Podcasts about shammy

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 3, 2025

The last days before the Great Hunt.Book 3 in 18 parts, By FinalStand. Listen to the ► Podcast at Explicit Novels.“Can the scorpion ever stop being a scorpion? “"Do we get our legally permitted weaponry back?" The bishop still held my hand."Sure. If it makes you feel better.""I would like to meet your people then," he gave my paw one last shake then released me. "Shall we go?""I will have someone take you to your car. I want to briefly meet with the President, of Havenstone, then I'll join you in the garage. We'll drive over to JIKIT and I'll make the introductions. Good enough?""That is acceptable," he nodded."What about you two?" I regarded the nun and the Swiss Super-soldier. The nun remained vigilant, and silent. The Swiss' eyes flickered to his boss before settling back on me."It is what I volunteered for," he stated firmly."Okay. Please never say I didn't give you a chance to take the sane way out. Also, Bishop Nicolö, circumstances have conspired to up my prospective wedding date to January 1st.""That will be more difficult. Why the change?" he remained grim."We are having twins. By March, this will be very visible.""That is, unfortunate," he shook his head."You have no idea," and then a brainstorm. "And I am curious about resurrecting the Order of the Dragon, the Societas Draconistarum." Technically that meant 'Society of the Dragonists' which was more appropriate than the literal Ordo Draconis."Precisely how do you plan to recreate a crusading Christian Order which was the purview of the Hungarian monarchs?" he didn't sound the least skeptical, just curious."I have billions of euros to fund such a thing," I winked. "Of far greater critical importance, I know where I can find the supernatural guidance and spiritual imperative for such an organization.""You are going to produce a dragon?" his eyes grew larger even as he fought down his fear. Good man. He was adaptive. He'd need to be."I never said such a thing. That would make me sound crazy," I smiled broadly. "Besides, when I say 'dragon', you think 'devil' and that's way too pedestrian for where we are going.""I am not a moral relativist.""Neither am I. I'm out to save lives and nurture the drive in the human spirit to reach for freedom, love and liberty. As you might imagine, I'm pretty freaking outnumbered.""I think you are crazy," he re-evaluated things."I just might be. In all honesty, you should back out now. Take your two compadres back to 25 East 39th Street (the Holy See's Permanent Observer Offices to the UN in NYC) and report 'Mission Failure'. You'll most likely live longer," I reasoned."I am not afraid to die," Sister Rafaela Sophia finally voiced an opinion."That's idiotic," I scoffed before the bishop could reprimand her for opening her mouth. "You should be.""My soul is in God's hands," she set her jaw."Does he talk to you?" I countered."His message is clear.""Not what I asked. I asked if he specifically directed you to toss your life fruitlessly away as an object lesson for the reckless, or careless?""This is uncalled for," Nicolö intervened."Nope. I bet you a phone call to my Brother to physically restore your bishopric that there are four people in this room who have murdered in cold blood," I kept eye contact with the nun, "and she's the odd one out. Right Juanita?""Yes, Ishara," Juanita slipped up. Her spycraft, like mine, needed work."You were in the military?" the bishop asked my bodyguard."Was? I am. Right now," she related. "I will be until I die."That earned me looks from the three Catholics."She is loyal," Nicolö nodded slightly toward her, referring to Juanita's declaration."Huh? To me? Nope. She's loyal to my office, which we shan't get into right now. Back to you, Sister Rafaela Sophia. Are you out to be a martyr, or has some saint, or angel, given you a directive the other two seem to be unaware of which causes you to devalue your life?""I am devoted to the One True God, Christ, our Savior," and Juanita snorted, "and the Virgin Mary," the nun stated firmly. "I don't hear voices in my head.""Juanita, that was rude. Apologize to our guest," I kept looking forward."No." Well, fuck you too."Gun," I commanded. I held out my left hand."What? No. I will not give you one of my guns," she resisted."Juanita, give me your primary weapon, or I will ask Pamela to beat you up the moment I depart for the Great Hunt. After yesterday's stunt, you know she will," I threatened. Fair, I was not. She drew a Glock-20 and handed it to me. I went through the routine, dropped the magazine then ejected the round before opening the door.Oh look, there were four SD chicks outside, ready to escort my visitors downstairs. I didn't even need to waste a phone call. It wasn't like the conference room wasn't being monitored."Excuse me," I took a half step out the door then hurled all three items down the hall. Looking back at Juanita. "Go fetch.""Fuck you," she snapped."And insulting her faith was as degrading to both her faith and her as me doing this to you is degrading to you right now," I lectured her. "It is important to her, therefore it is important to me because she is my guest in the same way it is important to me that I let my bodyguard do her job without being a total asshole all the time. Now go get your God-damn weapon," I barked. Off she went. I left the door open."Now Sister Rafaela Sophia, the point of all this is: I don't give a crap if you are willing to die for God. In fact, that makes you less than worthless to me and the team. I want to know if you are willing to put other motherfuckers in the ground so that Bishop Nicolá, or Mathias, might get to keep doing their jobs.""Murder is a sin," she declared."Go home," I sighed while shaking my head."She answers to me, the Church and God, not you, Mr. Nyilas," the bishop stepped forward."Then you can go home too," I shrugged. "I'm not asking for remorseless killers. I'm asking for people willing to kill to get the hard work done and best of all, for people who know the difference.""Everyone on JIKIT is a professional soldier, or killer?" he asked."No, but the ones who aren't don't carry guns and know to get down when things get funky," I bantered."I vouch for her," he insisted. Juanita came running back into the room."Cool beans. I don't know you either.""You apparently know my service history," he volleyed."Yeah. Ten years a foreigner in the service of France, then you went straight into a university which turns out Jesuits," I riposted."What turned your life around?" he evaded. That was okay. I'd gotten what I wanted. I was willing to bet he had read every bit of public information about me and it was rumored the heavy Catholic membership in the FBI had its benefits to the Church as well. Not so much as to give them insight into JIKIT, but,"Someone risked their life for me. It's been pretty much downhill from there," I confessed. It was the truth. After Katrina gave me the life line on Day Two, it had all spiraled to the revelation of my heritage, Dad's death, Summer Camp, the Hamptons, Romania and Aya's kidnapping."A person, a soldier, died saving my life," the bishop empathized. "Her story is similar. She seeks redemption. She is not suicidal. I am staking both our lives on it."Did he mean him and Mathias, or him and me? I wasn't certain. Still, it was good enough for now. I'd gotten a look at their emotional make up, even the relatively quiet Swiss."Very well," I agreed. "I have to go see the President about my new job description. I'll catch up with you at your car." To the SD team leader, "Take them to the garage. I will join the group of you very soon.""Yes Ishara," she nodded. I exited the room, Juanita in tow. Two SD entered. I was gone before the Papal team left. Upstairs we went, with one last chore to discharge. I had to check on Ms. French to be absolutely freaking sure it was Shawnee, because anyone else would spell disaster.{8:30 am, Monday, September 8th. Last day}A Room full of asistants:Well, there it was, the office of the Executive Director to the President, and not 'Executive Assistant', because this was Katrina's final 'fuck you, no, just her final 'fuck you' before the Great Hunt got underway. I shouldn't assume things, dang it!Anyway, according to the gray-haired matron running gatekeeper to the Office of the President, this was where I was supposed to show up. I shot Juanita a worried look. She glanced my way and shrugged, momentarily willing to not give me shit about the past 24 hours because where I was situated would determine how easily she could do her job.In we went. In the suite were three desks, the 'big' desk situated at the far end of the office space and two far more modest ones on either side of the entryway. The room expanded beyond the chokepoint formed by the two closest desks into a cluttered area. The walls were cluttered with inset bookshelves and portraits of women. Facing one another were a loveseat on my left with bookend plush chairs in an 'L' facing and a full sofa on the right. There were end tables at the ends of the sofa and the corners between the loveseat and each chair.As the door opened, I hadn't knock as this was my office, or so it seemed, the occupants, who had all been sitting in quiet conversation in the central section, began reacting. Oh look ~ Constanza! I nearly had a heart attack before I realized there were three other Amazons also in the room. Sadly, none were behind the 'big desk', so I couldn't tell who was in charge. Two of the other three choices weren't too much better. First off,"Ishara," Marilynn Saint John stood to greet me. I'd last seen her when I'd dedicated her grandmother's (Hayden's) spirit to the halls of my ancestors, not hers, after forcing the political crisis leading to Hayden's suicide ~ her taking herself to the cliffs and in doing so, destroying the Amazon Cult of Blood Purity. Marilynne was clearly still bitter with me. Umm, I could still incite passion in women I hadn't slept with, yet, woot?"Cáel," the senior-most and only friendly face in the room spoke next. Thank goodness it was Beyoncé Vincennes, Head of House Hanwasuit and House Ishara ally."Cáel Ishara," the third individual was deferential which I wasn't sure how to take as the last time I'd encountered her, yeah, things hadn't gone well either."Beyoncé," I started off with a smile. From there, I had to figure out, ah, Beyoncé's eyes flickered to Constanza then Sabia. I knew Marilynn, with her young age, had the least seniority, "Constanza, Sabia, Marilynn. How's tricks?"Glum faces by everyone except Beyoncé. I didn't ask about Sabia's particular well-being. It had been months since I'd beaten her into the mats of the Full-blooded gym. She'd attacked Yasmin, the Brazilian Hottie and my Brazilian Jujutsu sparring buddy, and I'd retaliated by ambushed her when she turned her back on us. Besides, she'd been giving me shit before I even could see straight.Constanza was minus her left eye because of her dire insult to me. If she wasn't capable of working, she wouldn't be here. If she appreciated my 'mercy' in sparing her life ~ her insult was worthy of her death ~ Constanza hid it well. I hadn't spared her expecting a change of heart. I hadn't felt words alone warranted anyone's death. I was a big boy and could take a few insults. House Ishara, as represented by me, could care less. These days, my sisters would be less understanding despite them knowing my heart."Constanza Landau of House Jaya and Marilynn Saint John of House Anahit are Assistants to President Shawnee French," Beyoncé eased things along, "so will be working closely with us, at least for the short term. Sabia Noel of House Guabancex, who I now think you know as well, has joined you as the other 'Assistant' to the 'Executive Director to the President', (that would make me an 'adept', but adept at what?), and since two of the three Regents are unfamiliar with the workings of Havenstone proper, Shawnee has asked me to perform in that role."Beyoncé was, or had been, Havenstone HQ's CFO (Chief Financial Officer). From what I was quickly piecing together, she would essentially be making all the day-to-day decisions concerning the running of Havenstone (how the Host made the majority of its money) until the Regents got up to speed.Only Buffy had actual experience with the New York office and, from what she had told me, solely within Executive Services. While ES knew 'who' did what inside Havenstone, they weren't aware precisely how those Amazons got their jobs done. That would have been an impossible task. Katrina could do it, but she knew it was beyond the ability of most of us 'mere mortals'. Since we were currently at war, the Host needed Katrina completely focused on her duties as Chief Spy-mistress, not baby-sitting the adults.Shawnee indeed had much gravitas among the other House Heads. Not only had she risen up to lead a First House, she had performed heroically during the final days of the last Secret War. Afterwards she had moved into the realm of Amazon jurisprudence and mediation. Until yesterday, she had lived in a House Arinniti freehold in Minnesota's Great Lakes region thus her desire for the 'Training Wheels' period.The Regency would not rule through telecommunication (the upper echelons feared being eavesdropped upon beyond the standard Amazon (read: paranoid) levels) and Havenstone: New York was the center best situated for the current war-fighting operations, so here she lived. I was sure a team from Executive Services was buying, outfitting/spy-proofing and fortifying a dwelling suitable for the President of a Fortune 500 company. Hayden's home would remain the domicile of Sydney thus Marilynn.The same rigmarole would be done for Rhada and Buffy (though I imaged Buffy would bitch endlessly). Publically, they were VP's of a company worth hundreds of billions of dollars and they had to present the public trappings of such leaders.Why did the Amazons do this ~ unmask their leadership to public exposure? Legal-simple: they could request and expect all levels of public and private security for their executives who happened to also be important officials of the Host. Certainly not all executives at Havenstone were officeholders, House Heads, or House Apprentices, but the high level of competence which permitted one often led to the other.Beyonce:As an example: Beyoncé wasn't the most 'bad-ass' lethal chick in House Hanwasuit. As she was preparing to be casted, her intelligence, creativity and diligence at her future craft, finances, was noted by the Host and the members of her House. In due time her name was circulated as Apprentice and the elders approved. When her elder cousin, the prior House Head, took herself to the cliffs, Beyoncé assumed the top spot. Beyoncé wasn't even one of that woman's three daughters.Mirroring her advancement in her House was her advancement in Havenstone's Accounting, Acquisitions and Banking Divisions until she was appointed CFO Havenstone HQ ~ the supreme financial authority inside Havenstone, though the individual regional branches had a greater degree of autonomy than you might normally expect from a 21st century conglomerate, or a Bronze Age autocracy.I had to constantly remind myself, despite the near-constant feuding, Amazons exhibited a phenomenally higher level of trust than I'd ever found in any other society I'd ever witnessed, or read about, before. Though technically Beyoncé could have gone to President Hayden to enforce her decisions ~ or now the Regency ~ she was far more diplomatic in her approach in dealing with the other 'continental' CEO's and CFO's.That meant she had to wrangle the aspirations and resources from:North America (including Latin America, the 'Canadian Arctic' and the North Pacific Ocean),South America (includes both the South