statement on the company's website.
Taylor Swift's '1989' Hits 5 Million in U.S. Sales, Making It the Fastest-Selling Album In Over 10 Years
As a result of Swift's action, GoFundMe's new donation cap is $50,000 in a single transaction. There are never any limits on how much a campaign can raise.
"What Ms. Swift has done for Naomi and others can inspire the next generation of giving," Solomon continued.
So, what's next Taylor?
See Naomi's reaction video here:
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Post by Deleted on Jul 11, 2015 10:45:00 GMT -5
I have some stuff to donate!
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Post by Deleted on Jul 12, 2015 10:49:56 GMT -5
Welcome to New York! Ish! Taylor Swift brought it all back home last night, or at least to New Jersey's MetLife Stadium, for her 1989 Tour. Never one to do things halfway, Swift has made this a pop show — or rather the pop show, as far as 2015 is concerned. The whole night was a two-hour pop-blitz spectacle, where the songs retain all the teardrops-on-my-guitar intimacy of her early days, except blown up into massive electro-warrior emotional avalanches pushing the can't-even-ometer into the red. This show had it all: life lessons ("You are not the opinion of someone who doesn't know you!"), synth-disco raves, acoustic ballads, explosions, video interviews with her cats, sparkle-intensive costume changes, a Weeknd duet and oh yeah, the U.S. Women's Soccer Team parading through the crowd to "Style" in front of 60,000 screaming fans. That kind of night.
When Bruce Springsteen plays NYC, he likes to joke about how the city's beloved hometown icons — Sinatra, the Statue of Liberty, the sports teams — are rooted in Jersey. There was an element of that when Swift kicked off with her new theme song "Welcome to New York," explaining, "Although we're in New Jersey, our story opens in New York." But these songs aren't really about any particular city any more than they're about any particular boy — they all take place in the galaxy Taylor creates in her songs, one where everything orbits around one girl's mood swings, where boys are disposable and cats are keepers, where girlfriends matter and lying about your feelings is not how things are done around here. (A handwritten sign taped to a door backstage: "Cats Roaming. Do Not Open." Only on Planet Tay.) It was the kind of show that could only make emotional sense in a stadium this size.
As always, the hardcore fans were a crucial part of the spectacle, in full gear with their costumes and glowsticks. The crowd was, as Taylor said, "jumping and dancing and loud and lit up and dressed up." There was a gang of girls with their birthdates bedazzled on their shirts a la the 1989 logo—2004, 2007, etc—while their moms proudly repped 1976. Two girls with matching lightboards, one saying WE'RE TOO BUSY DANCING and the other TO GET KNOCKED OFF OUR FEET. A couple of girls with homemade Mean Girls-style shirts announcing, "You Can't Swift With Us." The fan faves were probably the girls carrying giant Starbucks venti cups as big as they were, with the logo tweaked to STARBUCKS LOVERS and Taylor's face in the middle. That's how a Swift show works: You love the players and you love the game.
"We all have different insecurities, different fears, different scars," Taylor announced. "There are many different types of people here tonight. But we have one thing in common: When we feel great amounts of joy or great amounts of pain, we turn to music, and that's why we're here tonight." The show was a marathon—19 songs, stretching almost to midnight. The new songs, despite their studio sheen, really kick live—especially synth-pop epiphanies like "New Romantics" (where Taylor's male harem of private dancers toted her around on a park bench) and "Blank Space." She rocked a glow-in-the-dark polka-dot ensemble for "How You Get The Girl," as her dancing boys twirled neon umbrellas and her band staged an extremely welcome twin-guitar duel. She picked up her trusty acoustic guitar for "Can't Feel My Face" with the Weeknd, whose hair might have been the most truly 1989 thing in sight.
