Watch A New Mini-Doc Featuring Kendrick Lamar, His High School Teachers, And Friends
Kendrick Lamar teamed up with Noisey to give the world a glimpse into life in Bompton, Sharing his personal experiences along the way.
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Watch A New Mini-Doc Featuring Kendrick Lamar, His High School Teachers, And Friends
Kendrick Lamar teamed up with Noisey to give the world a glimpse into life in Bompton, Sharing his personal experiences along the way.

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Notes I Got
Notes I’ve gotten and how/when I got them.
“It’s like you’re watching the scene instead of being in it.”
1997. Chicago City Limits level 2. My teacher John is explaining to me why the scene I did stalled.
“Bring your whole self with you”
McManus, early 2000s. My classmates and I are talking with Rob about how amazing The Swarm are. Rob says he noticed that when the people from The Swarm step into a scene, they “bring their whole selves with them” – their opinions, their memories, their temperaments.
“If you don’t know the game, don’t play it.”
I first heard this from my level one teacher Kevin Mullaney. Not sure if it’s his, but I like it.
“We wouldn’t give a note and if anyone did we wouldn’t have taken it”
McManus, early 2000s. I’m having trouble with my new Harold team. Everyone is going in different directions and the cool people seem to be kinda over it. I see my level 4 teacher Ali, sitting in a booth. Ali was on The Family, which is famously one of the greatest improv teams to have been at the iO Theatre in Chicago. I sit down and ask him if The Family every did something like have a meeting where everyone goes around and is very honest about what they want. Ali responded “We wouldn’t give a note and if anyone did we wouldn’t have taken it.”
Keep reading
Done! Thank you so much to all 1006 improvisers, and to everyone who helped promote the project! And thanks again to http://www.e-mprov.com/ for the inspiration!
Here’s a list of the participants: http://1000scenes.tumblr.com/guestsatoz
And a FAQ: http://1000scenes.tumblr.com/FAQ
And my page on Improvcoaches.com: http://www.improvcoaches.com/coaches/morgan-phillips
And my improv bio on the IRC Wiki: http://wiki.improvresourcecenter.com/index.php?title=Morgan_Phillips
And my personal website: http://morganphillips.com/
And my Twitter: https://twitter.com/morgan
The Worst Thing I’ve Ever Said
This is the story of the worst thing I’ve ever said.
It was a joke. Well, it was supposed to be a joke. Immediately relax. What I said was no shade of offensive, it was not racist, sexist, or derogatory towards giraffes.
The worst thing I ever said was such because of timing. It was a bad time for a joke. I shouldn’t have said it.
Every person I’ve ever told the story to responds the same exact way: they half-smile despite themselves as they rub their forehead and say “Anthony…”
Before I tell you what I said, there are some things you should know.
Mom is an earnest woman of small stature with the resolve of a 25 year old trying to find communal importance through Facebook statuses. She tries her best and relentlessly wants to let you know she is. Sad story short, she was regularly abandoned by her troubled mother and father and didn’t grow up with much genuine parental love. Mom is equal parts tough, sweet, and naive. She also can’t take a joke to save her fucking life. My Mom’s devotion for being a good mother and person sometimes makes her gullible or insusceptible to sarcasm. She’s been the perfect audience for my bullshit for thirty years, and not once has she ever suspected she was an audience member, even when she was physically sitting in the audience while I performed on stage. For example, her response to that last sentence would be something like “No! I know when I’m in the audience at a show you are performing at!” Mom sold makeup at Macy’s for about twenty years and she always looks beautiful. With or without makeup. She’s four foot eleven, loves Barry White, and eats cookies with milk in the middle of the night. That’s my mom. Shelly. Shelly baby. Mama Shelly. Michelle Ann Apruzzese.
