RIP? WTF

People I know are starting to die.  I sense this is going to become a trend.  Based on what I've seen among my family, I'm approaching "that age".

My dad's been claiming for years that all of his friends are dying.  They aren't all dying, but a lot have.  Seems to be a mixture of old age, motorcycles and cancer.  And some of the oldtime friends who aren't dead yet seem like they already kinda are.  My favorites among his old contacts seem gone before their days.  Hard for me to accept.

But now it's my friends who are dying!  

I found out someone I used to know died during the first flush of Covid in another fucked up, tragic situation.  Another bike accident, though he 1000% should never have been on one or frankly ever driven any vehicle in his life, he was so chaotic.  He was forever distracted and so much more confident than reason would indicate.  I remember him roaring around Phoenix with an 8-track on the floor of what had to be an early 70s blue Cutlass but I can't quite remember.  We picked a friend up in his car one night and she shrieked, "IS THIS A MOVIE?"  He just grinned into the dark like a vampire had a baby with Johnny Depp, snarling, "Get in!"  Everything was hilarious back then.  Even to him.  The tape in his 8-track was Blue Oyster Cult and he wasn't even playacting at the dream of 70s America like so many kids do, because he wasn't a kid.  It was just the only track he had on hand that he liked.  He was 20 years older than us.  

I hadn't realized how much older he was until one night when his wallet fell open on the bar at Bikini.  I glanced down and boggled, decided to say nothing.  I remember joking with friends later, making fun of the situation.  He was so old, I said, that JFK was still alive when he was born.  The Beatles were still together.  History burns from a 20-something: unimaginable, but everything was a larf then.  I felt like he should have more in common with my parents, but he didn't, besides being mad at me.  He had lived multiple lives already, different existences in Brooklyn, San Francisco, Vegas.  But remember - the 80s and 90s versions of those cities.  Touring bands, heroin, women and jobs in bars - that had been his life.  I couldn't believe the photos he showed me from those times, because he looked about 35 for most of his late life.  What a bizarre, strange person; why the hell would he have ended up in Phoenix, of all places?  And how the hell did I meet him?

Surprised it took me so long to find out that he died, but that happens when you move or grow up, you just never talk to certain people again.  And I hadn't talked to him in so long, on purpose.  We had dated for a few moments once, after which he harassed me regularly for around two years, which embittered me, made me angry and dismissive.  Calling, texting all the time, once or twice even showing up at my house in the middle of the night.  I didn't appreciate the theatrical gestures and never let him in, wanted nothing to do with it.  He wasn't a bad person, just wild and unpredictable in ways that I didn't find amusing, even at that age.  Originally, he behaved in a retreating and quiet way, and the limited time we spent together was because I could never figure out which person was the real one.  Damn it, Jack.

With the distance I have now, I think the quieter version was the real person, but I felt too harassed by his other side to care.  He didn't have boundaries with women, and as an attractive man, he wasn't accustomed to rebuffs.  It spooked me and I had no idea how to handle it then other than avoidance and ghosting, the execution of which would get ruined when I'd show up somewhere and he'd be there.  For such a big city, Phoenix is an annoyingly small town in many ways.  Still feels that way.  I still manage to run into people I don't want to see almost ten years later.  

I used to remember him with a resentful shiver, but now that he's dead, I feel reflective and a little sad.  Maybe even more than sad, I feel shocked.  His personality, his ego, the way that he carried himself seemed eternal.  It's hard for me to understand that someone like that could actually die.  I began to wonder if I was harder on him than I needed to be.  Did I understand enough to judge?  I just had no patience for his insult-flirtations and low-level negging, even at that inexperienced age.  There was a different person in there that he couldn't, or wouldn't be all the time, but I couldn't care about that at the time.  I'm sorry that he had to be alone in a hospital when he died because he got into a grievous accident during a pandemic.  Only he would die at a time like that, needless and solitary, but I think he might be one of few well-equipped to handle such a thing given the life he lived, and the person he was. 

I'm fortunate that none of my close friends have died.  Yet.  It's a strange thing.  I don't know how I'll react, but I would guess "badly".  There are certain people I know whose deaths will impact me heavily and I just hope we have another couple of decades before that becomes anything I need to think about.  And I suspect the world as we know it may end before many of us have to deal with it.  