She radically revised the oldies, which did not stop anyone from singing them. "I Knew You Were Trouble" began with a slow creepy goth-industrial intro — loads of the Sisters of Mercy's Andrew Eldritch in her vocals! Floodland, holla! — before the drums kicked in and turned it into a rock-me-Amadeus stomp. "Love Story" became a synth ballad, as she whisked around the stadium on her magic levitating catwalk. Even better was the hair-metal version of "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together," which has never-ever-ever sounded this nasty--Taylor in leather at the lip of the stage, doing a perfect version of the Slash guitar slouch, shoulders hunched, hair falling over face. Who knows, maybe Tay will do an full-on Headbanger's Ball album next time.
And because she's Taylor, she talked the talk. You have never heard a pop star say "Let me clarify that statement" more times in one night. It got heavy, like when she confessed, "Real talk, Jersey: I haven't always felt like I have real friends, or any friends at all." She gave the crowd her list of friendship requirements ("You have to like me" and "you have to want to spend time with me," with various codicils and subclauses). She also told us, "If I had my way, everything would be simple for all of you. I wish nobody would ever mess with your mind. I wish nobody would wait two days to text you back, when you know they had their phone with them the whole time!" That line got one of the biggest roars of the night.
But the hugest moment had to be "Style," when she brought out the U.S. soccer team, just a few hours after their ticker-tape victory parade. They looked like they were having a blast, strutting down the catwalk, waving giant flags. (After the show they gave her a SWIFT #13 team jersey.) She also brought out Project Runway host Heidi Klum, who if memory serves is from one of the countries the U.S. team aufed in the tournament. (Let the healing begin!) Tay's been preaching the girl-bonding gospel so long, it's easy to take that part of her game for granted — but that's just a measure of how much she's changed the pop-star landscape. For "Bad Blood," she struck a pose with video comrades Hailee Steinfeld, Lily Aldridge, Gigi Hadid and Lena Dunham — she shows off her girlfriend collection the way rock bands like Guns N Roses or Great White used to make videos where the girlfriends lounge around the soundstage.
(And speaking of Taylor girlfriends, a sincere question: have Haim always been this good? I wasn't a fan going in but their opening set was fire, roughing up their pop hits and doing a fantastic version of "Oh Well," by the Peter Green edition of Fleetwood Mac, which sounds sounds so snotty as a sullen-teen-girl anthem — "Don't ask me what I think of you / I might not give the answer that you waaant me toooo." Somewhere, Peter Green must be proud these black magic women have given this song a new life.)
As usual for a Swift show, the quiet moments were some of the most intense, especially "Clean," "This Love" and the piano medley of "Enchanted" and "Wildest Dreams," where she whipped out the piano-hair windmills. One of the highlights was "You Are In Love"—not just a deep cut, but a bonus track—where she led the whole crowd in a sing-along. Funny how all the state-of-the-art special effects can't hold a glowstick to the visceral power of 60,000 fans singing about love pains.
It all ended with "Shake It Off," with fireworks, confetti and dancing boys in purple Angus Young schoolboy outfits. All night, the Eighties concept took many different forms — from the pre-show mix tape (Human League, Toto, Fine Young Cannibals and my girl Tiffany) to the beats. But mostly, it's in the way she embodies the Eighties ideal of a pop star — Madonna, Prince, Bruce — as an auteur who makes every album, every tour something new. Honestly, if Taylor Swift had just done the Red tour all over again, plugging in the new songs with some greatest hits, that would have been fine with absolutely everyone. Taking the easy way would have been 100 percent good enough. It just wasn't what she wanted to do. Instead, she wanted to push a little harder and make a gloriously epic pop mess like this. What a night.