I think what attracted my mom to my dad was the fact that he was sixteen years her senior and generally knew his way around life. He was both her husband and a father figure in the least creepy way possible, you asshole. Dad was many things: a bookie, a U.S. Army Ranger, a horse racetrack enthusiast, a hairdresser for Carol Burnett, a bartender, a plumber for the Jersey City Board of Education, a baseball player, and for all intents and purposes, the love of my mother’s life, the love of my brother’s life, and the love of my life. Dad was the heart and soul of the Apruzzese’s of Bayonne, New Jersey. Dad was accessible, kind, understanding, and incredibly smart for someone who only graduated elementary school. Above all, he was consistent. He was always there. With every year that passes and the further away from him I become, the more I love him. Dad never sat me down and gave me life lessons but I have an endless well of knowledge I’ve gained from him that will guide me through the rest of my life. Dad wasn’t preachy. His approach to life was the same as the great philosopher Rick Ross: “Don’t talk about it, be about it.” Countless times I saw my father do the right thing, even when doing the right hard thing was hard. I never saw the seams on my father, I never knew if he had any doubts. If he felt bad, he never took it out on me or even let me feel the pressure of his feelings. I don’t know how he did it. He was also very fucking funny. All of his jokes followed with laughter. Never once did I witness him explain “what he was going for.” For example: my brother, Joe, came back 20 pounds heavier after his first two months away at college. When dad saw him he said “Jesus, Christ, Joe, you put on some weight!” My brother, in an effort to save face, lied and said “what are you talking about? I just lost 10 pounds!” To which dad replied, “Where? At a crap game in England, you fat fuck?” Laughter by all ensued. That’s dad. Big C. Father Carmine. Carmanooch. Carmine Romeo Apruzzese.
You might have just thought to yourself, “this is nice but, what the fuck does this have to do with the worst thing he’s ever said? Oh, nice, a box of peach iced tea Snapples!” Relax, I’m getting to it. Open up the box of peach iced tea Snapples, take out each one and throw them in the garbage. Peach iced tea Snapples are terrible. Especially if you don’t realize they’re peach until after you get a mouthful of it’s awfulness. I imagine it’s a similar feeling that heterosexual men have when they pick up what they think is a female prostitute but later, after it’s already too late, find out it is a man in drag. That’s right. I imagine the feeling is the same. I wouldn’t know. Is your palate cleansed from my sincerity yet? Good. Now let’s dive back in.
To get a proper understanding of why what I said was the worst, you needed to know the key players and my relationship to them, which you now have. I’ll never forget the date I said the worst thing I’ve ever said. It was September 30th, 2008, the day my dad died. I remember the day incredibly well. I had just graduated college a few month prior and didn’t have a day-job yet. I was still living at home and making money by bartending three nights a week. I woke up around 11 then watched “The Untouchables” starring Kevin Costner, Robert DeNiro, Sean Connery, and a young, hot, tight Andy Garcia. After that, I went to lunch with my friend Pat (which given how the day transpires, refuses to get lunch with me to this very day) at a place we frequented. A place in Jersey City called, coincidentally, Carmine’s Italian Deli. Ugh. I ate the day’s special for lunch: ravioli parmigiana. This was the first time I had ever heard of/violent consumed ravioli parmigiana. Essentially, it’s a bunch of raviolis, which are pasta-cheese pockets, covered in marinara and, get this, more cheese. It’s something you didn’t know you needed in your life a paragraph ago but will seek out for the rest of your life. After I over-ate, Pat was driving me back home when I got the call from my brother telling me to head to the school my father worked at because something “had happened.” At the time my brother didn’t know dad had died yet either. As Rob Zombie has said (at least once in his life, I’m sure) “ignorance is bliss.
Second we pulled up to the block where the school was, I knew something was really wrong. There was a police car in front of the school. I ran into the school and was cut off by a police officer who asked me who I was and I told him my name. His response was something I’ll never forget. He put his arm around me, lead me into the school and said, “Anthony, we’re gonna have a bit of bad news for you.” This, of course, went down as the biggest understatement of 2008, merely edging out a thirteen year old’s science project that year entitled “The Sun is Good.” Once I got in the school, I saw my cousin Vinny (yes, I have a cousin Vinny and YES he is Joe Pesci), who’s a detective in Jersey City and he let me know my father had passed of a heart attack. I was the first of my immediate family to get there and find out. They let me see him. He had died in the supply room in the basement of his job.