And there are the others who just fall away somehow or get lost to the churn of life.  Usually it's right, eventually, when you think about it.  I tend to be rejecting when a relationship has gone off; once in a while I'm wrong about it, but that's increasingly rare these days.  And it's something that's difficult to even think about until one of them eventually dies too.  Mortality makes people change, but it hasn't changed my feelings about this yet.  I guess I'll revisit it in another decade. 

Needles and Pins

I always loved this song by The Searchers until I found a version by throwaway Rod Stewart ripoff Smokie, which was oddly satisfying.

I love it enough that I hate to share it for fear that others won't appreciate the awkward hairspray 70s pop, because I was once someone who wouldn't either.  

This song would have enraged me once.  Not only because the version by the Searchers is better, but because everything about Smokie would have pissed me off.  His face, his hair, he's like a caricature of a 70s pop star.  But now I love it!  And why?  Who knows, but he gives it his everything, and succeeds.  He knows how to sing it, and so does his band.  

The barrier is that I was historically disgusted by men my mom would have been attracted to in the 70s.  It's a form of rebellion, an onslaught I'm still taking against. In the 90s, she was buying ELO tapes for funsies to listen to on our home stereo, while I lurked in the dark corners of the house like GOD, MOM.  Knowing I'd love them later was too much for my childish soul to bear at the time.  

We could fast-forward past the part where my mom bought Black Sabbath - Paranoid on cassette in the mid-90s, because it reminded her of her old friends and teen moments, but I won't.  I took that tape.  I also took her Bowie: The Singles double album on tape for myself and I'm low-level mad today realizing that that's how I found both bands.  Through my mom: the least cool person alive!  

But the Sabbath and Bowie tapes both changed my life.  I went crazy for both of them, walking to school listening to War Pigs and Boys Keep Swinging.  That was when I stopped actively seeking contemporary music.  I didn't need it anymore.  Yanno, "because of all my pride!"

After actually looking into the song, I see it was written by Sonny Bono in the early 60s.  Cher's version was fine.  It was covered by a diverse group of greats, from Jackie DeShannon, decent but unremarkable, to Petula Clark in French to my favorite guy, Gene Clark!  All of their versions were just ok.  I look forward to finding the random French ye-ye versions as I have time.  Those covers are a whole other post because there are so many greats.

A later cover that did actually deserve mention was the Ramones, 1977.  I'll put that here because you can tell they actually loved the song.  Among the above, it best captures the sound and the vibe of the song.  

But this is the best version (1964) of all time, by far:

And then Tom Petty covered it with Stevie Nicks in '81.  It's cool that they did it, and I would have died to have seen it in person, but it ain't gonna change your life.  

Honorable mentions:  

The Turtles live: it's fun and fast. Why are all the comments on this version in Spanish?

The Spongetones with a strong version in 1980. That hair.  Do we want it back, or not?

Del Shannon: Squaresville, USA, but still cute.

It's an essential classic. 

No Woo Zone

I don't understand why the internet shows me so much of the wooniverse, even though I know I'm only getting the tip of the iceberg here.  I mean, I do know why: because people I know actively engage in this, and their algorithms influence mine, or however the dastardly social media works.  

I have my theories about why this preoccupation is growing so quickly among the Gen Z set, or even among people my own age, but whatever the reason, it's gone too far.  I'm so tired of people creating their own set of bugaboos and then grappling with them publicly using fake solutions, as though they're doing something. 

It's called conspirituality, the seeming unlikely convergence of spiritual/woo/yoga/holistic culture with antivax beliefs that belong more in Q-territory than anywhere else.  On one hand, it seems interesting that that yogini crowd proved so susceptible to toxic, idiotic beliefs, but...is that interesting?  It was cute when they were were sageing their houses and drinking tea made from dandelions found in their yards, but of course it couldn't stop there.  Now they're refusing to vaccinate their children against anything and using essential oils to deter diseases.  People I know are doing this.  Just hearing about it is detrimental to my life. 

I've always been semi-familiar with this stuff because of my grandmothers' search for meaning in the 70s and 80s.  They would attend lectures about everything from Buddhism to Feng Shui and ESP.  They followed various gurus, passively, and their bookshelves were packed with yellowing, dusty guides to harnessing your inner spirit, telling the future, embracing the divine within.  And, of course, there was some woo Christian-lite in there too, because that's how they got in.  Most of their interests were on the deeper side, though - they were more into "exploring the meaning of being" than telling the future or gaining the upper hand on other people through supernatural means.