Set List:
1. "Welcome to New York" 2. "New Romantics" 3. "Blank Space" 4. "I Knew You Were Trouble" 5. "I Wish You Would" 6. "How You Get the Girl" 7. "I Know Places" 8. "All You Had to Do Was Stay" 9. "Can't Feel My Face" with The Weeknd 10. "You Are in Love" 11. "Clean" 12. "Love Story" 13. "Style" 14. "This Love" 15. "Bad Blood" 16. "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" 17. "Enchanted”/“Wildest Dreams" 18. "Out of the Woods" 19. "Shake It Off"
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Post by Deleted on Jul 13, 2015 19:14:37 GMT -5
Aw... the memories that Taylor Swift has given me is a gift that I will remember the rest of my life.
Just scored 2 tickets for 2 shows in Denver in September...great seats.
I don't know where I'll go from here...but I need to walk my own path.
Thank you guys for visiting this page...and being true blue friends...
it has meant a lot to me...see you guys down the road sometime!
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Post by Deleted on Jul 16, 2015 10:27:55 GMT -5
I would like to thank Jo for the inspiration for a new song title.
"You Are A Habit That I Can't Give Up".
A work in progress...thanks!
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Post by Deleted on Jul 16, 2015 10:33:03 GMT -5
Those before-mentioned tickets were a scam....watch out before you buy!
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Post by Deleted on Jul 16, 2015 10:36:15 GMT -5
Some guys story of just discovering Taylor...where has he been?
I'm a former college baseball player. I've attended two Midsummer Classics — Camden Yards in '93 and Fenway Park in '99. I even went to a major league stadium on Tuesday night: Nationals Park in Washington, DC. And if you follow pop music the way I follow baseball, you just discovered my secret.
I charged a Taylor Swift ticket to my man card. And it was worth it.
She's a class act who puts on a great show and manages to deliver messages about self-worth and self-empowerment while touching on universal struggles that anyone can relate to, no matter their demographic. Yeah, I'm proud to call myself a Taylor Swift fan. "Don't say I didn't, say I didn't warn ya'"
I should start at the beginning.
My wife was a little surprised last winter when I called to say I was planning to buy four seats to see T-Swift, or TS, or Shifty Swifty, or whatever the kids are calling her these days. We've been together for a dozen years and had never been to a major concert together. The last act we'd seen as a couple was Gordon Lightfoot.
At first, I lied to her — and to myself. I had priority access to buy the tickets because I'm a Washington Nationals season ticket holder, and I reasoned that it only made sense to take advantage of the opportunity. Surely we could hock them at a profit, I told Stephanie. Or perhaps sell them to friends at face value.
Worst-case scenario, I said, we'd just go with another couple and chalk it up in the "new experience" column. Stephanie was all in for the Taylor tickets, and I suspect she knew something that I wasn't fully ready to admit to myself: I wanted to go. "What you're looking for has been here the whole time"
The recurring device of Swift's big hit songs is a character who is shunned, and whose love is often unrequited, because of her perceived flaws. Usually the character ends up comfortable in her own skin, whether or not she gains the acceptance she seeks. This theme isn't unique to Swift; it's a staple of music, literature, and film. There might even be a Gregorian chant along these lines.
I think the main reason I like Swift's lyrics is that I find her characters so easy to identify with. That may sound strange because she's usually writing about women, or at least from the perspective of a woman. But her characters' struggles are universal, and she's vivid in her descriptions. The contrasts between high heels and sneakers, or a cheerleader and a fan, are evocative.
I can remember, back in high school, wondering why a certain girl was head over heels for another guy when I thought — and prayed — we'd make a better match. I suspect most adults have similar experiences and now smile at the memory of what was once so painful because it has been overcome, because they've grown more comfortable with themselves.
In the music video for "You Belong With Me," Swift is looking in the mirror when she sings, "What you're looking for has been here the whole time."
Don't get me wrong: I don't want to ascribe some super-deep meaning to pop songs. Just the opposite. Swift is an effective messenger because what she's saying is simple, straightforward, and inclusive. That gives her a lot of influence, particularly with girls and young women, and she should be applauded for reinforcing positive messages about self-worth. "On the outside looking in"
I already mentioned that I felt a little dent in my man card when I bought the tickets. As the date of the show approached, I became a little more apprehensive about what going to a Taylor Swift show said about me. That's all tied up in the politics of masculinity. Guys spend a lot of time trying to out-macho each other, and one way in which they do so is to challenge each other's manliness.