Job. My dad died at his job. I can’t type this without crying. When I went into the supply room I saw him laying on the floor. I asked my cousin, the other cop, and the paramedics to leave me alone with him and they abided. I still can’t get over the unfairness of it all. Not for me, but for him. My dad, my everything, died alone on the unswept floor of an elementary school supply room. No pillow beneath his head, no loved one at his side, he deserved better. He deserved the best because that’s what he was. But man, that’s life. This is how it goes: unexpected and grossly not what we had imagined. Unfair. I approached his body. Rested on him was a generic looking, thick, pale sky blue blanket the had paramedics placed on him. It covered him from his ankles to the clavicle. His left arm lay against his side and his right arm was outstretched, pointing nine o’clock. I try not to think about why his right arm was like that. However, thoughts creep in my head that paint a picture of him struggling hard, reaching for life but coming up empty. It’s hard to imagine him struggling because I never had seen him struggle in real life. I grabbed his left hand. I could feel the life leaving his body as I promised him, through tears, that I’d try my best. Only he and I really know what that means and only he and I know if I’m keeping that promise. I did him a favor and the world a disservice by shutting his coffee with milk brown eyes for the last time. My dad, the heart of the Apruzzese’s of Bayonne, NJ, had beat for the last time. That’s when my brother arrived and got his bit of bad news. Shortly thereafter, the hardest thing I’ve ever witnessed happened. Mom got there. She knelt beside her dead husband, the father to her children and in some respects her too. She wailed. She cried. Asked God “why?” She begged my father to come back. The girl whose parents abandoned her was now a woman and abandoned again. After what I’m sure was only twenty seconds but felt like my whole life, I pulled her up from the ground, wiped the tears off of her face, looked her in the eyes and said it.
“Mom, I think you might have to get a second job.”
Needless to say, the attempt to break the tension by joking about how my mom will get by financially now that everyone’s favorite Apruzzese lay dead at the toe’s of my new balances fell flat. It, as always, did not register with my mom as a joke and my brother briefly marveled at the consistency in which I never cease to surprise with disappointment. I’m not sure if they even remember this. It probably got swallowed up in what was most important about the day, the ravioli parmigiana special at Carmine’s Italian Deli.
I have told this story to a few people, but never with this much detail. There’s still much more that I have chosen to omit because it both doesn’t serve the purpose of this essay and because what’s left is mine and his. In writing this, I realized how I had chosen to immediately emulate my dad the second both my mom and brother arrived at the scene. I didn’t cry in front of them that day. The first thing I said when we were all together was a joke. I tried to act like it didn’t bother me. For them.
Or, I’m an asshole.
I wish the years that followed were as retroactively well intentioned. The truth is, I folded in on myself. I tried to convince myself and everyone around me that my dad’s death didn’t bother me. I distanced myself from my mom and brother. I didn’t have my mom’s courage to love despite having lost badly in the past. Only recently have I tried to bridge the gap between who I became in order to survive and who I believe I am: Carmine’s son. It’s hard and scary to try. But that’s life.
You can’t give up.
Well, that’s it. The worst thing I’ve ever said. The sentiment came from what I believed was a very good place, like most of the worst things people have ever said.
TL:DR - Know your audience.

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Crown Victoria - Update
I had a conversation with Rich, the owner of Crown Victoria Bar in Williamsburg on Monday evening. He expressed his sincere condolences for how poorly his staff handled the situation. He claims that the employees had a hearing wherein they watched back surveillance footage (a claim that is in conflict with their official statement btw), and that the mostly female staff and he decided that the security company they hired for the bar AND the manager in question should be immediately terminated. He assured me that the entire ordeal made him sick. That he doesn’t want to run a bar where things like that can happen. That he wants to do better.
I’ve taken a day to sit with how I feel about the decision, and these are my thoughts in no particular order:
+ I’m incredibly grateful to the masses rallying against violence and misogyny. I am humbled by the fact that the community is taking a stand and will not sit back and watch this sort of violence happen passively. I cry thinking of the women who aren’t as lucky as me. Who don’t have an audience or social media presence that can go to bat for them. Ask yourself: If this situation had happened the same way, but it wasn’t someone with a verified Twitter account or 100k followers on YouTube, would the staff have been fired? Would the owner have been moved to action? Without the swarm of comments and negative ratings, would anything have changed? What would become of THAT woman? Who is protecting HER? That’s why I had to be vocal. I am vocal for every woman who has been dehumanized in their hour of need and nothing was done about it. Together we’ve sent a very clear message: our neighborhood is BETTER than this. It’s 2015, and we won’t tolerate bullying abusive behavior from those hired to protect. You’d better believe other bars in the area have taken notice, and are making changes. We shouldn’t apologize or feel guilty for that.