Atlantic and South Pacific as far as Samoa),Europe (mostly Central Europe these days plus Antarctica, the 'Russian' Arctic and the North Atlantic),Africa (mostly West-central Africa),India (the subcontinent plus the vast expanse of the Indian Ocean) and,Southeast Asia (which includes Australia)All of which suggested Havenstone hadn't redrawn the Amazons' geographic demarcations since the late 19th century. As an example, an East African venture, say in Tanzania, was as likely to be under the purview of Havenstone: India (due to its control over the Indian Ocean) as Havenstone: Africa (which traditionally had no East Coast holdings due to their constant struggles versus the Arabic slave trade).Returning to Beyoncé: initially she had held the proper 'conservative' (aka man-hating) mindset. My behavior during that first Board Meeting began to change her opinion of me and the New Directive. After the Archery Range incident, Beyoncé became a vocal proponent of the New Directive and faced challenges within her ranks. House Heads do not have to accept challenges and Beyoncé didn't, reasoning with her detractors they had no alternatives save the 'Old Ways' which spelled doom for the Amazon Race.Bing-bang-boom ~ I became the Head of a resurrected House Ishara by the Will of the Ancestors and Beyoncé was vindicated. Not necessarily in the New Directive, but in her support of me thus the rebirth of a sister First House. The purge following High Priestess' Hayden's death was her ultimate absolution. The Ancestors and Destiny had spoken and shown Beyoncé had been piloting House Hanwasuit along the proper course all along.Back to my current circumstances:Oh, why was I Assistant to the Executive Director to the President? It gave me direct access to the finances of Havenstone which was a critical leg of the war-fighting stool ~ people, morale, money and equipment. As Chief Diplomat, I helped with all four of those in varying degrees, allied troops, allied victories, allied bank accounts and allied armaments.The Great Khan, my spiritual 'Blood-Brother', was ramping up his logistic support for my Amazons in Africa, Asia and the Americas. We were 'Allies in the Struggle' and he wasn't going to wait for the Condottieri to begin coordinating with the Seven Pillars to declare them to be his enemies. They were already fighting the Amazons and 9 Clans, his allies, so their fates were sealed.In Japan, my Amazons provided small yet highly effective strike groups which the Ninja families furnished all the support services for. Everything from food to bullets to medical attention as needed. Without reservation, we shared their death-grapple with the Seven Pillars.From the dispatches I was getting back from my family members and envoys in Japan, we were making serious diplomatic inroads with the Ninja. Once again, it was the Amazons shocking capacity for violence as well as their fanaticism, professionalism and proficiency which all impressed our hosts and terrified our enemies, and this from people of a philosophical mindset which had them historically battling samurai.The Black Lotus were running around like rhesus monkeys on crack cocaine unleashed in a China Shop and given RPG's. While the Amazons couldn't help them in China, Indochina & Thailand ~ the Khanate could and was. The Amazons were of more help in the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia, where the Black Lotus and Amazons were going everywhere on the offensive against the Seven Pillars while the normal tight cohesion and iron-clad confidence, traits which made the 7P's so dangerous ~ were shaken by their horrendous losses in the 'Homeland' aka Mainland China.Less we forget, the 'military intelligence' wing of their organization had been decimated by the Khanate's Anthrax attack due to members of the Earth & Sky sacrificing themselves by being injected with the toxin then allowing themselves to be captured, which always ended in torture and death.Furthermore, the People's Republic of China, while having a scary 18% of the population either captured, imprisoned, dead, or displaced due to the Khanate invasion, that had come with the loss of 63% of their landmass (they had lost all of Nei Mongol, Ningxia & Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Regions, Qinghai and Gansu as well as 90% of Yunnan, 80% of Sichuan and 20% of Shaanxi provinces) to the Khanate and the 'abomination' that was a free Tibet.Then came the Russian 'stab in the back' which entailed the loss of another 10% of their people falling under foreign dominion as well as losing 8% of their most industrialized territory, Manchuria (Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning provinces ~ the Nei Mongol portion of 'Manchuria' was in the Khanate's greedy clutches, from the viewpoint of a Seven P's warrior).Don't get me wrong, they weren't about to throw in the towel. If anything, they were becoming more dedicated to trying harder, digging deep into their knowledge of every atrocity, inhumanity and perversion now deemed necessary to re-chart history back onto its 'correct' path. It was this willingness to act in an even greater sociopathic manner which was being used against them. After all, the 7P's had plenty of proxy allies, who were starting to get really nervous about what their paymasters were now asking them to do,We Amazons were getting some extra special help too. The Booth-gan (Do not call them Thuggee ~ the confederate 9 Clan member based out of India though long since ensconced within various Hindi enclaves across the Globe) had created an all-female group of ultra-fanatical Kali-devotees ~ a gift for the upcoming battle fomented by the Will of the Goddess herself.While Aya was our Queen and the Regency would rule until she wished to assume command of the Amazon People, the nuts-and-bolts of the Host's activities were handled by Saint Marie as Golden Mare (our Minister of War) (technically she held the top spot due to our State of War, though no Golden Mare had ever exercised such authority over a Queen (and she definitely believed Aya was our Queen)), Katrina (as Minister of Intelligence and Security), Beyoncé (as Havenstone (the multinational corporation) ~ our Treasurer/Economic Tsarina) and me (our Foreign Minister).Saint Marie had decided to forgo a public face in order to better facilitate her moving around to various battle fronts and holding clandestine meetings with her junior regional commanders. Her Havenstone corporate title was 'Chief of Security Training and Certification'. As an extra level of deception, the head of Security Services wasn't even a Director-level position, instead being folded into the duties of the Office of the President.To my current circumstances ~ I had been given Constanza's house name which could only mean she wasn't currently assigned to the Security Detail; a fact that couldn't have made her bad attitude any better. Marilynn had completely lost her way as an Amazon when I first met her, burying her pain and confusion in endless partying and intoxicants. I believed only her grandmother's status as High Priestess kept her from the severest of reprimands, or death. I didn't even know what Marilynn's caste was. Sabia,"While I'm sure you are both far more qualified than I, precisely how did you two get these jobs?" I had to ask my two non-coworkers. Constanza glowered. Marilynn flinched."I have an in depth knowledge of Havenstone security procedures and resources," Constanza replied."Shawnee requested me," was Marilynn's comeback. "I also have intimate knowledge of the City of New York and its environs.""Actually, Buffy Ishara recommended you both to Shawnee," Beyoncé corrected their misconceptions. I knew the score. I'd be working intimately with the tight community around the President (Shawnee) and Vice Presidents (Buffy & Rhada). Buffy wanted me to be surrounded by women who hated my guts, so I wouldn't end up boinking them. It rarely worked that way. All too often ladies who hated my still-beating heart ended up punishing me with sex. I wasn't sure why that happened, but it did."Beyoncé, didn't the Chief Diplomat of the Host have her own office? I'm pretty sure Troika had one before her unfortunate collision with Saint Marie," I felt entitled to inquire."Do you feel you've earned that office space?" she riposted."Oh, fuck no!" I waved my hands one over the other to accentuate my denial. "I was just wondering where I could stick Juanita while I'm hanging around, here.""She has the desk right outside the door, Cáel," Beyoncé smiled knowingly. "So there is no way you can sneak past her.""Oh," I grunted. "Buffy again?""No. Pamela Pile put in that particular request.""Oh, Sweet Mother of God, now she is conspiring against me too?""Yes. Some of us realize the greatest hazard to your health is yourself, Ishara," Beyoncé chided me. "We'd like to keep you around, so we listen to those charged with that nigh impossible task.""Is she going to be hanging around the office often?" Constanza asked, either myself, Juanita, or Beyoncé; I wasn't sure. She = Pamela."Please, Constanza," I attempted to intervene, "don't make Pamela kill you. It will upset Mona." Constanza's scowl was accentuated by the eyepatch covering her ruined left socket, the one Pamela had carved out when Constanza had insulted me and House Ishara on our first day of rebirth. I didn't tell Juanita this, because Juanita might just shoot Constanza over the insult before Pamela got a chance to finish the job.The tension was palatable."Mona and I have talked, about Romania, and other things," Constanza grudgingly allowed. It took me a second to realize there was a hidden meaning to what she said. Mona was part of my personal Security Detail bodyguard unit. If she felt Constanza, the woman who had raised her after her birth-mother had died, was a threat to me, she'd feel duty-bound to snuff Constanza first. Amazons were hard-ass bitches alright and I think Mona had made that clear."I hope things can improve between us," I offered to Constanza. "Beyoncé, I just stopped in to say 'hey'. I'm off to JIKIT and I've got three of the Pope's people waiting on me in the garage so,""Vice President Varma requested a moment of your time," Beyoncé smirked. "She is in 2604.""Who?""Vice President Rhada Varma, a moment of your time, alone?" she clarified."Sure thing," I backed out of the office. Once I had some space, I turned to Juanita. "Give me three minutes then bust in and say, I don't know, a tsunami is about to overwhelm the city, or something. Otherwise, I won't get out for at least an hour and I think I've put the Bishop and his people through enough delays as it is.""Are you actually asking me to stop you from having an in-office liaison?" she studied me intently as we walked in the direction of Rhada's office."Yes. It's not likely to happen often, believe me.""Oh, I do, in that you won't ask me to do it often," she grumbled. I'd deal with Juanita's morale problem later. Right now, I had to gird my loins so they wouldn't do anything else with Rhada. I had work to do, damn it!Rhada was sitting at her desk, working on something, stylus raised up so she could chew on the end. Her hair was pulled back in a half-ponytail, the type that captured the rear half of the hair in a ponytail while leaving the front and bangs free to flow down. Rhada's blouse was white & billowy and, as I was soon to discover, her pants were ultra-tight and contour hugging."Mr. Nyilas," she greeted me. "I would like a moment of your time," she relayed what I already knew. She was more than a tad nervous to boot."Vice President Varma," I started off."When in private you may call me Rhada," she interrupted."Rhada, you look more ravishing than ever."That got up her and coming around her desk, which revealed her ultra-tight pants with no sign of her wearing underwear. Yikes! My cock was preparing to do what a cock was meant to do and I just didn't have the time, Really!"Do you have any time?" she let her bosom heave."Not today, ugh," I groaned. See, Rhada took the stylus and dragged it down her chin, throat and in between her bountiful mounds.All of which exposed the top of her black bra."Are you sure, Master?" she enticed me by turning around and then leaning over her desk, point that ass in my direction. My mouth began salivating and my groin ached. I found myself quick-stepping to her and giving those buttocks two firm slaps, one on each cheek."No, damn it, though I'm going to make you pay for this when I get back," I rumbled."Master will make me wait?" she taunted me."That will cost you even more," I growled. "I have business which simply won't wait and here is my captive teasing me with the treasures of her flesh. Bad, war captive," I spanked her yet again, hard. "Bad!" and I spanked her a fourth time. With each beating, Rhada gasped in pain and then exhaled in pleasure."If I've been bad, Master must be extra harsh with me when he returns in triumph from the Great Hunt," she gloated. Rhada had gotten what she wanted, which was another affirmation of my lust for her and our 'game'. I could provide her the release she so desperately craved while allowing her the safety of remaining in the Amazon fold. It was a perfect pairing, for her.I had other problems, such as all the other baby mamas in my life plus the extra-marital affairs I was contemplating. I still took the moments we had to snuggle with Rhada, her grinding that tush into my rod while I held both her arms tightly to her side while raining kisses down onto her neck and head."Sir! A giant tsunami is approaching the city!" Juanita exploded through the door."What?" I coughed. I had a face full of hair."Huh?" Rhada pushed up and away from me. I let her go."Right now," Juanita insisted. She really needed to stop taking me so seriously when I gave her such advice."Really?" from Rhada. She shot me a curious look so I shrugged. What else was I supposed to do with such a flimsy lie forcing our separation? At least I got out of there on time?