I'd probably accuse them of toxic positivity today, one buzz phrase that I do embrace.  I could never complain or tantrum without being asked to investigate myself, or without being challenged to find something sympathetic about the person who had made me mad.  I would be admonished to not say "hate," to imagine "love," and to send good thoughts to anyone who upset me.  Obviously this made me totally crazy, because my instincts have always tended towards vengeance or at least unfettered expression of my natural (hateful) feelings.  Send love to my mean 5th grade teacher?  I don't think so, Grammy. 

My grandma still has a room full of kooky books, and my mom is always harping on her to get rid of them.  "Not so fast," I say, from 1,000 miles away.  "Don't get rid of anything old before I see it first (including Gram haha)."  Those dusty old books called things like "Edgar Cayce Speaks," and tomes about past lives are valuable now!  As much as I hate the inheritors of this shit, the vintage books are, yanno, cool, and certainly fun to peruse.  This whack shit is my heritage and those books are mine.  They still got rid of them, though.  :(

Growing up adjacent to that environment had made me pretty complacent with it all.  I didn't believe, but it didn't bother me.  I remember watching some documentary with a friend that mentioned this bullshit guru named Braco who supposedly heals people by standing in front of rooms full of people and gazing spiritually at them.  I remembered with a start: "I've seen him. LIVE!"  I had forgotten all about it.  "WHAAT?"  Yeah, I've been healed by Braco (pronounced Brrrat-so), it's no big deal.  My Gram asked me to go with her, so I did.  I went in totally blind, had not bothered to check into this "phenomenon" beforehand.  So he came out, stood on a stage and stared at the room in a knowing and sympathetic way for 5 minutes (long time in this context), then quietly existed stage left.  People cried!  $40 a head.  Gram knew enough to elbow me at lunch afterwards and ask slyly, "So, are you healed or...?"  Yep, all set.  She's not a full crazy, just interested in it on the side.  By the way, people think Braco murdered his mentor to take his following.  Probably not the people who go see him, though.

This new generation of woo is too much to take, though.  The antivax Earth mother raising filthy longhaired forest children on diets of bone broth and bitter wild strawberries or whatever.  Get out of here with that self-aggrandizing navel-gazing I-apparently-have-nothing-better-to-do bullshit.  Please leave the grid!  The arrogance of some fool with a trust fund who thinks her own body can heal cancer by itself is just, the way it pisses me off is almost indescribable, even though I will try.  This person thinks sage can cure disease, and that positive thinking and a root tea is all you need.  Positive thinking along with some crystals probably mined by slaves from the darkest corners of South America.  There's something so out of touch and oddly snide and mindless about it all, to reject western medicine after benefiting from it for your entire life, including the crucial years in which you were vaccinated against the diseases that brought prior versions of the world to its knees.  And then to be evangelical about shitting on it.  I've been exposed to a lot of people like this, and summarizing them is like trying to pull individual pieces of broken furniture out of a tornado, it's all just so wildly bad that you barely know where to start.

And maybe it's the familiarity with the originating philosophies that makes me hate them so much.  I expected them to stay in the lane where I first found them.  I don't get as angry at the country dwelling, Jesus-loving, hunting, monster truck Trump-supporting element because I've rarely even known anyone like that, or not intimately.  But the know-nothing arrogant earth witch/love priest who thinks there's an oil for every problem and who constantly tries to bestow their wisdom upon others despite rarely living by their own beliefs just burns me up.  

MY problem is that I love wacky witchy stuff here and there, when it's done right.  Obviously I accept that western medicine doesn't know everything and, less seriously, that straight white conservative American culture is lame as hell!  I just wish we didn't have to jump every single shark.  Especially as someone who formerly felt like they could be into weird shit without having to make a disclaimer that they're not patently insane.  

In the less questioning bud of youth, I watched all those movies made in the 60s about witchcraft, which, according to some 1960s publications, was taking over America.  After my Grammy died (I don't expect one to follow the baby names, but differentiating between Grammy and Gram, two different grandmas), I went through trunks in her storage room, and found an issue of LOOK with Anton LaVey on the cover, fingers splayed around a yellowed human skull.  I couldn't believe she had kept it all those years, but it was in a lot of old stuff that I know she never looked at.  There were papers from the day Kennedy was shot, from the moon landing, from other events.  I wish I could have asked her about this issue of LOOK, because it is pretty fucking odd that she would have kept such a thing.  But I must realistically assume there was probably something else in the magazine that she was actually interested in keeping.  Or was there!  