+ You absolutely SHOULD NOT be a security guard if you harbor ill-will and bias against women (especially in BARS–places where women are more likely to be mistreated). You absolutely SHOULD NOT be a security guard if the very thought of getting mace in your eye instills grave fear in your heart. You absolutely SHOULD NOT be a security guard if your number one priority isn’t diffusing situations and helping those in need. I am lucky that so many people have been rational and understood that this entire situation could have been avoided had the empathetic and humane choice been made on behalf of the bar. We can ask a million lawyers what responsibility a bar has to those on its sidewalk–but there’s no gray area when discussing a bruised and bloodied person requesting ice and a call to the police and instead they are belittled, intimidated, and denied assistance.
+ From a PR standpoint, there’s no reason this apology should not be updated to reflect our discussion and posted publicly on Crown Victoria’s Facebook page. Jezebel posed the question, “Can you unexplode a social media bomb?” To which I say: Yes. Rich and the staff of Crown Vic can absolutely come back from this: Admit you’re wrong as publicly as possible–not in a link on your unpopular Twitter page; That is just putting the onus on the survivor to share your remorse. You aren’t owed that. Ask your community for FORGIVENESS, and vow to create programs and sensitivity trainings for all employees. Make it a point to not just use the neighborhood for financial gain, but actually MAKE IT BETTER. It’s not my responsibility to help them win back the public, but I just gave them 3 really good ideas about where to start.
+ To the women still employed by Crown Victoria: I am sorry that you don’t feel safe working at the bar because of this situation. I feel doubly sorry that because Crown Vic hasn’t posted the apology in a more-public way, misogynist assholes are vowing to come to your bar in a misguided show of support:
^That^ is far more frightening than people calling and shaming you for the situation. There are men basically threatening that if you do anything that annoys them while they are in your bar, they are going to punch you in the face. Of course I’d be worried about continuing my employment there! If you truly agree with the decision to remove those toxic employees that caused this, encourage Crown Victoria Bar to reiterate that sentiment on Facebook and on the homepage of their website. I am currently fielding death threats, and sick, pathetic, small men telling me how I probably did deserve to be punched in the face. These same men continue to say, “We don’t know the whole story.” Realize that it’s not my responsibility to tell your employer’s side of the story. They’ve had every opportunity to be transparent about this. As sad as I am for you, I’m honestly much sadder for me and my injured friend. As bad as I feel about your careers, I have faith that you will be fine. Crown Vic is not known for their stellar cocktails or creating superstar bartenders–and there are loads and loads of bars in NYC that are hiring. You are not helpless. You will find other employment if Crown Victoria doesn’t turn this around. I feel no guilt or responsibility if they choose not to.
+ To the men who continue to harass me: I don’t care. You aren’t owed an explanation from me. You aren’t owed a comment thread to harass me further. I will do everything within my legal power to reveal your identities, because this is not an anonymous forum and frankly, you should be ashamed of yourselves. Your information should be easily Google-able. If you don’t want to take that risk, you might want to leave well-enough alone. Disqus says I can’t reveal your IP addresses in the comment thread. I have your IP addresses in the email alerts, and have screen grabs of all of it. Personally, I’d advise against testing me. Doxing isn’t bullying when you’re too cowardly to use your name as you’re going out of your way to harass a woman who’s been abused. Best believe I am armed within my legal rights and I’m not going to live a day in fear because you’re immature, unevolved, and out of control. You’re the kind of people with manifestos and unchecked inferiority complexes. It’s scary and frankly, pitiful.
+ As for the man who punched me: That investigation is underway with the NYPD and I cannot comment about it. It obviously means a greater deal to me that this monster is caught and locked up than that we continue to discuss this bar. There was indeed a police report filed the night of the incident in front of Crown Victoria Bar. There is a good chance we will catch this guy based on his ejection from Free Hold bar and the surveillance footage on the corner and from Crown Vic. I believe the police have more incentive to bring this man to justice because this story has picked up so much local attention. So no, I have no regrets.