{9:50 am, Monday, September 8th ~ Last day}(JKIT HQ)"Is this a common occurrence?" Sister Rafaela Sophia whispered to the closest woman, who happened to be Wiesława, the Polish Amazon. Since she hadn't arrived with us from Havenstone, the nun might have assumed she was with the 'Americans', or British."What?" Wiesława responded evenly."Weapons combat, they look real," the nun clarified."They are real. We always practice with real weapons.""Really?""Of course," Wiesława smiled at her. "We believe a few cuts and scrapes now will save lives when the true tests come.""Oh, you are with, Havenstone?" Rafaela clued in."Yes. I am Wiesława of House Živa. I am currently assigned to Unit L, Cáel's unit within JIKIT," she offered her hand to shake. Despite being a full-blooded Amazon from a freehold, her 'human' skills were progressing nicely. The nun shook it."I am Sister Rafaela Sophia of the Handmaids of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, that is a Roman Catholic Religious Order." Pause. "Do you hate Catholics too?""Yes. We have lived beside your people for many centuries and found your clergy to be much more dangerous than your pagan predecessors. Still, Cáel thinks you can be relied on and he's proven we can trust outsider women, which I was raised to believe was unlikely, and outsider men, which was basically anathema, so I'm willing to set aside my prejudices and judge you as an individual," the Pole imparted."Outsider men?" Rafaela mumbled."Well, yes," Wiesława smirked. "You are a nun, right?""Yes.""So you set aside the World of Men to live mostly among women, right?""Not entirely," the nun chose her words carefully. "We still rely on priests for religious rights and of course obey the life teachings of Christ and follow the leadership of his Holiness, the Pope, a man.""No one is perfect," the Amazon bantered back."Do you know the teachings of our Lord, Jesus Christ?" Rafaela ventured into dangerous waters."Yes. He was the semi-historical Son of your supposed One True God. We are not monotheists. We are Polytheists. Živa is my House's matron Goddess. It is also the name of the first woman to lead the House, her birth name surrendered to Destiny so all the daughters who came afterwards would be equals.""Oh, is Mr. Nyilas also pagan?" she inquired."I am unsure. From what I have been told, he has commended the spirit of his fallen father to your Jesus in a sacred ceremony then, in the presence of your Trinity and the Goddess Ishara, brought in new members to his House. I suspect he may be both," Wiesława reasoned. "Why don't you ask him?""Because he's fighting for his life?" Rafaela looked my way.See, the entire time their discussion had been going on, I had been sparring in a spare room at JIKIT HQ with Estere Abed, the Hashashin assassin (rather redundant ~ like saying the Sahara Desert). I had two tomahawks while she had a scimitar and curved dagger. While we sparred using the furniture as obstacles, Agent-86 was briefing me on various World events to get my input.Addison Stuart (CIA) and Lady Fathom Worthington-Burke (MI-6) were having a chat with Bishop Nicolé de Santis, verifying for themselves he was worth adding to the team. Juanita was having a similar discussion with Rikki Martin (US State Department) concerning my earlier encounter with the Papal team. Nicolé's buddy, Wachtmeister Mathias Bosshart of the Swiss Guard, was getting acquainted with the other security personnel.In comparison, those two had it easy. Both men were in their elements. Nicolé was a spook who pretended to be a diplomat for the Pope and was well acquainted with terms like 'deniable assets', 'plausible deniability' and your direct superior referring to requests concerning your identity/diplomatic status by saying 'I never heard of him and if I had, I have no idea what he was doing when you caught him doing what I don't know what he was doing', or something like that.Mathias was in the company of military-security specialists, brother professionals who were introducing him to his 'sister' professionals. Our Homeland Security gang were almost entirely former military by now. They got along with our JSOC folks and both had gained a limited acceptance with the Amazon security contingent.They bonded over the fact they were forced to work with really shady characters ~ the 9 Clans menagerie ~ who didn't always appreciate JIKIT operational security. Without going into particulars, the Wachtmeister was given the impression the abnormal was the norm and if you didn't think there was a 'down-side' to being able to carry your personally favorite bang-bang (the SG 552-2P Commando in his case) with some serious attachments (read: grenade launcher) around in downtown Manhattan, you probably didn't belong on this team.Back in the room,"He's not fighting for his life," Estere laughed. "He is fighting for mine.""Right," I responded sarcastically. We went through a flurry of exchanges, ending up with me kicking a chair at her. Estere stepped over it, colliding with me.I blocked her dagger, disarmed her scimitar and,"You are dead," she panted down at me, smiling. I was on my back, her straddling me. She had a belt-knife to my throat. I hadn't see her draw it. The scimitar 'disarm' had been a distraction."Woot!" I exhaled."But you're dead," Sister Rafaela misunderstood my good humor."He survived a minute and thirty-four seconds more today than his previous record," Estere responded. She slithered off of me, doing my arousal no good whatsoever, then offered me a hand up."And that's better?""He's a rank amateur with a few months on the job. I've been training to kill people for nearly two decades," Estere smiled. "Care to have a go?""With him, or you?""Either," Estere offered."I don't have a knife, or any hand weapons," she stated."We'll need to remedy that," Wiesława stated. "You should at least carry a knife.""Really? Why?""It is a nearly universal tool," I verbally stepped up. "Even if you are disarmed, you should be able to find one relatively easily, people are less likely to miss a stolen knife than a purloined gun, and a concealed blade could come in handy.""Do you train in knife-work?" Rafaela eye-balled me."Absolutely. It is part of my culture," I grinned."Okay. Can we spar, hand-to-hand?""Sure," I nodded. I put my tomahawks in their harnesses then put my harnesses aside. Estere gave me a wink before giving us the fighting space."So," Rafaela began to circle, "are you Christian?""By your definition, or mine?""By the definition of the Catholic Church."Oh cool, she went for a Savate stance. This was going to get ugly.My "no," was followed by her kick and my block, lunge and grapple. She wasn't nearly as good as Felix. I had her down and in a choke hold within fifteen seconds.Perhaps she thought I'd take it easy on her. She tapped out. I released her, retreated and flowed back to my boxing stance. It took her a moment to realize this was 'practice', not 'an interview'. She hadn't failed in anyone's eyes. We were both doing this to get better."See, I really, truly believe I have talked to supernatural entities ~ some who are considered divinities," I continued. This time she was more careful, trading jabs and blocks with me. "They don't claim to be the One True God. I believe in such a thing, but I also believe having been given the Message, Humanity has been left to muddle things out for ourselves."Whoops, she popped me one."The Woman-Thing this morning?""Yep," I evaded another flurry. She got cocky and I landed three blows, dropping her to the ground. I didn't help her up. Instead, I withdrew and let her get back up on her own before deciding if she wanted to continue. She did."I believe I've seen dragons and ghosts. I have felt legions of my ancestors give me quiet encouragement when I needed it. I know the dead have been brought back to life," I came at her. This time we both went for body blows, knees, elbows and fists. She was not SD-caliber and she needed to be. I grappled and she was forced to tap out again. After she regained her feet, she held up a hand for a pause."Do you believe any of that?" she addressed Estere."I am an adherent of Ismaili Islam yet nothing Cáel has encountered is contrary to my belief system. The Universe is a complex place and the Divine Light is often seen through a fractured lenses," she counseled the nun."Among the escapees were lawyer Francisco Luemba, Catholic Priest Raul Tati, economist Belchior Lanso Tati and former policeman Benjamin Fuca who are serving jail sentences of between three and six years each for supposed links to the rebel group FLEC (Frente para a Libertaé'o do Enclave de Cabinda), which carried out the attack on the Togolese football team at the start of the Africa Cup of Nations in January, 2010," Agent-86 read off yet another bit of global minutia."We need to get to them," I half turned. Sister Rafaela punched me in the gut and I folded up."Oh!" she gasped. "I'm sorry.""Okay," I mumbled. I had to keep with the plan. "Those men. We need to contact our Coils people in Kinshasa and the Warden of the Mountain Ways ('she' was the Amazon Host's leader of Africa ~ in the ancient times, the mountain ways had been the routes of southern vulnerability for the Amazon tribe thus the name).""Okay," both Agent-86 and Estere answered."Why?" 86 added."The Coils and the Host have had a serious problem with no nation in Africa giving them even back room recognition so we are going to take over our own country, Cabinda. It's been struggling to be free of Angola since 1975 and, by latest estimates, we've got strike elements of over 2,000 Amazons ready and waiting next door in Cameroon, Gabon and the Republic of Congo.""So you are going to go to war with Angola?" Estere frowned. "Don't we have enough enemies?""Au contraire," I grinned wickedly. "The resistance movement is genuine," I ticked off my points, "they have tons of offshore oil, and after we set off some spectacular explosions in the two main Angolan ports which are just down the coast, we allow global panic to bully the UN into intervening before the Angolan military launch an effective counter-offensive ~ considering the Angolan Armed Forces (I'd been reading up on a ton of CIA & MI-6 briefings) will most likely involve attrition warfare since they can't beat us in a stand-up fight.""They, the Angolans, have no overland access, they are separated by 60 kilometers of territory belonging to the Democratic Republic of Congo over some sad ass roads Plus the Congo River itself which is freaking huge by the time it gets that close to the Atlantic, Cabinda rests on the Atlantic Ocean by the way. No bridges. The Angolan Navy is anemic. Let me think."I began pacing."Hmm, they have no paratroopers though they have some Special Forces, we will need to hit as many of them in the barracks as we can. Their last invasion was from the north, overland, from the Republic of the Congo, in 1975, not likely to happen this time, though I may have my 'Brother' weasel up a battalion of Indian paratroopers to act as convincing peacekeepers after the initial take over.""Perhaps we can recruit some Vietnamese. I'm sure they'll love fighting in someone else's jungle for a change. We'll need some of 'our' guys to seize the port of Soyo, it is on the wrong side of the river, but has the major refinery the Cabindans will need. Since the entire surrounding province are the same ethnic make-up as the Cabindans, we'll have to take that too.""Man-o-man, I bet by the time this is over they'll really wish they'd given little Cabinda independence back in 1975. As for their other refinery, it is in their capital, Luanda, a few big explosions there too will get the markets jittery. Check that ~ the complete and utter destruction of their major petroleum facility will create a stampede for Peace," I continued. I walked over as our resident computer intelligence genius worked his magic."Blowing things up, you mean killing people," the nun blanched."Yes. This is what I do," I spared her a sympathetic glance. "I've got a madman roaming around in my head who provides me truly epic military advice which normally, but not always, means blowing shit up and killing folks. Welcome to the team," then as the data appeared, "Holy Shit! Did they build their oil refinery in the midst of their ghetto?" I was staggered. The refinery in Soyo was isolated from the town so it could be easily (and safely) seized. It was the one in Luanda which was the 'Holy Shit' site."It looks that way," Agent-86 agreed nonplussed. "Hmm, yeah, here is the port facility then your neighborhood of shoddily constructed one- and two-story dwellings between the refinery and the inland storage tanks, the perimeter barrier appears to be a chain link fence. I'd hate to be their Chief of Security.""Oh yeah," I choked. Estere slipped around to get a look."Whoops," she snorted."What are these people thinking?" I continued. "The whole shebang is exposed to the northern quarter of the city. The storage tanks have residential dwellings on all four sides with numerous side streets. Two teams with RPGs and four rounds apiece, Holy Crap. Sorry Sister.""But I want to save lives," she sputtered."Limiting the collateral damage could be pretty tough," Estere frowned. She toggled throw a series of maps to multiple pictures."Oh, look (dripping sarcasm); they light up the refinery at night. You can sit off the coast in a speed boat under cover of darkness and attack from there," she noted."Damn. Those are a lot of lights," Agent-86 agreed."24-7 operation," I suspected."We will need some experts," the government agent nodded."Or we are going to kill a fuck-load of innocent people. Not just the workers, but can you imagine a fire spreading to those neighborhoods? Shit," I muttered."You can't seriously be contemplating doing something like this," the nun sputtered. "It is inhumane. Think of the families, the children.""Lady, yes I am. Do you have any idea what the Human Rights record of the Angolan Army in Cabinda is? It is truly horrific and in case you missed it, one of the guys in dire need of rescuing by me, due to him being a huge rebel leader who has managed to escape, is also a Catholic priest. He's going to be part of the new government we are going to install once we kill a few hundred Angolans ~ mostly soldiers (more like well over a thousand).""We are going to kill a few hundred so a few hundred thousand can live free, democratic lives without worrying about the local police and political establishment torturing and murdering them. It is all part of the plan.""I think I need to talk with the Bishop.""Hang on. Let me finish," I forestalled her. "He'll get briefed along with everyone else. After all, it is a majority Roman Catholic country as is Angola, so I'm sure your guy can be of immense help.""The people you are putting at risk don't deserve this," she protested."They never do," I nodded in agreement with her. "It rarely stops terrible crap from happening to them though."I felt sorry for the Sister. She thought the Bishop was going to put a stop to this. Poor girl; he was going to do the exact opposite. See, the two competing forces at play here were a communistic kleptocracy (currently ruling Angola) and Catholic liberation theology united with a Cabindan national identity dating back to 1885. At stake was 900,000 barrels a day of petroleum. That was a bunch of funding for somebody. Last I checked, the state run energy conglomerate had misplaced $32 billion, in just three years.Mind you, the Coils of the Serpent and the Amazon Host didn't want to help the People of Cabinda out of the goodness of their hearts either. They wanted cover for the importation of weapons and other war-fighting material so they could kill the Condottieri in Africa. If the rebel leaders-turned-legitimate government didn't play ball well, the Coils were in the 'assassinating people' business and somewhere along the line the survivors would figure out keeping 'us' happy kept them alive. Problem solved.It was Bishop Nicolé de Santis' job to facilitate that understanding. If certain people with Vatican credentials explained the 'facts of life' to the new regime a lot more lives could be saved, Catholic lives. In turn, he could work to make sure the new group in power wasn't nearly as corrupt as the gang we were tossing out. Better education and quality of life, improved infrastructure & security and a nice shiny cathedral, or two.We, as in JIKIT and our component members, didn't want to rule the country and dominate the people's lives. We needed the ports and the airfields with a blind eye turned to our skullduggery. Sure, there would be future considerations. Amazons and Coil members would be fighting and dying for these people's freedom ~ public recognition definitely not required. No; the Amazons wanted to be left alone in their deep jungle homes which was an isolation they basically already had. This was a future chit which said 'don't come looking'.The Coils? Let's just say in the future Cabinda would have embassies around the globe and if occasionally they wanted someone to slip through under diplomatic cover ~ they were good for it. And if the Cabindans ever needed help in the future they knew they had friends in dark places who were now invested in Cabinda's survival. It was a win-win-win, unless you were an Angolan big-wig, or one of their foot-soldier currently serving in Cabinda. Amazons weren't big on taking prisoners, or even giving the opposition the option of giving up.For me, it wasn't lunch yet and here I was plotting to overthrow yet another government in yet another country ~ though in only two, small provinces this time. Thank the Goddess I had the rest of the week