Look how young he is tho

She died when I was in my teens, at a time when I was most interested in the Church of Satan, because it flew in the face of everything I had ever been made to respect, and I wasn't aware of anything better that was as transgressing but maybe less old-mannish.  I bought all of LaVey's books, which is why it didn't go much farther.  They were the expected amount of shocking, but not exactly inspiring for a person like me.  In reality, the books proved to be underwhelming and disappointing.  I had already absorbed the whole Ragnar Redbeard thing already, and there was nothing else of substance to LaVey beyond that philosophy.  If you don't know what RR said, then look it up yourself, and don't blame me if it's offensive now.  I haven't revisited it since 1999.

But, I still liked the kicky dark vibes.  Who wouldn't?  Psychedelic swinging 60s Satanism, with knives and jeweled goblets and go go dancers in body paint.  Pet lions, black walls, red carpet, big jeweled rings, snakes with glinting ruby eyes.  I wanted it to be cool and it was, but passingly because it was all built on one person who was just good at cultivating a vibe and cast of characters.  And I had beyond missed it all anyway.  It's always influenced my home decor, long before this post but still.  

And, of course, when you dig deeper into Anton's life, there's a lot of buzzkillery about abuse of romantic partners, children and animals.  Yes, I'm aware that he was a complete asshole and yes, it did ruin it and completely killed any further interest, but did I visit the Black House when I visited San Francisco in the extra-early aughts?  Of course I did!  It's gone now, razed as late as possible after the family held out against condos for years.  It was still there when we visited though, partially hidden behind razor wire.  However crappy he was, it was history, and the house should have been preserved for the iconic and ironic American history that was in it.  It was a shocking piece of pop culture once, and perhaps even a bit of a antisocial revolution. 

Anyway, I'll take good old time mid 20th century witchcraft and stone amulets and smoky rituals long before I'll take wildflower tea and the belief that rarely bathing steels your body against disease.  I'd rather imagine the blood of a baby born on Walpurgisnacht is more powerful than yoga and green juice, but maybe that's just a matter of taste.  One's no more real than the other, but one is definitely cooler.  Anyway, If you love Alan Alda, which you should, watch Mephisto Waltz.  It's not perfect, but the imagery is on point, as is Alan's stupid villain character.

In conclusion, draw your own conclusions.  But generally, just stop it. 

Heloise Problems

I've finally decided to give in and engage in my interest in Buffalo China.  Who says we don't have fun! 

But imagine my surprise and irritation when I came to find out how generally undocumented this quintessential American brand is.  Like what the fuck, I can't even find a reliable resource for all of the pattern names.  Not even close!

If you wanted to collect pottery by other early-mid American brands (McCoy, Shawnee, Homer Laughlin), you'd be overwhelmed with exhaustive publications and message boards full of people fighting about real vs. repro or fake, and the various types of stamps used to identify the pieces over the years.  

I'm starting to realize that Buffalo China's problem is it's too common to care about for most, with some exceptions.  They started production around 1908, and all of those early century patterns through the 1920s are predictably rare, documented and expensive.  They're also ugly.  Back then, they were called Buffalo Pottery, and after WWI, they became one of the most prolific modern pottery distributors in the world.  In addition to their retail output, they made dishes for the the armed forces before pivoting to creating custom china for hotels, restaurants and steamships in the 1920s.  That's where I get interested.  

My favorite Buffalo China is from the 1930s-1960s because it's heavy, thick utilitarian ware with unexpected, interesting patterns - sometimes.  It's common enough that it's not expensive and I just want one piece of every pattern that I like.  

Being an adult is everything I thought it would be.

The problem is, I don't know what my selection is due to the lack of documentation.  I learn pattern names and histories from eBay or Etsy, from the sellers who bother to know what they're selling.  I've learned enough to bitterly lament not purchasing the cheap set of multifleure that I saw on eBay a couple of years ago.  There isn't a single piece of this weird midcentury psychedelic pastel pattern on the internet right now, which has made it all the more precious to me.  I just want one piece.  Actually, I'd take a few of that one.  And a few of the masonic "Eastern Star" pieces while I'm at it, but those are around.  Don't get me started on Rebekah Lodge flags.  Ever wanted to blow a bunch of money on a rotten piece of silk?  Me too.  