-Akilah
WOMEN: DO NOT GO TO CROWN VICTORIA BAR IN WILLIAMSBURG, BROOKLYN. NOT EVEN ONCE.
SIGNAL. BOOST. TW: Violent Attack and Abuse, Victim Blaming.
Let me preface this with: I am fine. I’m going to be fine. I got lucky because my friends were there to help. I would say “this sort of thing doesn’t happen to people like me,” but the truth is there’s not a certain kind of person it happens to. It just happens because there are shitty people in the world. DO NOT GO TO CROWN VICTORIA BAR IN WILLIAMSBURG. DO NOT GO TO CROWN VICTORIA BAR IN WILLIAMSBURG. DO NOT GO TO CROWN VICTORIA BAR IN WILLIAMSBURG. DO NOT GO TO CROWN VICTORIA BAR IN WILLIAMSBURG.
A man brutally attacked me, and the only reason I’m not dead or in a coma is because my friend stepped in and fought for me. At the end of the scuffle I grabbed my mace and hit him with it, and the truly lovely men who work at Crown Vic told me that they WOULD NOT get me ice. Would not get my friend ice– That I should be careful with my mace, it “could have hit *them*” And *my favorite* comment “it’s shocking I don’t get punched in the face more often by men since I’m ‘so annoying.’” To be fair, I can be hella annoying (lol), but being the victim of a crime should not be seen as annoying. Should not give license to a manager to GET IN THE FACE of a woman on the sidewalk outside of his bar and say she deserves more of the same. NO ONE deserves to be abused and the fact that three grown men watched a woman get punched in the face and refused to help her is reason for me to believe that they aren’t looking out for you and they absolutely WILL NOT protect you if you go there.
You will get roofied.
You will get raped.
You might get beaten.
And THEY. WILL. BLAME. YOU. FOR. IT.
There are plenty of bars to chill with friends in that neighborhood. DO NOT RISK GOING TO CROWN VICTORIA BAR AND BEER GARDENS IN WILLIAMSBURG. It might save your life.
LINKS TO HELP ME TEAR THAT ESTABLISHMENT TO THE GROUND: Yelp: http://www.yelp.com/biz/crown-victoria-brooklyn Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Crown-Victoria-Bar-and-Beer-Gardens-126719327416962/reviews/ Email: [email protected] Phone Number: (917) 719-6072 Instagram: https://instagram.com/crownvicnyc/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/crownvicbar
PLEASE REBLOG, REVIEW THEM, CALL THEM–EVEN IF YOU DON’T LIVE IN BROOKLYN OR NEW YORK CITY. WE NEED TO PROTECT WOMEN AT HOME AND ELSEWHERE.
billdipiero had his first Harold show today with Slamball and I’m a proud gay dad.
All day tho
When they say “not all white people”
The Greatest
OMG. I knew about his refusal to fight, but I had never seen this. YES.
This was a compelling dude.

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It Was Easier to Give in Than Keep Running
By Anonymous
In first grade, a boy named John— a notorious troublemaker—systematically chased every girl in our class during recess trying to kiss her on the lips. Most gave in eventually. It was easier to give in than keep running. When it was my turn, I turned and faced him, grabbed his glasses off his weasel face, and stomped on them on the hard blacktop. He ran to the principal’s office and cried.
In fifth grade, I was asked to be a boy’s girlfriend over email. It was the first email I ever received. He actually told me he wanted to send me an email, so I went home and made an AOL account. We went to a carnival and he won me a Garfield stuffed animal, and then he gave me a 3 Doors Down CD. A few days later, he broke up with me, and asked for Garfield and the CD back. I said no.
In sixth grade, a girl in my year gave head to an eighth grader in the back of the school bus while playing Truth or Dare.