christmas united states god jesus christ ceo american new york director amazon death head world president new york city church father chicago australia lord europe stories earth china master peace man house france men japan ghosts state americans british french care west race war society struggle africa christians ms office brothers chinese sharing european executive director christianity german murder russian spanish mind western minnesota guns universe north america dad berlin chief barack obama brazil fortune african dead east indian security fbi facing fantasy poor legal empire dragon humanity portugal vietnam savior beyonce disease massive atlantic thailand manhattan catholic daddy council narrative paradise cuba islam nigeria nations sister cia shit hang philippines indonesia weapons sisters minister south america intelligence pope ninjas agent sexuality air force library holiness united nations secretary fuck workers republic thousands latin america americas east coast nato ra strangers cfo cold war human rights daughters swiss rpg castro excuse prime minister accounting malaysia catholic church globe parliament romania outsiders southeast asia goddess congo mexico city antarctica portuguese unite soviet cuban indians arctic vatican roof runner dc comics dial arabic tanzania catholics latin american eastern europe apprentice communists booth frente limiting illuminati screw certification vietnamese ships serpent sd bing explicit good morning acquisitions hercules pole ancestors nsa finest sir traditionally hungarian apologize lisbon hindi blowing tibet technically marxist venezuelan marxism rpgs nile summer camp runners novels socialists angola voted jakarta havana eighteen atlantic ocean ajax great lakes special forces arial homeland new delhi halls clan cameroon day two roman catholic jesuits armed forces helvetica virgin mary south pacific defeats chief financial officers democratic republic hamptons sabia central asia gee indian ocean samoa perish communist party erotica goddesses soviets machismo weave anthrax secret wars free markets warden ragnar assyria sg assistants sacred heart countering sahel liberta tad gabon sub saharan africa times new roman my brother slavic drc regents departing bronze age north atlantic papal clans high priestess glock central europe one true god mirroring regency general secretary east african upstairs ancient world umm germanic sahara desert prc woot comrade kinshasa holy crap upwards holy shit papaya cdt foreign minister voices in my head enclave central africa security council coil nguy tahoma sichuan bantu varma anat board meeting sao astana hittite my spirit constanza standard operating procedures twa luanda holy see mainland china divine light santis traditionalists troika carlos alberto security services angolan yunnan africa cup wies 'christian' international community first house seven pillars handmaids south atlantic indo european moldavia indochina leon trotsky black lotus asiatic china shop estere coils war chest saku brazilian portuguese lok sabha lisbon portugal marxist leninist western roman empire marilynn houseless glum jsoc security training great hunt gansu swiss guard pygmies shaanxi jilin sir elton opposing forces reactionaries old world order cabinda togolese liaoning congo river ningxia literotica 7p polytheists savate brookes brothers forest people qinghai house heads publically house head santos cruz shammy black sands north pacific ocean great khan craptastic anahit sweet mother central asians white nile globemaster marilynne thuggee angolans brazilian navy