I don't mind how common the Buffalo pieces are.  I just want #basic things that regular people used as long as I find them attractive too.  They're regular enough to find everywhere, and affordable if you're cool paying offensively varying prices for a single dinner plate, which I am.  

I'm not a collector, never have been.  It's not in me.  After decades of acquiring various antiques and vintage pieces of varying quality and importance, I don't want to be burdened by any more miscellaneous stuff unless it's special and in small quantity.  Pieces need to be interesting and usable.  Items are meant to be used.  What else is all this for?  The animals eat off of broken expensive china and sometimes, so do I.

This hasn't prevented me from being burdened by inheriting the collections of others.  And by "inheriting," I mean taking so they don't end up in the trash.  That's how I ended up with my grandmother's collection of ugly 70s and 80s rocking horse figurines.  They've lived in a box for 20 years, and although I think they're generally unsightly, they are mine now and I have to keep them until I die, so perhaps I'll put them on a shelf instead of asking my cousins every two years, "Would you like me to send you some horses?"  Why is the answer always no?  

I want a couple of pieces of shitty Corelle now.  Collections (er I said I have none!) don't always have to be precious.  I see my grandma's pattern, Butterfly Gold, every so often in thrifts.  Seems like it came out in 1970 and was discontinued in 1981, so I don't know when she got it, but I think it was on the earlier side.  The pattern looks like Spaghettios to me, served up to kids in the teacups.  I snapped a pic of it and sent it to my cousin recently.  Power punch to the childhood.  Pic not available but:

No problem adding cheap china to the collection, that's the best part of it all.  

I might even add one piece of Callaway to my hoard, just for funsies, because that was my mom's pattern in the 90s.  Hardly rare and practically still in production, it came about in 1995 and ended in 2015.  A nod to the old Irish heritage, Sean-o Parsons style.  Kerry and Derry and Monaghan counties representing in a common piece of shitty American china.  

The Countess, No Blood

Andrei Codrescu wrote a book called The Blood Countess in the 90s.  Pretty sure I found it in a remainder pile at Barnes & Noble, attracted by the spooky cover.  It was a piece of fiction that claimed to weave fact into its narrative, blurring the lines between reality and story.  The whole point of the book was to make those borders confusing and permeable, and for him to try to deal with being Hungarian, but of course I chose to treat it as nonfiction because I loved it.  I think I even cited it in a high school presentation I wrote about her, and never got busted because Arizona.  

The book added juice to the story of Elizabeth Bathory, the evil 16th century Hungarian bitch countess who (allegedly!) tortured her maids for fun before she drained their bodies of blood for her bath.  In the story, her equally perverse husband gifted her a witchy maid from foreign lands, Darvulia, who shared all of her strange cures, potions and beliefs with Elizabeth (er, Erzsebet as she was called then).  One of those cures was that to bathe in virgin girl blood would reverse the aging process, something the vain Countess was obsessed with.

In the accepted history, the local townspeople started to protest that their daughters never returned from the castle, so Elizabeth was put on trial by the horrified magistrates and found guilty, then imprisoned for life.  She wasn't put to death in the usual European public BDSM display because of her high status; the other titled people wouldn't want to create a precedent.  

She lived another 40 years in incarceration before dying an ignominious death in a dank cell.  

Except she apparently didn't do it.  Or not like we think.  As historians have combed through the law records of the time, there isn't a recorded incident of her crimes.  Obviously there wouldn't be perfect documentation, but it's considered suspect that there's none when she allegedly killed hundreds of people, while there was plenty of documentation of other crimes by others from the day.  

As we look back on the story with modern eyes, an emerging narrative is that this kind of treatment and conspiracy was typical when it came to women in power.  Think of the shocking and unfounded rumors that still cling to Catherine the Great of Russia to present day.  No horse!  (By the way, the show "The Great" is a hilarious and delightfully ahistorical show about Catherine available on Hulu now. One of the Fanning children plays Catherine and she is as etherial and pretty as you'd expect a little 16th c Polish princess to be.) When Elizabeth's status as controller of her castle and desirable lands, as the sole inheriting child of her family, is considered in the context of the time, you realize how incentivized the local relatives and powers that be may have been to jailing her and taking her property.  