In the summer after sixth grade, I kissed a boy for the first time at sleep away camp. He was my summer love. During the end-of-the-summer dining hall announcements, where kids usually announced lost sweatshirts and Walkmen, an older girl stepped up to the microphone, tossed her hair behind her shoulders, and proudly stated, “I lost something very precious to me last night. My virginity. If anyone finds it, please let me know.” The dining hall erupted into laughter and cheers. She was barred from ever coming back to the camp again, and wasn’t allowed to say goodbye to anyone.
In seventh grade, I told my brother I decided when I was older wanted a Hummer. What I really meant was I wanted a Jeep, but I didn’t know a lot about cars. My mother overheard and screamed at me for “wanting a Hummer.”
In the summer after freshman year of high school, I went to sleepaway field hockey camp with many of my close friends. One of them, named Megan, I had been friends with since kindergarten. One night when I was showering, she ripped open the curtain and snapped a photo of me on her disposable camera. I screamed. She laughed. We both laughed when I got out of the shower a few minutes later. After camp was over, her father took the camera to the convenience store to get it developed. When he gave the finished photos back to her, he said, “Your friend [Anonymous] has grown up.”
Sophomore year of high school, one of my best friends Hilary had a party in her basement while her mom was away. We invited some of the guys in our grade and someone’s older brother bought us a handle of vodka. One of the boys who came sat next to me in Spanish class. His name was Thomas. I remember playing a simple game, where we passed the bottle of vodka around in a circle and drank. I remember being happily tipsy and having fun, to suddenly being very drunk. Thomas and I started chanting numbers in Spanish, and he leaned towards me and kissed me. We kissed in the middle of the party, with all of our friends cheering. Then we went into Hilary’s bedroom.
Hilary’s bedroom was in the basement, on the ground floor, with a large window next to her bed. When someone went outside to smoke a cigarette, they realized it was a front row seat to what was happening in the bedroom. It was dark outside, and the light on was in the bedroom. They called everyone outside to watch. I don’t remember getting undressed, but apparently we were both completely naked in Hilary’s bed. A friend of mine told me later she tried to open the door and stop what was happening, but Thomas must have locked it. They said they pounded on the door. I don’t remember hearing them pounding. I don’t remember seeing everyone’s faces outside the window. I remember Thomas holding my head down, and shoving his penis into my mouth. I remember trying to resist, pulling back, but he held his hands firmly on my head, pushing my face up and down. That’s all that I remember.
The next day, my friends and I went out to dinner at one of our favorite local restaurants. I couldn’t eat anything, and it wasn’t because I was hung over. Every time I tried to put food in my mouth, I felt like I was choking. Anytime a flash of the night before appeared in my mind, I felt like vomiting. My friends sat with me in silence. Then they told me a girl named Lindsey, who had briefly dated Thomas freshman year, had stood outside and watched the entire time. Even after everyone else stopped watching. My friends said they didn’t watch.
On Monday, Thomas and I sat next to each other in Spanish. We didn’t speak. We didn’t make eye contact. I went to the girls bathroom and threw up. I hear Lindsey and Thomas live together, now, ten years later.
Junior year of high school, my teacher for Honors Spanish was named Señor Gonzales. Señor Gonzales had all of the girls sit in the front row. Señor Gonzales called on any girl who was wearing a skirt to write on the chalkboard. Señor Gonzales asked a friend of mine, who had broken her finger playing an after school sport, if she broke her finger because “she liked it rough.” Señor Gonzales was a tenured teacher.
Senior year of high school, I got my first real boyfriend. His name was Colin. He was on the lacrosse team with Thomas. He told me that sophomore year, Thomas told everyone on the team what happened that night at Hilary’s. Everyone cheered. Colin said that, even then, he had a crush on me. Even then, he wanted to punch Thomas.
Colin and I lost our virginities to each other. Colin said if I got pregnant, he would make me have the baby. He didn’t believe in abortion. Colin said if I got pregnant, he would make me have a C-section. Colin said that if I didn’t have a C-section, my vagina would be too loose for him to ever enjoy having sex with me again. Colin said that he wouldn’t let our child breastfeed. He said his mother gave him formula, and that he turned out just fine. I didn’t get pregnant.