Cáel Defeats The Illuminati: Part 1

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 18, 2025

A Walk In the Park & Aya's Finest Hour.Book 3 in 18 parts, By FinalStand. Listen to the ► Podcast at Explicit Novels.Professional, conscript, or volunteer, they all have run away from battle.A Note on terminology and the metaphor of Cael's WorldThe terms Weave of Fate and 'Weave ' are interchangeable. Weave expresses the intersection ~ the sieve that all the possible futures entered to create what we perceive as this 'now'. Fate is the keeper of the sieve. The Present is what is happening right now. It is that infinitesimal which we interpret as Reality.The Legend is what happens when the present is pulled back through the weave and becomes the past. It is called the Legend because, as the former presents fade into the past, they blur; each becomes less precise and more open to interpretations. (It is as if you were looking at one thing through a prism; as you shift your stance, what you see appears to change.) Within the Legend exist mystic creatures, divinities, demons, spirits, all the Paradises and Hells.The Endless Black Sands is the final resting place for all failed legends. It is the place where all is forgotten until even former realities break down into the Black Sands. That Alal found a way to cheat this doom and retrieved Shammuramat, was truly remarkable; even though Fate 'balanced accounts' with him by sending Ajax and his war band along that path as well.If you wonder how that was a balancing, consider this:The only people Alal cares for (in his own brutal fashion) are Shammy, now Sakura, and his only true offspring in 5,000 years, Cáel.Fate sent Ajax.With Ajax available to test Cáel, how could Alal resist the temptation to place one of the planet's greatest killer on a collision course with both of his loves in order to test Cáel?The Veil is a function of the Weave that protects sentient perception from perceiving the Weave and disguises the otherness of creatures of legend, unless they willingly allow themselves to be seen, which they usually do only so they can 'physically' interact with the Present. Some sentient minds, through horrific trauma such as the Augurs' self- poisonings, through the quirks of Fate via Holy Men, Mad Prophets and Doomsayers such as Temujin, or through the touch of legends such as Ishara, can sense the fluctuations in the Veil and the things behind it. Cáel, in truth, has been shaped by all three vehicles (Ishara, the Augurs and Temujin's legend.)Oblivion is what awaits Reality if the Weave ever fails beyond its ability to heal itself. This threat is what keeps the creatures of legend from constantly traversing the Weave. They have to weaken the Weave to do so or to use powers in Reality, the greater the distortion they create, the greater the weakening that occurs.End Note(Two days ago, with thirty days left)"That was fantastic, Lady Yum-Yum," I sighed."What did you just call me?" she panted softly. We were naked in one of our Task Force bedrooms that was actually used for sleeping, and now sex. I was still pressed against her reposed body, despite our recent exertions. She was on her stomach, arms stretched down her sides.She was sweaty and short of breath. She still had her wits about her and an awareness of our situation: victory sex, me still aroused and her fingernails scratching my thighs and buttocks. My equally sticky body was pressing down on her, even though I supported my weight with outstretched hands placed on either side of her shoulders."Lady Yum-Yum," I mumbled as I kissed the back of her head. "That was the first thing that sprang to mind when you introduced yourself." I could see her working that through her highly complex mind."When writing your memoirs, please remember to me refer to me that way," she began to flex her thighs and abdominal muscles, so that her ass was pumping against my hips."Only if this helps persuade you to give me a repeat performance.""I'll consider,," she purred, then paused to catch her breathe. "You are in phenomenal shape, young man. Do any of your other lady-loves have pet names?""Nope," I grunted as I withdrew.She had teased me with anal sex hints repeatedly, yet never delivered. She liked the game and the power she wielded. My body being on top of hers was only an illusion of a tactical advantage. She knew me pretty well already. I wasn't the kind of guy who would use physical strength to overwhelm her vulnerable position. This being so, a cerebral skirmish only excited her more.We waged a war that was based on intakes of breath, the shimmying of muscles and the trembling of fatigued flesh. The prize for me was the winning. Lady Fathom Worthington-Burke played tricky-clever, but I was better. And at times like this, she admitted it. She gave me what I wanted. I rolled her.Straight, face-to-face fucking. The Lady's pulsar gaze trapped my vision. She smiled, grudgingly at first, then more and more sensually as my glans returned to her g-spot that it had scouted out earlier. This was 'surrender by the Fathom method'. She gave me what I wanted, so I took what I wanted, and pleasured her at the same time."Mmm, you are a bad, bad boy," she lapsed into her trashy West-End Londoner accent. It was perfect and an erotic whiplash when added to her native, refined manner of speech. This wasn't a trick this time, it was a treat. It was a gift, reciprocated. The tactile sensation of her cervix becoming a soft, spongey chalice for my final penetrations was icing on an all-so-luscious cake.I tendered her a tribute worthy of my first love, Dr. Kimberly Geisler. It was strange to find a woman like her. Outside of Kimberly, I had found only one other woman who graciously offered her ultimate pleasure paean to the hundreds of lovers who had become before. That other woman, it still floored me, was Buffy Du, no, Buffy Ishara, First of my House."Oh!" and several heartbeats later, "Cáel!" several hissed series of breathes and then, "Goddess! You are better than good!"Two thoughts collided within me:A) I had never seen a more controlled orgasmic explosion in my life. I was going to have to tell Buffy about this, once we were safely in bed. If it was office talk, she'd punch me through a window and that would make Aya cry. I couldn't have that.B) Goddess? I thought she was Anglican. This needed further study. This treatment was really nice. I leaned in, kissed her. Lady Yum-Yum smiled. "Take me to the shower. Play time is over, Cáel," and she was back to all business."You are treating me like a fleshy vibrator," I pointed out."But you are a very finely-trained, fleshy vibrator, you wonderful boy," she stroked my cheek. "Shower! Now!" So, like a Good Boy, International Merchant of Death and Chosen Son of a Divine Amazon Goddess, I slid off her, then cradled her in my arms as I rose from our totally trashed mattress.I didn't smile when it was confirmed that I wasn't carrying her out of any romantic after-coitus gesture. She couldn't walk. Woot! It took a bit of effort to get us into the walk-in shower and to get the water just perfect, all while keeping her cradled. She helped out by keeping her arms tightly around my neck."Cheeky bastard," she whispered in my ear. "You are gloating." Then she nibbled on my earlobe for good measure."Damn right," I did gloat as I let her slide down to her feet. "You are pretty sweet for an Old Chick." She wasn't angry, oh no."If you were trying to get me to say, 'I'll get you next time," she licked, nipped and sucked on my nipple as if I was the one with the mammaries in this relationship, "it worked." Double-Woot! I was going to get that damn four-way! I did coax a vigorous shower-quickie out of my Lady. Afterward, she shifted herself so she could get under one of the steaming showerheads."Cáel, why didn't you use a condom," she mused. Gak!"You aren't on Birth Control?" I panicked. She laughed at me."No. I've never been a fan of hormones replacement. I like the way I am. Do you expect the women to do all the anti-pregnancy measures?""No," I gulped."Don't' be so worried," she laughed. "We had unprotected sex one time. The odds are astronomical that an 'oops' happened, right?" Yes, it was a single sexual encounter, but included three firings of the one-eyed hydra, sigh."You are asking a man who has five children on the way, Fathom," I cautioned her."Oh, I'll update my files and make an appointment to seen a local, reliable O B G Y N," she slipped back into her unflappable British resolve. "Get along. I need to get cleaned up," she cupped my scrotum, ", again. So scoot." I scooted.I had updated my condom supply despite the forbiddance Dot Ishara, my Matron Goddess, beamed to me from the Other Side. She could only complain so much. I'd upped my selection of fortune cookies and added a fresh raisin chocolate brownie for my next visit with her. I had to get over to the other side of the floor to get a fresh shirt, and boxers.Yum-Yum had ripped off my shirt (a little kinky) and boxers (a little painful). I wasn't going commando, so I decided to quick step it before something important happened that required me to yank yet another solution out of my sexually-fueled creative imagination.How Lady Yum-Yum and I ended up in bedThe Secret Societies' long awaited war had begun in Africa and in India. The Amazons couldn't effectively reinforce these two homeland regions. No, my people's edge came from my stupid stunts (e.g., the fight outside that club in Chicago), the judicious application of a few kind words and a whole lot of targeted killing on my part along with that of my Amazons.Those actions convinced the Booth-gan (aka the Thuggee, but we no longer say that because it irritates them) and the Coils of the Serpent to toss in their lot with their local Amazons. They did the whole 'hostage exchange' thing as well. Two children from each side. That was a no-brainer on my part. All three concerned parties were willing to let their adults die if necessary. Their children were another matter.In Asia, the Seven Pillars had made only minimal progress. We now suspected the 7P had planned to roll over the three of the 9 Clans that were in their Sphere of Influence, the now 6 Ninja Families, the Black Lotus and the Booth-gan in rapid succession. A preemptive strike against both the Khanate and the Ninja were supposed to cripple those two factions.Against the Khanate, that had been a dismal failure. In Nippon, the Ninja were in dire straits and would be decades recovering from the original 7P blitz. But the combination of US black ops help and the infusion of Amazons and Okinawans had staved off extinction for the moment. Strategically, these failed actions were tying down 7P resources that the largest Secret Society had planned to move elsewhere.In China, the Black Lotus exhibited the same resilience and deceptiveness they'd shown in combating the Seven Pillars by themselves for the past 65 years. The chaos gripping the PRC was a blessing from the Ancestors, the four sacred spirits (lung/dragons, phoenix, unicorn and tortoise), and the nine entities (I now really had to know this stuff.) Word that a 'dragon' had appeared in the West had only heightened their desire to aid in our new alliance.Those factors meant a reprieve for India. As the 7 Pillars began ramping up their operations; increasing racial tensions, minor terrorist action and military and industrial sabotage; the Booth-gan and Amazon united resources and purpose. The Booth-gan would assassinate 7P operatives and pawns while the Amazons would hit 7P front companies and businesses based out of the People's Republic of China. (This activity also helped ratchet up India-PRC tensions and anti-PRC public sentiment in India.)In Africa, the Condotteiri had squandered precious hours reallocating resources before launching their assaults. Like everyone but the 7P, they had been caught flat-footed by the renewal of the Secret War. The Coils of the Serpent had never been overly antagonistic toward the Condos, since their interests rarely collided. The same went for the Coils and the Amazons.Two factors inspired a deep Amazon-Coil bond. They were both groups with deep African roots and a shared Central-Western African spirituality. Added to that was the growing power of the Coils of the Serpent in the past fifty years. Their main opponents had been the Illuminati who had a Eurocentric view. Pan-Africanism was in the Coil's best interest, but ran contrary to European economic interests.Long term, allying with the African Amazons was a good investment for the Coils. The 9 Clans relationships had already proved to be advantageous on multiple occasions in the past. The leaders of the Coils knew their power was rising with the fortunes of Sub-Saharan Africa. To them, the rise of the PRC and the Seven Pillars was a looming threat in the East.They had been handed a golden opportunity to deal with this enemy before the enemy was ready to deal with them. They had been 'gifted' with over 2000 highly-skilled, fanatical Amazon warriors as stealthy muscle to add to their own, more subtle arsenal. For the Amazons, it was access to continent wide clandestine intelligence network that could unmask their enemies' hiding places.The Condotteiri wiped out an Amazon freehold in Cameroon and a few Coils safe houses in Lagos, Nigeria. In the Republic of Mali, over 250 Condo mercenaries were slaughtered at a 'secret' installation and their armory was looted. Ebola kept breaking out in the West. The dominant regional powers, the Republic of the Congo and Nigeria, were tottering as a result of decades of economic mismanagement, civic, ethnic, tribal and religious strife, corruption and unreliable militaries.The scene was ripe for a secret conflict as well as public carnage. For the Joint International Khanate Interim Taskforce (JIKIT), this presented a dilemma. They were involved with a growing global struggle that went far beyond the Khanate and Central Asia. Their secret society allies strenuously objected to bringing any more 'outsider' people into the group.Handing over covert intelligence to other governmental agencies in the US and UK, then telling them they wouldn't divulge their sources went over like scuba diving with cement goulashes. Explaining to upper level bigwigs that they had a 'trust-based' team went nowhere. Those officials didn't care about a bunch of domestic/international criminals' sensibilities.They wanted names and faces. They wanted addresses, phone taps and bank account numbers. It would all be 'Secret', 'Top Secret', or 'Eyes Only'. It would all be vulnerable to all kinds of governmental subpoenas too. No threats were made from 'my' side. They'd killed more people than the Black Death and the lives of a few thousand bureaucrats (and their families) in London and Washington D.C. didn't mean shit to them.Selena did offer to kidnap some family members to get the message across. Javiera put her hands over her ears and began singing 'la-la-la' as she stormed out of the room. Lady Fathom suggested that we arrange a private meeting with the UK Prime Minister and the US President. It took a few seconds for Mehmet and Javiera to realize she wasn't kidding.That was a nearly impossible task, which on this taskforce meant we had to give it a shot. Let's just say that the US Attorney General, Eric Holder and Chairman John Jay of the British Joint Intelligence Committee thought their respective representative had lost her God-damn mind. I went to the Khanate for help.Twenty-four hours later Azerbaijan, Turkey, Tajikistan, Armenia and Georgia (yes, two tiny Christian nations) joined the Khanate. The integration of the first two nations had been in the works since the formation of the Turkic Council in 2009. For me, Temujin upped the time table strictly for our benefit. Turkey and Azerbaijan became the two newest states within the Khanate.The third, Tajikistan was different and the shakiest addition. The unoccupied title of 'Khwarazm Shah' was created, suggesting the Iranian Tajiks had a special status inside the Khanate. 'Khwarazm' referenced the Khwarazmian dynasty that ruled the last of the great, Persian-led, Iranian Super-States and dated back to the 13th century AD. 'Shah' was Persian for King.The announced status of Armenia and Georgia was quite a bit different. They become 'Protectorates', i.e., semi-autonomous states within the Khanate who were 'vassal' states, responsible only to the Great Khan and his personal representative in the region (ah, that would be me.)So, the first three entries made sense, strong geographic, ethnic and/or religious ties, plus this was part of the Khanate's agenda anyway. But Armenia and Georgia? That was the doing of the other regional secret society, the Hashashin.The Caucasus Mountains were the backyard of the Hashashin. They knew who to blackmail, pinch and kill to make the 'take-over' possible. The main stumbling block was the long Khanate-Hashashin history: the Mongols had destroyed the historical stronghold of the Hashashin, Alamut, in 1256 CE. In a way, that disaster had transformed the sect, making it move away from their strict Nizārī Ismaili roots and into a more ethnically and religiously diverse group that was centered in the Caucasus region.Temujin made it clear to this group that he was making a deal under my auspices. Both Armenia and, Georgia (as well as the future Kurdistan, his plans for the creation of that last state were told to me under condition of secrecy) would be part of my palatinate principality (along with Hungary, if we ever got there). Riki Martin defined the terms for me: I was the voice of those three regions in the Khan's court.They wouldn't have to deal with Muslim Khanate officials. They would deal with me and 'my officials'. If the Khanate had a problem with my principality, they came to me to resolve the issue. That translated to me giving a nod to the existing regimes ruling in Armenia and Georgia (along with the infusion of a few Hashashin supporters.)Publically the future of those three political and ethnic entities would be confirmed later. The existing governments knew three things.1) I was that madman who had led the charge in Romania, clearly a man of bravery and humility. The odds were good that I was going to be a man they could rely on to adequately represent their interests with the government that currently mattered the most (aka The Khanate.)2) The Great Khan thought the world of me and in this nascent New World Order that meant way more than membership in NATO, or begging the United Nations to apply sanctions of dubious value.3) There would be a change of leadership by about 2040. Children of excellent ethnic parentage would succeed me in this ceremonial role in the region. These new princes and princesses would be the scions of the line of Nyilas and representatives of the various states (translation: I was going to be sexing it up with Georgian, Armenian and Kurdish members of the Hashashin).That would establish the three 'cadet' branches of House Ishara (Nyilas) (which I've listed because all three alphabets are so freaking beautiful) that could weave the Amazons, 9 Clans and the varying ethnic identities into a quilt that could stand together as a force in the Great Khan's inner circle. This new spate of aristocratic, 'Archer'-themed lineages would be:1. Moisari, in Georgia.2. Aġeġnajig, in Armenia.3. Ram- alsham, in Kurdistan.This fiction made the key named entities happy. The combination of all these events applied another jolt to the heart of the global power structure (after all, Turkey was in NATO) and made the US and UK governments back off.By tidying up the world map, we'd brought our governmental chiefs to the chilling revelation that their sole conduit for insider information regarding the ongoing global calamity had reacted to their intransience by simply letting them be blind-sided by events. After the fact, Javiera and Lady Fathom relayed that message very clearly.