For example, I played American Legion baseball with a guy who, every time one of his teammates failed on the field, would shout at the top of his lungs, "Lift your skirt, Alice." None of them was named Alice, and all of them were on his team. Thankfully, this behavior stopped abruptly when he struck out one day and was greeted by a chorus of "Lift your skirt" from the mothers of his fellow players.
I suspected I would take some gentle ribbing from my friends for volunteering to go to teenybopper land to hear a pop diva, and I did. Usually just a smirk or a raised eyebrow. When I tweeted a picture of the stage Tuesday night, one of my friends tweeted at me, "Taylor Swift > all star game?" None of it was ugly. We're all adults. But the risk that testosterone levels will permanently drop upon entrance to a Taylor Swift show is as commonly understood among many men of my demographic as it is untrue. Though I did notice that when I went to a restroom equipped to handle about 40 men at a time, only three were there. At the same time, lines for the women's bathrooms spilled out onto the concourse.
There were other signs that Stephanie and I — who were joined by Stephanie's friend Erika and my sister, Amanda — were a little out of place heading into the concert. For starters, when I picked up Steph at home, she was wearing a Diane von Furstenberg dress. I guess DVF will "never go out of style" — but to a ballpark for a pop concert? We had dinner at a nice Italian restaurant near the stadium, like good little yuppies. Before the show started, Stephanie and Erika started talking about leaving early. And the merchandise stands didn't have any T-shirts in my size. "A place in this world"
I haven't seen a lot of live musical acts, but I can say I've never seen anyone — not the Dead, not U2, not the Who, and not Lenny Kravitz (all of whom are great at crowd interaction) — put as much energy into wrapping the audience into the show as Taylor Swift did.
There were threats of severe thundershowers. Swift came out on stage almost an hour earlier than we expected, having asked her warmup acts to truncate their performances to try to get in the show before the rains. One fun wrinkle on this tour is that she keeps bringing out other stars to sing their top hits. We got to see Jason Derulo perform "Want to Want Me."
For "You Belong With Me," she grabbed a guitar and made her way out to the end of an enormous plank that ran deep into the crowd, playing and singing without accompaniment. She knew how to emphasize a top hit by letting the crowd join her in singing.
She played for two hours without any real lull. I didn't care for the interludes when she spoke to the crowd about self-worth, but, as I noted above, I see the value in them. And she ended on an electric note, punctuated with fireworks, by singing "Shake It Off" as her encore.
By the end of the concert, this 39-year-old ex-jock felt pretty included. So, as I think about the All-Star Game I missed, and the potential humiliation of calling myself a Taylor Swift fan, this is what I've concluded: "The players gonna play, play, play, play, play and the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate (haters gonna hate). I'm just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake. I shake it off."
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Post by jeff2k6 on Jul 17, 2015 18:05:32 GMT -5
He's been under a rock and out to pasture, Nash! The good news is? He's coming around. Hey bro, do you know where Jo went? It's saying she deleted..
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Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2015 9:31:33 GMT -5
He's been under a rock and out to pasture, Nash! The good news is? He's coming around. Hey bro, do you know where Jo went? It's saying she deleted.. My main man Jeffery...how are you feeling bro?
Jo quit for awhile...she has to return because ...that's what love does.
Keeps a person coming back...actually I probably need a break too.
Have you noticed how many posts that Jo made in her short time here?
Broke all the records...yet again...I feel the same way sometimes...when no one answers.
I am just not that good in typing etc...maybe I should use voice recognition.
Tell you what Jeffery...you keep coming on by and I'll stick around.
I have a plan for the 2 shows in Denver...what a plan!
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