Junior year of college, I lived in Denmark for the spring semester and studied at the University of Copenhagen. Copenhagen is one of the safest cities in the world. Guns are illegal there. Pepper spray is illegal there. One night, my friends and I went to a concert at a crowded club in a part of the city I didn’t know very well. I brought a tiny purse with money, my apartment key, and my international cell phone. For some reason it made sense at the time to put my purse inside my friend’s purse. Maybe I didn’t feel like carrying it. We were both drinking. My friend left the concert to go home with her boyfriend. One by one, everyone I was there with left the concert, until I was suddenly alone and I realized I didn’t have my purse, or any money for a cab ride home.
I started walking in the direction that felt right. I walked for a long time. I had no idea where I was, and didn’t recognize the area. It was almost 4 am. I was on a residential street when a cab pulled up next to me. I asked the driver if he could drive me to an intersection down the street from my apartment.
I don’t have any money, I said.
I really need your help, I said.
I will do it for free, he said.
Sit in the front, he said.
I sat in the front. We drove in silence for some time, until he pulled over on the side of a dark street.
I don’t want to do it for free anymore, he said.
He locked the car doors and reached across the center console and slipped his hand up my skirt. He grabbed my vagina. Hard. I pushed his hand away and unlocked the door. I ran down the street and realized he had taken me a block away from the intersection I wanted. I walked to my apartment and threw rocks at my roommate’s window until she let me inside. She yelled at me for waking her up. I escaped. Nothing happened. I was fine.
The summer after I graduated college I helped Hilary find an internship. She was an art major and wanted something for her resume besides waitressing. We found a posting on Craigslist to be a studio assistant for a painter in the Bronx. It was listed as an unpaid internship. The toll for the George Washington Bridge was twelve dollars, plus gas, but she got the internship anyway. She wanted the experience.
The artist was a 38-year-old Canadian painter named Bradley. Hilary was 22.There was another intern there, an art student from Manhattan named Stella. Bradley needed assistants to help him make bubble wrap paintings. Stella and Hilary would take a syringe and fill the tiny bubbles with different color paints until it formed a mosaic. Bradley always had Hilary stay after Stella left to clean the paintbrushes and syringes. He told Hilary she was beautiful. More beautiful than his wife, who he only married for citizenship. He told Hilary they had a loveless marriage. He told Hilary he wanted to have her beautiful children. They began an affair. He told Hilary has wife knew and didn’t care. He told Hilary he was going to leave his wife soon.
Everyday Hilary drove to the Bronx, cleaned Bradley’s paintbrushes, and had sex on the studio floor. Everyday she went home with no money, and everyday she paid the toll at the George Washington Bridge. She needed the internship for her resume, she said. It was too late to find a new job, she said.
I could go on. I could tell you a lot more. About the whistles on the sidewalk, the kids who sat at the bottom of the stairs in high school to look up our skirts, my friend who was a prostitute in South Carolina, the men who’ve cornered me in parking lots and bars calling me a tease, the unwanted grabbing on the subway, the many times my father has called me fat, the time I traveled to the Philippines and discovered Western men pay preteen locals to spend the week in their hotel, the messages on OKCupid asking to “fart in my mouth.” About how I wasn’t sure if I had been raped because I was drunk and kissed Thomas back. How he raped my mouth and not my vagina, so that must not be rape. How easy it was for me to escape the dark street in Copenhagen, and how that made it not matter since “it could’ve been worse.”
Men have no idea what it takes to be a woman. To grin and bear it and persevere. The constant state of war, navigating the relentless obstacle course of testosterone and misogyny, where they think we are property to be owned and plowed. But we’re not. We are people, just like them. Equals, in fact, or at least that’s the core of what feminism is still trying to achieve. The job is not over. We’ve made great progress. There are female CEOs, though not very many. There are females writing for the New York Times and winning Pulitzer prizes, though not very many. There are female politicians, though not very many. But these advances are only on paper. The job won’t be over until equality permeates the air we breathe, the streets we walk and the homes we live in.
I think back to how easy it was for me, in first grade, to feel fearless and strong in my conviction to stomp on John’s glasses. I felt right in reacting how I did, because John’s behavior was wrong. But his was an elementary learning of the wide boundaries his gender would go on to afford him. For me, it would never again be so easy.