god tv american amazon death head world children father chicago europe english stories uk china mother house lost secret hell law state reality land british care west africa brothers chinese european sleep government washington dc turning influence mom current brazil professional santa europa african rome bbc east turkey fantasy cnn boss park ladies iran beyonce captain laws hearing straight hunt mine council concerns narrative honest tears records nigeria worse nations sister weapons southern sisters honestly fate ninjas independence sexuality worlds united nations republic twenty internal wtf fool nato ot fantastic disorders pillars sinners call of duty explaining ram bay bitch nepal sorrow shut romania sake khan exile goddess congo afterlife hungary keeper northern correct congressional instructions shower veil chang budapest rat apprentice booth added illuminati hurry vietnamese sisterhood serpent mali sd auschwitz explicit casper nypd other side ancestors persian task force ebola new world order lagos tibet himalayas summer camp birth control runners sphere novels armenia sneak ajax crawl tibetans us presidents arial oblivion martial cameroon azerbaijan spidey armenian al jazeera defeats top secret georgian malaysian traitor chung strategically gong threatening anglican gathered secret societies yum good boys central asia weep u s condo madi erotica handing goddesses archery bengal black death weave mmm secret wars mongolian oaths south china sea kurdish ish messina sub saharan africa times new roman cheeky pla sakura kurdistan clans high priestess aye chuckie kursk fathom mockery prc gak woot mehmet tajikistan condos eurocentric nepalese caucasus coil mongols tahoma uk prime minister hells errand hittite finest hour eric holder party lines pan africanism yum yum arwen council meeting first house seven pillars lhasa black hand restrain claymore dali lama jian black lotus us attorney general coils in asia saku unconquered gurkha squirts javiera katmandu cael han chinese intelligence services tibetan plateau epona tisza temujin council chambers alerted ismaili holy men melena febe british sas doomsayers literotica okinawans death song 7p niz caucasus mountains spetsnaz msolistparagraph free tibet house heads house head publically mycenaeans black sands shammy his english great khan alamut paradises marda thuggee

Cáel Leads the Amazon Empire, Book 2: Part 4

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 18, 2025

A Time WarpBy FinalStand. Listen to the Podcast at Explicit Novels.What follows is a diversion from the central storyline, but it is crucial to understanding why certain members of the supporting cast are behaving the way they are.808 BCE near Halab in what is today's Northern Syria:For me, Cael Nyilas, it was a return to last night's horrifying scene that engulfed me. The screams of dying horses and moribund men crying the pantheon of life's final regrets. Blood, piss, voided bowels and the stench of comingled sweat and leather filled my nostrils. The true cacophony of battle was all about. The battle shock faded into an innocuous background distraction.In my heart of hearts, I felt at ease, even content. We were cut off and surrounded yet hardly hopeless. Men, my brothers-in-arms and the younger noble sons of Assur and Nineveh combined to put a press of shields, armor and flesh encircling us. Those 'pampered' aristocrats stank with fear and well they should. Death was still possible before their relief arrived.I hurt, Shara (my deity?), I was wounded, but it meant nothing. I laughed; a primitive version of 'atheists and foxholes' passing through my mind. This body had lived through much worse. The closest man, her deceased husband's cousin, and I lifted the shattered wooden chariot off the person our circle was centered on. My arm was extended to her.She was glorious, fierce and half-drunk with battle lust. I could feel her talon-like fingers through the leather and 'parzillu' scales guarding my bicep. She half jumped and was half pulled to her feet. Her kinsman presented her 'misplaced' sword, hilt first. In her eyes, I saw the burning intensity of the Shamash (Sun God, consort of Aya?) at the height of the Burning Season.Her martial mirth exceeded any other noise as it passed her lips."You took your time getting here," Shammuramat taunted me, not a true reproach. "I was so bored, I decide to take a nap in the shade of my conveniently overturned chariot." She defied all fortunes that conspired toward her demise; her own breed of madness."You looked so peaceful in your sleep, I didn't want to wake you," I bantered back. Her 'kinsman' scowled at my familiarity with his monarch. My champions, more like brothers to me than any kin born of my blood, had carved a gory swath to her stranded bodyguard. Mounted on Median steeds, we had pressed back the entourages of two Aramean kings bent on her violent passing.A barricade of overturned, or unattended chariots gave us space to dismount and perform our very visible rescue mission. All the pieces were right where she wanted them; everything unfolding according to her plan. Focus the enemy in the center with her person and the banner of Assur while the rest of her chariots and all of her cavalry swept through an unguarded wadi and fell upon them from behind.Brilliant. Somewhat less brilliant when faced with the desperate energy of our enemies, but her victory was already a certainty. The allied Western Kings were sure my command was attempting to snatch the Queen back to the safety of her infantry. Those hardy, foot-bound souls were still holding their own against the greater mass of the enemy footmen.The children of rebellious nobles bent every bit of their remaining energy, squandered their last reserves to ensure Shammuramat didn't escape. If the positons were reversed, they would have eagerly abandoned their troops and sought safety to the rear. The idea of Shammuramat being overwrought with terror was absurd.Our opponents' bellows for our blood turned into wails of despair. The charging, plumaged steeds of Assyria had appeared behind them. Our enemies had nothing left to slow the new arrivals down, much less stop them. For those who dared defy Shammuramat, Queen of all the Akkadians, the slaughter was just beginning."Come 'Alal' (that was me); I promised 'Atarshumki' I would kick his head over his own city walls before sunset and I always keep my promises," she shoved one of my horse-holders aside and took one of my steeds. 'Alal' was not the name my father gave me. It meant destroyer and it was blasphemy to lay claim to it."Killing kings will cost you extra," was my impious response.Assyrians nobility barely tolerated mercenaries most of the time. My men and I didn't care. I hadn't taken up the killing business to make friends and my troops felt the same way. What mattered to us was that their coin was good and delivered on time. That was a good thing because whores and merchants were loath to advance 'our kind' anything on credit."I'll meet you half way," she grinned manically at me while my fighters and I raced for our mounts. (Saving the junior nobility wasn't what she were paying us for.) "I'll let you take any prince you capture as a hostage." I nodded. My men cheered hungrily, despite the choking dust. As long as I didn't get too greedy, the Kings would pay for their sons. Now we had to capture the bastards."Tūbātu," I reminded them. 'Goodwill'. It was a polite way of saying 'stop your chariot, rest your arms and your mother won't have to come begging for your corpse'. It was best to let opposing nobility keep their dignity in our business. Today's enemy might be tomorrow's paymaster.I blinked and things changed.Planting followed harvest and harvest followed planting. It had long ago become a blur. Shammuramat had grown older. Her first son became king when he was of age. I had long exceeded my welcome and my desire to stay. I was fixed to this small patch of the greater world by a rare emotion, empathy.It had come out of nowhere. We were campaigning against the Scythians raiding over the Zagros Mountains and followed them into Urartu. Night had fallen and I walked the camp as was my habit; being killed a few times in your sleep will make you err on the side of caution. Shammuramat was gazing out over the river Arkas."I though all the scouts have returned," I asked as I stepped to her side. A cool, early autumn breeze blew down the valley, tossing a few loose locks of her greying hair. She always had one patch shorn short which made her left-side braids prone to unwind."They have. We head back for Nineveh with the dawn," she murmured, her mind elsewhere."Do you ever dream of home?" she asked me out of the blue."No. I don't dream anymore. I rarely sleep and if I did, I would hope to dream of something less boring," I snorted in amusement. She had never talked about her home, to anyone as far as I knew."You will be going to Lydia when winter comes," she stated tensely."King Gyges needs someone with experience beating Cimmerians," I answered. The true reason was that I was no longer welcome on the Assyrian payroll because I insisted on recruiting only non-Assyrians into the ranks of my ferociously effective little band of one hundred; never more and rarely less."Shemtsu is a fool," she grumbled."That is unfair," I countered. My willingness to argue with her was one of my charms in her eyes. "He is an excellent Treasurer and he makes sure your vassals pay their tribute on time and in its full amount."The silence was hurtful to me because Shammuramat was never one to obfuscate her thoughts, especially around me. It was one of her charms, to my way of thinking."Salmu Eretu, the northern night sky has no answers for what ails you. Get some sleep. Tomorrow is going to start out cold before it bakes us." I called her 'Black Cloud' in Akkadian.I had first used that name twenty years ago to insult her, highlighting her tempestuous nature. In the Assyrian court, having just received recognition for my quick thinking, Shammuramat had belittled my accomplishment, throwing my body between her, her unborn child (the man who was now not-so-gently ushering me to the border) and a Kassite noble and his retainer bent on killing them both.Had my deed not been witnessed by half a dozen reliable sources, I wouldn't even have received that tawdry token."He sought glory without risk," she spat out her insult in a Hittite tongue alien to this court. Unfortunately for us both, I had worked for a Babylonian family for a few generations and they had been kind enough to turn me from an illiterate commoner to a man of some education.Ironically, they even taught me my native cuneiform long after my birthplace was barely a memory."Well aren't you a black cloud on an otherwise waste of a day," I replied somewhat bitterly. Her eyes widened, then narrowed and then I heard her laugh for the first time."Should I tell them what you said?" she mocked me and my predicament."But of course," I grunted in Akkadian. I'd screwed up. My inner thoughts were 'please not decapitation, please not decapitation' because getting my head on straight after that was a real bitch."You've been nothing but a black cloud bent on turning the choking dust at my feet into a grasping, muddy morass. Why stop now?" I announced loudly. If you are going to die, die well. Having died too many times to count, remembering my last words were all I had left to look forward to.The guards, familiar with the Queen's temper and stunned into inaction by me clearly embracing a long, messy death, stood around uselessly. Had I been allowed a weapon in the royal presence, I might have thought which one to kill first."I gift you, a lowborn man of the South (Sumerian), with honors and you respond by insulting my wife?" King, Shamshi Adad V growled as he rose from his throne."Husband," she stood to join him. I thought it was a pity she rarely smiled. "You asked that I too give a gift to my savior and the savior of our son (all unborn babies were sons back then until roughly half had the audacity to gender switch while exiting the womb). I have chosen." I was expecting my life for the moment and a day's head start to the border."It is your choice to make," the King allowed."From this day, until my passing, this man may always speak his mind in our lands," she demanded. She had a habit of fatally correcting anyone who saw her as less than co-ruler. The hesitation was deafening."As you will," Shamshi Adad V acquiesced to yet another of his wife's odd 'requests'. From that day forth we had been fast friends. She never asked about my immortality, where I was from, or how I ended up with my elite band of professional killers. I returned the favor. It was an unspoken understanding that in a few years, or decades, she would die and I would leave, not necessarily in that order. We had shared more years than I had given to any one person in quite some time."There is nothing left for me but ash," she declared with morbid certainty."Should any of us expect any better?" I did my best to offer words of comfort she would accept."Oh no," her noise was too bitter to be a laugh. "I had my own 'Life beyond Death' and it was stolen from me, along with my birthright.""We are chasing the thieves?" I asked."Yes and no," her face grew grim once more. "These were not the ones I was looking for. They share some bonds with some of the Scythian tribes who live on the far side of the Sea of Death (the Black Sea). These raiders weren't from those tribes.""Why are you turning back?" I questioned. "You know your Assyrians are loyal. They will follow wherever you lead. Your son won't begrudge you these few hundred. I'll come too.""Why?" she turned and looked into my eyes. She still had that blazing fire in her eyes. She was teasing me. If she asked, I too would follow and my men would follow me."The Scythians have been raiding the Lands of the Two Rivers from, well, before I graduated from 'spear for hire' to a 'seeker of a mastery of war'. The rich plunder of their camps will provide plenty of incentive for my men plus we can sell the horses when we come back," I stated."I do not have the years left to spend on such a campaign," she sighed. I had never heard a hint of defeat in her speech before. It was unsettling and rather tragic."I have squandered my years in marriage, being Queen and raising my boys. I tried to make Assyria my new family and I am revealed to be a fool. You had it right. We will always be outlanders. No matter how brave, loyal, just and smart, we would never be allowed in their sanctimonious circle," she said. "You. I should have ridden off with you after my first born was acknowledged (the present King Adad-nirari the 3rd).""We could have gathered up some more fighters, ridden over shattered Phrygia, to the narrows (Bosporus) and into the lands of the Thracians. There is a legend of a great river that pours out from the western shore of the Death Sea. What I seek is up that river.""How many would we face?" I grew equally serious."One," she coughed. "Me." My confusion was obvious. "I am not asking you to fight me, Alal. I want you to come back for me.""I can't. That is not how it works," I stated."How does it work then?" she looked into my eyes. The fire was there, but banked and waning. I didn't say anything. "I have never seen, or heard of you entering a temple.""Your men go. You do not stop them, but you have given up any pretense of worship," she pressed. "Do you not believe that anything exists beyond your senses?""I believe," I sighed. "I believe people are fools for giving offering, pledging their fidelity, pleading for mercy, or extending thanks to any deity. Those Shar-an (gnats) do as they will, unless it is to punish us for treating them like the spoiled children they are."Shammuramat regained her long-stilled laughter."I have always felt a kinship with you through our mutual bitterness.""Bitterness comes with familiarity," I snorted in amusement. Lovers had passion. We shared a simmering anger that came from being irredeemably wronged."I was born Baraqu, the first son of a potter in some city that no longer matters. I was a failure as a potter and an embarrassment to my house and my clan," I began a story I hadn't told another soul in, I couldn't recall. "In those days, the Priest-Kings declared wars and demanded each clan of the city give forth a certain number of males to fight. My family volunteered me and two rowdy cousins.Outside the gates, my clan elder gave each of us a cowhide shield and a spear with a small spindle of copper at the tip so we wouldn't think it was a staff. We marched, I forget which city we were fighting that time. Three days later we found the enemy behind a deep irrigation ditch that had dried out for the season. Our orders were simple, 'There they are. Attack!'My elder was at the back of our mob, making sure none of us ran away. My older cousin made it across the ditch first, but was speared twice; once in the right kidney, I can still remember my first sight of blood, and once, piercing the shield and lodging in his ribcage. My second cousin and I were pushed from behind into the fighting. I stabbed at one shield, doing no harm.Then my surviving cousin's morale broke and he tried to claw his way back into our ranks. He was stabbed in the back, his dying body tangling with mine and bearing us both to the ground. I saw this howling mad face over me. He was a commoner, like me, driven to violence by the terror of battle. His shoddily crafted spear plunged first into my right lung. The second stab found my heart. I died.From there, my spirit fell down toward the wretched dank caverns where all pitiful lowborn dregs are doomed to end up without hope of parole. Instead of endless misery, the Goddess Sarrat Irkalli appeared before me, barring my descent. With icy claws, she trisected my soul. I cannot begin to describe that agony. She snatched up my tattered bits and dragged me back into the world.Sarrat Irkalli is Goddess of the Netherworld, whispered a word that penetrated my brain through the left ear of my cooling corpse. It was an utterance so catastrophic to the fabric of the Veil I dare not repeat it even now.Baraqu? she blew a dark wind upon the first bit of my essence and it flew away.Cael, she whispered to the second portion and off it went in another direction. You are Baraqu no more. The second name was meaningless to me at the time but my name. Do you know that if you have your true name, your spirit can not find its way to your reward, no matter how foul, or pleasing? To the third part of my soul. I name you Alal, he who stands witness to the end of all he desires; their destroyer. Powerful yet powerless.}With that, she left me. My body was stiff from being dead so long. The next few hours were extremely painful. The Sun had set and the Moon was not in evidence. Jackals barked and hyenas laughed as they fought and feasted on the dead. I pushed the body of my cousin off me then crawled down into the ditch to hide. Hardly the reaction of a hero.""Not the actions of the man I know," Shammuramat smirked. "So, your name is Baraqu.""Was and I never much liked the name," I countered. "The priests gave it to me because right before my naming ceremony, a bolt of lightning from a spring storm struck the temple of Shara. So they named me Baraqu, which means 'struck by lightning'.""That sound likes a good name," the Queen Dowager regarded me."That is the noble meaning. The common meaning is less eloquent, it means 'idiot'."Another deep laugh from my treasured compatriot. So few had ever mattered so much to me."Struck by lightning, stricken dumb," she guffawed. "Still not the 'you' I know.""What does the other name mean?""I have no idea. In all my travels I have never found a people familiar with it," I shrugged. She looked out over the low waves lapping against the stony shore."No explanation?" she grudgingly inquired. She had wanted me to continue."No. I have never again come face to face with Sarrat Irkalli, been visited by a messenger, divine, or demonic, received an omen, or any otherworldly presence of any kind," I shrugged. I was long past any resentment. "After the battle I made my way back home, we'd lost, and resumed my life for a few years. My father took the excuse of me 'letting' my kinsmen die to place my younger brother over me.I didn't care. I always hated being a potter, so I ended up being a piddling nuisance all the time and a drunken brawler whenever I had wrangled some beer. I was always the first choice of my clan to send into battle. Despite my lack of training, I began surviving more battles than I died in. At some point, the priests began getting suspicious that I was still hanging around my great-grandnephew's house, so my house Elder suggested I leave the city.I was given a nice copper-headed mace that I had taken in a recent skirmish. Tradition dictated I offer it to the Elder, so he could give it back to me as a sign of my value to the clan. He had taken it for his own. Now he was giving it back out of fear that it held some part of my taint. I had no idea how to live on my own. Two days out, I was robbed and murdered for the first, but not last, time. That inaugural event, I got really angry and hunted those two farmers down.I got my mace back. I also relieved them of an onager, three slaves and a few ingots of silver. I guessed they had been rather successful robbers until they met me."