But that's guessing!  There's no way to prove her innocent today, but it is interesting to think about now.  There's no reason to think she wouldn't have been as brutal toward her servants as any Countess of the time was, but stories like Codrescu's only help to perpetuate the myths of spinning iron-spiked cages, torture parties and a practice of using a pair of massive scissors to slap young girls in the face.  What mind comes up with these punishments?  I guess any mind that's read history and knows what people were doing to their enemies then.  It was a troubled time.  All times were troubled times. 

I'd love to hear what Codrescu would think with this new information.  I can't find any evidence that he's revisited the topic in the last 20 years.  Not that I hold it against him.  But what if she was innocent?  A then middle-aged woman being saddled with the most hysterical and extreme accusations imaginable, branded as a sick and perverted sadist, and taken away to live in the dark for the rest of her life.  Except they wouldn't have called her sadist, as de Sade wasn't even born for a hundred years.  Did he read about her as a young man?  Those French elites loved a nasty story.  Speaking of historical pieces that play with fact, watch Quills!  As much as I want to edit the bad writing in that 2010 post, I won't.  Seems like cheating (myself, out of seeing what a badly-written wang I was).

We know now that she was put on trial and imprisoned in her early 30s, by the way.  30 was a much harder age in 1590 than it is now, but come on y'all.  Labeled as a disgusting old witch thirsting after the flowing blood of pretty young things, hoping to turn herself into a sexy baby nymphet because she was a wretched 32?  I'm offended for her.  

For reasons totally unrelated to my own life, I've becoming increasingly aware of Woman's (capital W Woman the Legion) inability to accept aging.  I know exactly why it happens and I am not surprised by the outcomes it creates, but I am forever shocked by the ease with which humans acquire dysmorphia.  It's not just for trans kids and eating disorders!

I spent half a morning drinking coffee in bed and looking at pictures of Madonna the other weekend, shocked by how swollen and distorted her face has become.  Is looking like a drag version of yourself and inciting uncanny valley really better than having a few lines on your face?  Madonna is a naturally beautiful person and you know she would have aged gracefully had she allowed herself to.  

I take no issue with her continued presentation of herself as a sex cat.  Madge can keep wearing pleather bodysuits forever, but I wish she knew that her frozen Priscilla Presley face contrasts less than she thinks with her body, which is becoming taughtly old ladyish in subtle ways that wouldn't be an issue if she wasn't trying to hide it.  See: Angelina Jolie.  Something about working out too much and becoming ropey.  It even affects younger women when they do too much.

I watched The Unforgivable with Sandra Bullock recently.  I don't recommend it (there is an unseen twist, though), but all I could focus on were her Real Housewives slightly overfilled duck lips.  I'm supposed to believe this woman just got out of a 20 year prison stint?  They have that shit in the joint?  Her case isn't even extreme, but it's still immediately recognizable and made her unbelievable as her character.  It's all I could see.

And there are a million other examples, far more extreme than the two I mention.  Even Tori Amos has greatly changed her face to the point that it instantly stands out to me, but I do enjoy that she has somehow become more elfin than ever before.  Was that intentional, or just the result of inflating her cheeks, forehead and chin (filler, filler everywhere)?  We'll never know.  But she has pointy ears and crazy red hair still and I guess that's something.  Last person I expected, though.  Look at her in 1992.  No one expected that person to stay forever, but come on.  I also prefer when she let her hair be a wild frazzled mess.  As long as we're "normalizing" everything, normalize banshee hair.  

Speaking of Tori, check out videos of her recording songs from Boys for Pele in ancient Anglo churches in 1994 (you could start at 10:30 if you care about harpsichord).  She was literally high AF and it shows, and it may help to explain why that album was so brain-melting and etherial.  Tori talking about the ancient grounds that exist below churches, oh, fucking a.  Get me a harpsichord at once.  Also, google her Cielo Drive story with Trent Reznor.  

I think the toxic trends will change eventually, especially with the great wokening happening in western culture.  Talk of beauty standards is still localized and kind of quiet, but all sands are shifting and that'll come up eventually.  Ok, last last thing I'll say about Tori is remember all of the edgy photoshoots she took for Pele, like suckling a pig on a lonely splintered cabin porch?  Ugh, she was cool and weird.  

Should have led with this.