- Anonymous, age 25
Please don’t spread the name and face of the Charleston shooter, call him a white terrorist because that’s all he is, don’t give him the respect of learning his name or recognizing his face. All he wants is to be famous, now he will be infamous. He only deserves to be known as a white homegrown terrorist and imagined as a monster because that’s what he is. Instead learn the names and faces of the victims, they deserve to be remembered not the monster.
Remember:
Clementa Pinckney
A Democrat state senator who was also the pastor at the Emanuel African Methodist Church.
Cynthia Hurd
A librarian at the Charleston County Public Library. She’d been working there for 31 years and was a manager as St. Andrews Regional Library.
Sharonda Coleman-Singleton
She was a revered and a mother of three, she was also the coach of the track team.
Tywanza Sanders
A recent graduate from Allen University in Columbia. He was recently working as a barber. It is said that he died trying to save one of his family members.
Please, if you hear about more of the victims, add their names and a little about their life.
Go to this link to learn more about these victims. What I posted is only a short summary.
Also if anything like this happens again, do this instead of showing the shooter/terrorist. This is a tragedy and I will do my best to raise awareness, I hope you will too. Thank you.
Inbound Pass
A metaphor for the very top of scenes.
Top of the scene should be like inbounding the ball in basketball. Routine, without much problem. The action is coming a few moments later.
Yes, that’s a sports metaphor. So I’ll explain the sport.
WHAT IS AN INBOUND PASS
In basketball, at the start of a play you’ve got one player standing just outside the bounds of the court. A member of his team waits on the court. The first player throws the ball to the second player who catches it. They both then turn and run up the court. It’s the “inbound pass.”
Usually, this initial inbound pass is a no-big-deal part of the play. Maybe the defending team has one person waving their arms in front of the inbounder, but they don’t try that hard. The real action is going to happen when they get the ball closer to the basket.
SECOND LINE: NICE AND SIMPLE “YES”
Okay, so the top of your scene – the first two lines – should be like this inbound pass. Make it easy and no big deal, and assume that the real action is going to happen a bit later.
This is especially important for the second line. Whoever is responding to the initiation — your primary job here is to just catch the inbounding pass. Let the other person know that you’ve caught the ball. Focus on the YES, don’t worry too much about the AND.
Player A: MaryAnn, would you step into my office?
Player B: Sure Bill, is everything all right?
No big deal, just catching the pass. Nod your head a lot, repeat phrases, fit into the tone. You’re just catching the pass.
DON’T RUN TOO FAST
THIS IS IMPORTANT because if you DON’T catch the pass nice and firmly, it will often make the first half of your scene a PROBLEM.
Player A: MaryAnn, would you step into my office?
Player B: (trying to do too much, changing things) Is this about the flood in the breakroom!
Big choices are great normally. But it’s bad form to do it before you’ve caught the ball. It throws the first player off, and often the characters will start fighting — a false fight, one that comes from the actors being thrown off, not from the characters.
Player A: Flood? I told you to … uh, to… watch out for floods!
Player B: Well! You wouldn’t approve the budget for… (whatever, whatever, scene destroyed).
CATCH AND THEN CHOOSE IN ONE MOVE
If you’re burning to make a big move in the second line, then explicitly catch the pass FIRST.
Player B: Sure I’ll come into your office. But I’m hoping to worry about the breakroom. There’s a flood in there.
This reassures the first player that you heard them. It also makes clear that you are making a switch. It reveals that you’re move isn’t that great! But it presents your not-great-move in a cooperative, clearly communicated way.
Catch the pass.
A GOOD METAPHOR
This is a good metaphor to use.
I love a good basketball metaphor to explain improv. It's how I talk to my basketball coach dad about my improv shows and teams. You can even stretch the metaphor and describe types of improvisers by their basketball positions

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That thing where you’ve obviously put all the slurs and insults you know in the YouTube filter to be banished forever but somehow when you get comments via email you still see:
Let’s talk about how protected I feel when I use this service. How everyone has an equal shot at success on this platform. How taking YouTube’s advice for building community by reading the comments and responding isn’t a simultaneously heartbreaking and infuriating experience. How inspired I am to keep making things knowing that I can’t even block people from viewing my content even when they are being abusive.
Things. Need. To. Change. Make it a priority.