united states god love women new york amazon fear death head canada world babies stories house men mission mexico land americans speaking west spring blood sleep sex turning kings moon focus north america south dad chief powerful cancer night wealth east gods respect attack fbi fantasy empire leads sun saving beast daughter killing sea husband dying bread council narrative records sister shit tradition abortion federal fate babylon sexuality picking cities egyptian bc guys beating knock lovers elder iranians sad sheriffs despair goddess brilliant riches keeper harm veil lands planting oklahoma city ironically explicit bitterness johnny cash grandfather jk rowling jaguar technically nile novels treasurers eighteen hush babylonians nineveh hyundai tyre temples bce struck ahab priya man up erotica black sea voldemort weave assyria times new roman high priestess glock time warp median luv assyrian dishonest brothers in arms assyrians sumerian my house hypothetically avenge scarce ow anat hittite pony express scythians mounted granddad indus first house seven pillars sumerians assur phrygia two rivers marduk tigerlily anathema litmus jackals 'bird umma yippie bosporus northern syria netherworld saku squirts javiera akkadian aramean black cloud cael arkas caprica lothario cimmerian miyako literotica shammy twin rivers is virginia urartu great white whale thracians

Cáel Leads the Amazon Empire, Book 2: Part 3

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 17, 2025

Summer Camp Mayhem.By FinalStand. Listen to the Podcast at Explicit Novels.The miracle is not a person jumping into a torrent to save another. It is the dozen who form a chain to pull them both out.(Midnight in the Grotto of Good and Evil)We were in one of the underground pools at the bottom of the mesa. Our tour guide had informed us there were nine known caves and the complex had never been fully explored due to the remaining waterways being totally submerged. It was well past midnight, all my little friends had crashed out and I had wisely ditched my security after Miyako silently woke me up with her hand over my mouth.She pulled my hand to her lips and sucked deeply on two of my digits. I took this to be an indicator to me she was in dire need of loving. The grotto was my idea. I was inspired by my desire to see her naked and I couldn't risk a light source any place but underground. The tool shed and garage lacked a certain appeal. The fuel depot and septic tank were also ruled out."Is the chaos in your mind still raging, Cáel?" Miyako asked in Nipponese, with enough worry to doubly enhance her cuteness."Which of the twenty-seven unexplained languages rolling around in my head do you want me to answer you in?" my toothy grin barely visible in the darkness.Around half way through my sexual enlightenment in college, I had a revelation. The two guys I had gone road-tripping with took me to a bar in Portsmouth. I caught a woman looking us over. I already had my one-night stand lined up and she was looking most agreeable to my nefarious skullduggery (i.e. she had come with some other guy who preferred beer and darts with his buddies over keeping his attention on what mattered).And then my awakening."Nah, she's too fat," he remarked. For one thing, my friend who said that could have stood to lose ten to fifteen kilograms himself. Next, we were dressed like middle class college kids, jeans, shirts that were most likely clean when we picked them out of the laundry basket, light jackets and the shoe thing.This girl was dressed up for a good night out. Nice makeup, her clothing choices were, eh, not stunning, but this wasn't a stunning nightclub/bar. She looked fun, she smiled and yes, she was overweight. It dawned on me that not only did I not care, I never cared. I was a sexual omnivore and that meant any lady interested in sex with me was fine in my book.So, I turned the tables on him."If you can score her number, I'll give you my watch," I dared him. The wristwatch was really nice, one of those $500 handmade German ones. One of my Ex's great-granddad had swiped it off some Nazi pilot in World War II, and the same girl gave it to me twice. See, by accident, as I was exiting the (thankfully) first floor window of the Natural Sciences building, she threw a pitcher at me.It had been sitting in an ornamental display case close by. I caught it, nodded to the flabbergasted female professor-type gawking at the semi-naked me, handed her the projectile, then fled like the responsibility-dodging coward that I was. It turned out that that bit of crockery was from the mid-1600's; the woman I'd surprised was the item's owner.That older lady wasn't a teacher. She was a major benefactor in charge of one of the school's larger endowments. Had it shattered, the Ex most likely would have been expelled. Instead, after watching me round the Chancellor's residence, the mature chick turned to the totally naked chick leaning out the window, still screaming at me."Is he on the track team?" she inquired as she handed the artifact back. They talked, agreed I was a miserable human being, a cad and had firmly developed buttocks. Well, I guess that makes me a pig with nice hams. The next day, I showed up to return the watch, it was just an excuse for one more round of sex.She explained the whole incident to me, took back the watch and sent me on my way. I hurried back to my dorm room, changed the sheets and picked up a bit. An hour later she was quietly knocking at my door. Rather epic make-up sex followed, she gave me the watch as a keepsake and I swore off intercourse in classrooms for two whole months. I'm a tower of resolute willpower, I know.Back at the bar, my buddy snorted, made some comment about her being obviously desperate and promised me he'd nail in her in one of the back rooms. They talked a little, he got 'friendly', then said something that really hurt the girl's feelings. She looked our way, steadied herself with a shot of bourbon and came over to me and my other bud."Did you tell that guy you would give him fifty bucks if I put a lipstick ring on his cock?" she confronted us."No, I told him you were too good for him and if he could get your phone number, I would give him this watch," I showed her the watch. The girl's face flashed back to 'cautiously curious'."Is it a nice watch?" she asked."It is a family heirloom. My great-grandpa brought it back from World War II after taking it off some high ranking kraut officer," I embellished. "I knew he didn't have a chance with you.""Thanks," she grinned. "I agree. Let me get my sister and we can get a bite to eat." Sex.Two guesses of who her sister was. If you guessed the girl I had been cultivating since I got there, you would be right. I am too damn lucky. Lads, the next time you blow a sure thing, blame me for sucking all the good karma away from you, and nine of your friends. I got a three-way. The guy I made the challenge to, got his revenge. He bailed and I had to hitchhike back to school. You know, female truckers, oh, back to Miyako.After stashing our clothing and weapons (all of mine anyway), I took a small fluorescent lantern and slipped into the water. Cold, but doable. Miyako joined me and then, by moonlight, we swam to the point where the guide had said we'd find a passage to a secluded grotto. Down we went. My motivation wasn't sex.That was coming no matter what. Seeing my Nipponese sweetie completely nude directed my course of action. Security protocols meant no lights after 11 p.m. My solution was to cut on a light that couldn't be seen from outside, the grotto. We felt our way along the rather wide submerged passage emerging well before air became an issue. I raised the lantern and cut it on.Our tour guru had forgotten to mention that the algae patches along the sides and bottom as well as the quartz veins on the roof and walls reflected the light over what must have been an eight by ten meter cavern. Gorgeous. We glided to a shelf that met our needs, climbed up and shared a high school 'nervous virgin' moment. She broke the spell by pulling herself out of the water and, standing on her tippy-toes, touched one of the roof veins.I drank in every inch of my little ninja babe's lithe, finely tuned body. Once she got over the newness of my voyeurism, she became playful, giving me a variety of silhouettes and poses. I stripped and returned the favor, which earned me a giggling fit. As I took a minute to sit down and stare into the tranquility of the still surface, she snuck up on me.She said it all with her eyes. I tried to speak, but she put a forefinger to my lips. 'Hold me forever,' her eyes relayed her intentions. 'Love me for all eternity and think of no one else but me.' My elbows were locked, supporting my upper torso as she hovered over my lap. She was a lone feather falling upon the unyielding stone.With one hand behind her, she guided my cock into the wet, luxurious vice that was her cunt. We took it in increments. A sigh more at home in whispered Nirvana than on mortal tongues escaped her lips as she nestled all the way down. We didn't fuck. We rocked back and forth in a timid motion.As Miyako became accustomed to me once more, she would lean farther back with each pulse until an in and out rhythm was achieved. I took the occasion of her victory to pluck her left nipple into my mouth. Experience had taught me that was her more sensitive one. For several seconds, she fought it before knowledge caught up with instinct, then she loosed her passion.After her vibrations subsided, she rested her body tightly against mine. I still impaled her and she was returning a fraction of that warmth."Do you ever think you will find true love?" she whispered into my ear, in Nipponese. I was drawing my finger through her damp hair as it trailed down her back."As in love one over all others, no," I confided. "Even if I did, I could never admit it.""Why not?" she asked in Mandarin.In French I explained; "My life is a mad race through the forest and I don't know if I am a hound or the stag. I don't dare slow down until I know, and that is no way to repay such devotion.""When do you think the race will end for you?" she moaned softly, in English."I would really like to hold a child of mine. I don't regret my life's path up until now, yet I leave so very little of me behind if it ends soon," I muttered in Nipponese, and then chuckled. "It used to be at the first sign of a pregnancy test, I would panic. The World turns very rapidly."A minute passed as she went from warm to heatedly sensuous."Less talk, more babies," she sacrificed her emotions for my well-being with her oh so naught Baby Metal band voice and questing fingers. How could I say 'no' to that?"I don't think it works that way," I teased."Let's find out." She implored me in NipponeseSometime later, I was lying on my back, Miyako's body extended over mine so that not one precious inch of her touched the cool slick rock surface. Considering our position and location, it took me a bit longer to notice the intruder. I thought she was all kinds of strange. Twin memories and perception joined forces for once.The woman moved through the water, yet she was only hip deep in a place I knew the bottom was three meters below. As she entered our isolated love nest, I noticed she had sent forth not a single ripple in the water. Memory filled in the rest. Her eyes, when her gaze met my own, had that void that comes from a tortured life punctuated by horrors you witness as well as ones you are forced to perform.That was from "me". The electron swarm inside my mind provided another crucial piece of the puzzle. Utukku, phantoms, dead denied entrance to the Nether Realms, trapped between, until some sin had been lifted. The spirit gave me a look of shock, then turned and fled."We are in danger," I hissed to Miyako in Nipponese, before cutting off the lantern.I dove in, angling for the tunnel we'd entered by. I was close enough not to jab my fingers into the stone surface as I clawed my way through. I didn't burst noisily to the surface on the other side. My approach was that of an alligator, slowly letting my head crest the surface so I could look around. No one was in evidence. Miyako was soundless at my side as we scramble to the hiding place of our gear.Miyako held my hand back until she was sure our belongings hadn't been booby-trapped. I had to make quick judgment call: how time critical was this? I went the 'clothes and weapons' route."What is going on?" Miyako spoke quietly."Back there, I saw a feminine Asian ghost and the last time I witnessed such a pained, hopeless look, I was confronting the Seven Pillars," I told her. "Their slave had that same doomed stare.""There are only two things here of value," Miyako made her assessment. "You and the children. You are far more accessible in New York City, so it must be the children." We pressed ourselves tightly to the cave sides when we heard the sound of footsteps coming our way. It was Charlotte, my minder for evening, with her bow notched and ready.Firearms were kept to a minimum after hours, so bows were the order of the day, except for the snipers on the mesa top. My movements must have alerted her. I sat down and continued dressing."Charlotte, the Seven Pillars know we are here, they know the camp is here," I told her."How imminent is the threat?" Charlotte knelt beside me. I didn't know."They must be close, to be making a reconnaissance of the caves," Miyako said with tactical certainty."It was drawn to you, Charlotte, you were out of place, so this thing looked further. Otherwise these caves are irrelevant," she added. Miyako had the mindset of a seasoned professional spy."The cavern and spring have a night guardian," Charlotte countered. "I saw her when I was following you two here."I had on my light bulletproof vest (no shirt), shorts (no underwear) and shoes (no sox)."Let's go check on her to see if she's seen anything," I suggested/ordered.What I had assumed was some sort of bedroll brought by Miyako turned out to be a Ninja Survival pack. This allowed me to weapon up while she dressed up. The amount of time we were taking still ate at my nerves. Charlotte stopped me from heading out first, only to be stopped by Miyako. The ninja slipped out like a cool desert breeze.(Friend, Enemies and those In Between)Thirty seconds later, a plastic BB bounced off my right shoulder. This time, I was leading Charlotte out. No one spoke. We couldn't see Miyako anyway, now dressed in her black pajamas and her face being reduced to just one slit for her eyes. We found the Amazon dead at her post. She was in a cunningly crafted blind not easily spotted from any direction.A quick sweep for 'gifts' left behind revealed nothing, but the corpse yielded plenty. She was shot multiple times with two separate flash and sound suppressed submachine guns. The woman had been alive when we came down and if there had been a firefight, Charlotte would have heard the shots, if not seen them; thus the suppression. The bullet holes suggested a small caliber weapon.Miyako stepped up, held up three fingers. Every piece of the Amazon's gear was still on her. The attackers had shot up her phone box. Wireless communications were deemed too risky so all the outposts had buried land lines. At this point, a few seconds of extra effort stood between the Seven Pillars and success; that and the Goddess Paranoia.Had the assailants yanked up the box and cut the phone line, it would have been rendered useless. Instead, they shot up the device and moved on so that when Charlotte pulled out the cache of concealed goodies, including the spare phone box, we were back in business. As Charlotte got to work switching out the busted for the back-up, I studied our situation.Advanced teams taking out the perimeter guards, and most likely the snipers, didn't make much sense. The camp had 300 highly motivated Amazons. Cutting them off temporarily from their armory and vehicles didn't make any sense, since all Amazons were armed anyway. That left timing. But timing meant nothing if I didn't have the goal of their attack.It came as a double-whammy. The Chinese place a high premium on family and the Seven Pillars had mastered a sadistic art form of turning young foreign women into their concubine/assassins. The Condotteiri would have slaughtered the entire camp. The Seven Pillars would want to kidnap the children, both as current bargaining chips and as future tools.500 girls, 400 could be kidnappable. The oldest would go down fighting with their sisters. How did you get 400 kids out of here? Helicopters? That would be a fuck load of helicopters taking out their team and the children. Besides, helicopters alone couldn't dig them out of their cave and cliff-face strongpoints.Desert, no waterways. That left the road. You couldn't use ATVs, not enough carrying capacity. The smart move would be to have tractor-trailers parked alongside the hard top state road. They would use smaller, more rugged trucks to ferry their captives out to the semis. That suggested some sort of 'cover/support' vehicles.2 half ton trucks with weaponized Hummers providing fire support a la 'Blackhawk Down' and that meant the bridge and the BBQ pit. That objective would solve both of the Seven Pillars problems, moving the main assault group into close contact with the Amazons so the Amazons couldn't organize a defense, and removing their hostages in a prompt manner so they all could be gone before anyone else could react.The Seven Pillars had to have secured the bridge and were mostly likely replacing the missing piers. It was the choke point of their battle plan. Worse for them, it wasn't part of a barricade where they could attrition the Amazon numbers with vehicle mounted heavy weapons. The ditch ran north-south, bow shaped with the arch to the west and was over a kilometer from the camp.The flanks were purposefully strewn with huge boulders that limited traffic to horse and motorcycles, no four-wheelers. They had to have control of the bridge, so that's where I went."Charlotte, I'm going to the bridge," I whispered before slipping out of the blind. I didn't order Miyako to follow me and I was sure Charlotte wanted strangle me for departing from her protective custody.There are four kinds of fights, be they between armies, or individuals. Set-piece (sparring), assaults, ambushes and meeting engagements. I was about to be in the latter one. Meeting engagements happen when opposing forces are set on goals that unknowingly intersect one another. One of the most famous battles in US history, Gettysburg, was a meeting engagement.I was using the bone-dry culvert because we feared the Seven Pillars had replaced our snipers. Miyako was, somewhere else. The enemy commandos used the same conduit to avoid having the remaining Amazon pickets spot them and raising the alarm. I had little doubt that the three men speedily moving south were heading for the grotto and its three inhabitants (Charlotte, Miyako and me).Not knowing that I could both see ghosts and guessed who its demonic masters were, they assumed we were still in the caverns. Me not knowing how this whole ghost-scout thing worked, I assumed that I had a chance of surprising them at the bridge if I moved fast enough. In a final prick of irony, they misinterpreted the role their snipers played in our engagement.They believed that their snipers would alert them if anyone moved on the bridge, ignoring the fact that the snipers didn't have a complete view of the gulch. I was only using the big ditch because I was afraid they had taken out the Amazon snipers and now had the high ground, which turned out to be true. Thank you, Goddess Paranoia.My first tomahawk was in my left hand and my Glock-22 was in my right. My fear of snipers and the bend in the gully saved my life. We literally ran into each other, me and the first 7P soldier. His long barreled Type-05 was pointing past my left, his torso slammed into my pistol, ramming his front armored plate against it as it discharged.The proximity muffled the sound of the gunshot. The bullet failed to punch through his impressive body armor, but the resulting force knocked him down and out. Unfortunately, our shared momentum knocked my gun out of my grasp. My right hand went for tomahawk two. The flattened man's team mates swung their submachine guns my way.Halfway through his shift, a black dart flew out of the western darkness, past the first one, then snapped back. The action caused the hardy thread to wrap around the barrel of his weapon. I couldn't see her, but I knew it was Miyako with her flying wedge with the thread attached. The middle guy was startled and not moving as his training dictated.That allowed me to use him as a shield against the third guy. Right as 7P #2 decided to release his weapon, I kicked him hard into the confused man behind him. Neither man went down, but I still got what I wanted.Guy number three's main weapon was trapped to his right as I rushed his left. Vainly he tried to get an arm up to defend himself. My right tomahawk shattered his forearm at the elbow joint. Only the body armor on the inside of the blow stopped the appendage from falling off. My rational mind was catching up with my instincts.These men had on head-to-toe ballistic body suits with knee guards and solid ballistic inserts for the front and back of the torso. They had on some sort of dull, dark-grey respirator mask which was why the armless guy wasn't screaming his head off. They also had matte black circular ear protections and a type of high tech visor on the ears and eyes respectively.The sole survivor was falling back, drawing his silenced pistol while trying to put some distance between us and find Miyako at the same time. Dummy, tomahawks are designed for throwing. A bit of Amazons indignation was behind that toss. His visor was cut in two as my anger drove the blade 6 cm/2+ inches into his skull.I heard a sharp crack of a rock being shattered. Miyako's graceful flip landed her at my side. I ran to the last victim, put my foot on his chest and put my right hand on the tomahawk's shaft. The guy reached up and grabbed the thigh of the foot on his chest with both hands. Shit, the fucker wasn't dead!

love women amazon history head canada world new york city chicago english stories hollywood china mother battle hell friend chinese boys sex german kings evil staying plan europa security world war ii fantasy asian target wind empire cold leads sun nazis escape alaska memory alien bridge narrative worse falling shit shooting midnight eat sexuality desert aftermath enemies losers bbq cutting twelve smash bitch jumping nirvana panama moments thirty puppies commander twin halfway nah sunrise helicopters vietnamese bb sd explicit chancellor dry mandarin novels midway chicks firearms smashing us air force paranoia wireless special forces nerve portsmouth bow calamity gorgeous alliances dao gong gettysburg dummy lads modern warfare suffice made in china erotica hazards sob assyria times new roman usas natural sciences high priestess glock ute pissed off axes woot chilled c2 us navy seals grotto uav anat medical examiners hittite legolas atvs napalm babymetal gimli riverdance wies seven pillars braking tigerlily claymore umma jian warrior queen squirts javiera akkadian friendless red cap hummers caprica ranged unmanned aerial vehicles imperial japanese navy miyako literotica 7p yeow navaho shammy kaibab

Cáel and the Manhattan Amazons: Part 25

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 25, 2024

Promises To Keep. In 25 parts, edited from the works of FinalStand. Listen and subscribe to the ► Podcast at Connected.. Note to readers: There is a bit of mangling of the Iliad going on. My apologies to Homer and the countless singers before him who carried the Iliad down through the dark centuries until the Greeks figured out how writing works. “Never judge a friend by what they give, but of how much of themselves they give.” (From the floor of Katrina's office) First thoughts, I was on the floor where I had fallen, surrounded and being manhandled in the tenderest way. That was a romantic means of relating to my mummification. Those little Band-Aids that had been applied when I woke up from my coma had failed the 'Cáel is a Smeckle-head' test. All the crud they had pumped into my system and amperage they had channeled through my muscles was not the same as eating and exercise. Having a sexual romp with two ladies? My Goddess made plans for my body that my caloric bank account couldn't afford, thus me passing out. Unlike my time with Miyako and Estere, I had a feeling my two sofa-buddies were ovulating. Fatherhood was on the way. How my infant would survive the continuous poisonous assault on the augur's lymphatic system was beyond me. Her guardian, let's just say I dealt with sneaky bitches/Dot on a regular basis and leave it at that. "He is awake," Tadêfi alerted the room. "You must leave so I can deliver my message to him in the privacy he requested." "I am almost done," a different Amazon voice stated. She was the medico dealing with my wounds. By the aroma, she had slathered on two coats of the healing goo that was becoming as comfortable to my nostrils as my soap-on-a-rope. A few more rounds of adhesive tape and the exodus from the room began. I hadn't opened my eyes because I was unprepared for the looks of anger, disappointment and concern surely leveled my way. The door shut and my eyes opened. "The Conqueror, the Champion, the Friendless and the Foe have all escaped the Land of the Endless Black Sands and returned to the Sunlit Realm," Tadêfi whispered upon my lips. Huh? That was it? Seriously, four freaking titles without, And here came the rest, faces. Faces with eyes and eyes with a purpose. Names, not names I wanted to hear at the moment. Bad fucking news all around. It couldn't be something helpful like the identity of the next High Priestess, No, that would be good fucking news. Okay, time to turn this frown upside down. I could make this work for me. How, I wasn't sure. "Thank you," I responded to Tadêfi's plea of understanding. Outside of having impregnating sex with me, the Sex-Master, Timothy was going to Nerf-shoot me for that, she'd endured spiritual, mental and physical grief and torment to be with me here today. She waited, kneeling beside my head. "Kiss me," I requested. It was a moist act, full of compassion and understanding. I racked my mind for the names and their importance. "Who was Shammuramat?" "I don't know, but this helps, right?" Tadêfi expressed her need to make the reward for the sacrifices to make sense. Five dead sister-augurs. They had to find that son-of-a-bitch! "Tadêfi, we are back in the fight," I grinned. "You and your sisters have given the Host a mighty weapon in the upcoming struggle." I knew that to be true because I knew who and where the Conqueror was, I knew he wasn't ready to be revealed, his enemies were closing in and he was ignorant of that fact. I was going to have to rain on his parade to save his life. The five augurs hadn't died futilely. The Weave of Fate had shielded the man and it took the augers' fanatical devotion to cut the threads and expose the truth the Host needed most. The Champion, hell, I knew who he was. I chuckled. Tadêfi was confused. The Champion was coming to kill me, me and a bunch of other Amazons, because blood feuds tend to run both ways. The Foe. He was easy enough. Granddad. The Bastard just wouldn't stay dead. I had a clue to what was going on now. I wasn't sure how useful that knowledge would be. Still, knowledge is knowledge. That thing crawling around inside my brain? No help there. That left Shammuramat. That name was familiar. Even when I finally placed it, I didn't understand her role in things. Why her? "Krasimira," I called out. I struggled to sit up and with Tadêfi's help, I did so. The Keeper and two guardians entered as well. One, Sikia, hovered over her companion/augur. "What is the link between Shammuramat and the Host?" I inquired. I saw no recognition in the Keeper's eyes. "She was the first ever "independent" queen of a nation-state, Assyria." Krasimira sat on the sofa and retrieved her tablet from inside her robes. She began working with the electronic history of the Amazon race. "9th Century BCE," I added. Slowly others migrated back into the room. Buffy, Katrina (not good and not happy), Elsa (really not good) and Desiree. Pamela leaned against the door sill, neither in nor out. Katrina sat behind her desk. The phone came out and whispered conversations began in earnest. I had shoved us straight into a war which looked like a free for all at the moment. No one trusted anyone. No one could afford to. I had to change that. The only saving grace was that it appeared no Secret Society had planned for the Protocols to abruptly end a week and a half ago. "Ah, I found it," Krasimira spoke up. Because I'm me, it was at that moment I finally realized that someone had put me in my biking shorts in an effort to provide me a modicum of modesty, with the benefit of blood being smeared on the inside. "She abandoned the Host, she was put under a death sentence for killing her twin sister who was chosen to lead House Anat over her." "Anat?" I queried. "The other dead First House," Krasimira sighed. "They were renowned for their berserkers. Some would drape themselves in the entrails of their enemies in the midst of battle to increase their ferocious appearance." "Oh, how sweet, what was Ishara known for?" I was surprised I'd never asked. "Ishara were the emissaries of the Host," Krasimira informed me. With the Amazon practice of killing embassies sent their way, the extinction of my house made much more sense. "What does this mean?" Desiree took charge of matters since Katrina was still busy on the phone. In a few short weeks, Desiree's prestige had definitely increased. Katrina was her sister in more than name now. "Where to begin, Fine, why don't we refer to the Mycenaeans by their proper Amazon name?" Everyone but Buffy was glancing about nervously. "You used the name, didn't you?" Elsa rubbed the bridge of her nose, dreading the response. "Yes, " I answered. "Because no one warns him of shit," Pamela huffed. "You assume an Amazon education with no basis in reality. You act like he grew up with our fairy tales and phantasmal histories. Everyone in this room, but Buffy," she acknowledge my First, "knew he spoke our language and the accompanying risk. Still, no one warned him." "You didn't warn him," Desiree skewered Pamela with a glance. "Not my job, Buttons," Pamela chuckled. "I relish the rest of you being made to look like idiots too much to be useful to Cáel unless it really matters. So he invoked an ancient malediction. What is the worst that could happen?" "I'm going to make a huge deductive leap, am I the reason the Achaean hero Ajax and his boys are back from the dead and coming after us for some Ako-level vengeance?" I groaned. (That's the 47 Ronin for us Westerners) Silence. "That's not your fault, Sport," Pamela snorted. "Mano-man, was I a dumbass for doing nothing. I'll take the blame for that one ladies. Damn Cáel, you would have to pick the Unconquered One, wouldn't you?" "Who is this guy and why does he hate us?" Buffy interjected. Pause. "Our ancestors poisoned his wine so that, in his angry haze, he mistook his own men for his enemies and slaughtered them all, back during the Trojan War. Afterwards, he committed suicide in anguish over his crime, Death opened his eyes at the last, he saw our treachery and managed to curse us as he died," Krasimira informed the lot of us. "And my using that word brought him back? That sounds, weak," I grunted. "The word would not have been enough," Tadêfi comforted me. "There must have been some sort of rift in the curtain of Reality that allowed the others to slip through. I don't understand how, oh no," she gasped as the pieces came together. "I'm willing to believe that was the price of doing business," I petted Tadêfi's cheek. "Please enlighten us," Elsa grumbled. "I need to find the Earth and Sky ambassador and set up a new meeting. Using what Tadêfi has gifted me with and the sacrifice of her fellow augurs, I can secure an alliance for us if only I can make up for the whole stunt Troika played," I grinned. "Any ideas?" "We could call them," Pamela produced my phone. "Seems some lady named Hana Sulkanen has been trying for days to get in touch with you. She hunted down the owner of the necklace, they talked about your current physical state, courtesy of Odette, and the owner of the necklace has expressed a continued interest in meeting you, and only you. It would appear that they really don't trust the rest of our merry little band since your first disappearance." Hana, and here I had killed her step-brother, the one she despised. An unexpected benefit of civil discourse, my People's chance of survival had doubled. Pamela lobbed my phone and I caught it. "What of the other two?" Tadêfi pushed down on my euphoria. "Was the Foe dead as well?" A quick look at Pamela told me she knew the answer to that. "The Foe is complicated," I lied. "His return was an inevitability, so we count that as a draw. The Champion, bad news. Let's put Shammy in the 'maybe' column and the Conqueror is a win for our side." A Berserker Queen, fresh from the Underworld, who we were honor-bound to kill, or the 'other lost heir to a dead House' that was going to make us cobble together some nonsense to bring her back into the fold. If I wasn't the male leader of a spiritually significant All-Girls social club/paramilitary outfit, I might have been daunted by my prospects of achieving the latter. "The thing going on inside your head?" Elsa asked. That explained her presence. My mental capacity was still suspect. Was I still me? Could I flip out with no warning? "It is still there. I still have no idea what happened to me, or what the results might be. This means I'm going into battle wounded and that's that," I stated. "Are you acting in the best interest of the Host," Elsa studied me. "I am not sure," I confessed after half a minute's introspection. "So many of you are fuck-nuts; I'm not sure what acting responsible is for this set," I added jokingly. "As it stand, you lack the authority to pass judgment on me, Elsa. I promise you that if I feel I'm losing control, I will turn myself in." "Saint Marie would feel better if you stayed here," Elsa insisted. "Is the SD declaring war on House Ishara?" Buffy rose to the challenge. "We (by that she meant my fellow Isharans) have discussed the matter and talked to our best neuroscientist. She cannot definitively tell us Cáel isn't Cáel, so there is no reason to constrain him." Whoa. In our best prospect's educated opinion I was not-not me. Legions of English teachers weren't going to like that. "I have the answer for that," Katrina spoke up. "I owe Cáel and I would pay that debt now. He expressed a desire to see my niece, Aya. Do you still wish that Cáel Ishara?" "More than ever, but the Council is meeting," I sighed. "Buffy is your (dead word spoken), your apprentice," Katrina suggested. "Appoint someone to stand with her." That was more than good advice. Buffy was a woman and, to those who knew of her, as fierce an Amazon as ever lived. That was what Katrina was telling me without telling me. "I choose Daphne Pile, if she will accept, to stand by Buffy's side," I announced. Buffy would need someone who was passionate for my cause and who spoke Old Kingdom Hittite. Buffy still didn't, and the chance of the Council speaking English on her behalf was non-existent. "That is Daphne of House Cotyttia," Pamela corrected me. Who Cotyttia was? I had no idea. I was stupid to think Daphne's actual Amazon surname was Pile. Daphne wasn't even around. Executive Services was functioning fine without me and that meant Daphne had a work queue. "The Thracian Goddess of Sex, Orgies, War and Slaughter," Krasimira gracefully filled in my ignorance. Another whoa, why wasn't she my matron goddess? Tadêfi hauled off and slapped me. The action seemed to take everyone, Tadêfi included, by surprise. "I don't know why I did that," Tadêfi wailed out in despair. I did. It didn't take telepathy to figure out what I had been thinking. To prove my point, Pamela laughed. I cupped Tadêfi's jaw. "Worry not," I cooed. "I had that coming, Dot Ishara," I dodged another one, "isn't happy with me right now." Recall, Tadêfi was hooked up to an old-fashioned party line with the Beyond. "Animaniacs," Pamela snorted. "I so love you. It is my deep and abiding pleasure to have you as my Grandson." "I'm not your grandson," I countered. "Well, I say you are. Now be quiet and accept the shame," Pamela's eyes danced with amusement. "That makes me, Daphne and Brielle incest," I pointed out. "Amazons don't have an incest taboo," Pamela retorted. Duh. They are all women, no chance of seven fingered, Cyclops babies. "Ah, women, misunderstanding and pain, Buffy, would you check out Quebec and see if I'm still wanted in that province for bestiality. It could be important later," I commanded. "Bestiality?" only one woman failed to mutter, sputter or exclaimed. "The complainant in question is not that pissed at you anymore," Katrina's rolodex mind kicked in. "I believe she expressed a desire to question you about some missing accoutrements though." My splitting headache meant I had to think about that, ah yes, her dress uniform. It was/had been Canada Day, thus her having an official function and thus me cheating with the girl from across the hall in the Mountie's bed. I'm an idiot alright and my ability to keep an eye on the clock needs improvement. My last image of her, frothing at the mouth (she was a tad more possessive than I had anticipated) as she screamed out insults in Quebecois French concerning my lineage, personality failings and the treasured parts of my anatomy. She punctuated various parts of that deranged episode by hurling articles of her clothing over the border at me as I turned (once I had good Ole US soil/pavement under my feet) and tried to get us back together. Yes, I had them, just not in my Box of Failed Romances. Acting on hopes of reconciliation, I had the uniform dry cleaned, placed in a dress bag, and the boots polished; both currently occupying space in my closet. At least the Alburgh-Noyan Crossing guards (it is a dual Canadian-American post) appreciated me evading/begging forgiveness long enough for them to see her in only her bra and panties. I imagine they didn't normally get much excitement there. "Katrina, " I began. "Yes, Maya forgives you too, though she scored an 'At Risk' for reliability. Anais sounded genuine," Katrina related. Anais was the Mountie. Maya was the Guyane Française university student from across the hall, the one I was caught cheating with. I had told her I was Anais's brother. Maya was also a super-exceptional cook. "Cáel Ishara, who are these women we are talking about?" Sikia demanded. 'We', that didn't take long. We were now a 'we', which in Amazon meant 'male, you're my property'. "I have a sideline job as an Amway distributor," I replied. "I give crappy customer service." "You give awesome customer service," Katrina riposted. "That's the problem." "Sikia, you are not the first Amazon Cáel has stuck his dick into. You are probably not the tenth," Elsa dripped with frustration. Quick count: Rhada, Buffy, Oneida and Gael, I was only going to count the penile-vaginal penetrations. "They are only numbers five and six, thank you very much," I defended myself. "So much for your 'intern, no sex' policy," Desiree muttered. "Cut me some slack, I work with stone-cold, Olympic level athlete foxes 24/7," I griped. "I am a sexual being too, I have needs." "What about the 'End of Internship' hunting shindig?" Desiree pulled a flawless 'Katrina'. "Oh, it is still on. With my 'do or die' learning curve, it is going to be so much more fun," I grinned. "And, okay, no more Amazon sex until then, sorry Rachel." "Except for house members," Buffy insisted. "No exceptions," Elsa demanded. "I'll keep an eye on him," Pamela resolved the issue. "No more Amazon boinking for him." She was such a liar. She was also a highly accomplished liar because everyone bought it. On with my life. Stage one: exit Katrina's office. Done deal, no problems. Stage two: set up meeting with the Earth and Sky. They wanted to meet on their ground. Since I was the uncertain factor in these negotiations, I agreed. I was bringing one, Pamela raised four fingers, four people with me. Who? Outside of Pamela, I had no idea. Stage three: going to medical and putting on my business suit, it was a new one and very, very nice. I was moving up into serious majestic magnate territory. I also picked up buddy number two, FBI Special Agent Virginia Maddox. Why had I chosen a federal agent to accompany me to a meeting between two secret societies? I hadn't a clue. Sometimes you have to roll with these things. In the lobby, I picked up number three, Delilah, Mom's MI-6 operative/baby-sitter. Compassionate, caring people were surrounding me all the time. It gave me this sensation of a 'down home' environment no matter where I went, if down home was Gaza, or Donetsk. I think my entourage/lifestyle observation teams had grown to encompass six cars. I was in no condition for riding my bike, so that recourse was denied me. Taxi? One, most were hard-working stiffs like my family who didn't deserve to be caught in a noontime, drive-by assassination attempt. Besides, with my luck I'd meet the guy from Qatar again, the one with the sister with cute eyes. That reminded me, I gave Nicole a call. "How are you doing?" she quickly inquired. "Good," I lied to a past master of shattering perjury. Pause. "I'm surrounded by girls with guns, tailed by your clients, some part of a Federal Task force and some people who I don't know yet. Hold on." I put my hand over my phone. "Delilah, are you packing heat?" I asked softly. She opened her jacket revealing paired revolvers in shoulder holsters. I didn't recognize them so the Brit gave me the 4-1-1. "Ruger Alaskans," she grinned. Bing! Now I recalled them. The girl who taught me to shoot once read some reviews of that beast on her laptop while I gave her a slow, passionate screw from behind. She became all hot and bothered, wiggling, squirming and generally having a grandiose time with my cock deep within. I repeat, this girl really loved guns, a huge cerebral G-spot for her. Oh yeah, the Ruger Alaskan is what you get if you are worried about Grizzly bears popping their heads through the tent flaps late at night. Delilah was probably packing 4 80's. Her guns would turn 250 kilograms of pissed off ursine into an excellent throw-rug in about two shots. In an urban environment, well, maybe she thought the New York Giants were actually giants, or something like that. Two were overkill, unless you expected someone needing to borrow one. "Just checked. I remain the only one unarmed in my personal carnival of carnage, " my words trailed up to an unintelligible mumble. I was mumbling because suddenly four handguns were casually offered up for my use (Tiger Lily was holding one over her shoulder as she drove), in the same way you'd offer up some Nicorette to a man jonesing for a smoke. Rachel was kind enough to hand me my familiar Glock-22 and Ruger 38 caliber with their accompanying holsters. Two spare clips followed, then I stashed the lot. I scratched my calf. It took me a second to realize I was reaching for my pistol. No, not the one at my hip, or my ankle, but the one, in my boot? "Now that you've been handed firearms of dubious origin, can I get back to questioning you," the FBI agent intruded upon my ruminations. "We were discussing that list of people that are visiting a morgue instead of a court room. What can you tell me?" "Bye Nicole. Miss you. Being interrogated by a blonde FBI lady with a whips scar on her eyebrow and eyes that could scare a badger back into its hole. Later," I cut of my lawyer's fierce demand that I keep my mouth shut. "Nothing useful that wouldn't implicate myself and others in a criminal conspiracy," I answered her. "There is no way I'd name anyone else I suspect of involvement. I feel no guilt over what has happened, so no remorseful confession, and that is based on my belief that cosmic justice has been achieved." "You can't create lists of people for execution," Maddox persisted. "That negates the whole justice system and the principle of innocent until proven guilty." Wow! Except for the two of us, every other person in the car snorted their derision of Maddox's presumptive naiveté. "Do you even believe the tripe spilling from your pie-hole?" Delilah mocked Maddox. "I'm in law enforcement. That means I enforce the laws, not interpret them, or choose which ones I want to obey and which ones to ignore," Virginia fought back. "Love, that's crap and you know it. You are an agent of the US government. You bomb, drone-strike, overthrow lawfully elected governments and assassinate in your nation's best interests," Delilah countered. "You selectively enforce your Constitution when it suits you." "I'm law enforcement, not the military or foreign affairs. Know the difference," Maddox glared. "The pay master is the same, you willingly collect your thirty pieces of silver; get off your high horse because you are in the shat now, Agent Maddox. I haven't known this crowd an hour and I know for a fact that you are the only US citizen onboard," Delilah chortled. "I don't know their bleeding nationality, but I doubt it is on the UN Charter." Maddox turned to me. "That was succinct and rather accurate," I murmured. "Special Agent Maddox, I have the sneaking suspicion that you are with us because FP (federal prosecutor) Castello feels you can handle this, Umm, unusual set of circumstance. I promise you this, it is going to get worse." "Why don't we test this quaint theory?" FBI Lass challenged us. "Jail, bail, and I'm waking up in Rio de Janeiro in two days," I sighed. "I have a few thousand in the bank, live in a hole and own my father's home, when it clears probate. Only you know I'm flight risk. A dozen people will vouch/lie about my character and that's that. All you've succeeding in doing is making enemies when you need friends." "There is still a matter of multiple people dead under suspicious circumstance," she said. "Imagine for a second that Cáel admits to creating a hit list," Pamela began. "He would never give up the names of the other people involved. He didn't kill anyone, or say 'kill them'. Now what? You still have an abysmal case to put before a judge. Add to that, the mitigating factor of a raped girl. You get to break her down until she's a cooperating witness because she's the only one who can provide you with Cáel's motive," my mentor continued. "Good for you and your team. She gets to betray the man who tried to save her. Cáel promised horrific retribution if any of those in the now-dead crowd hurt her. That is rather unlike him, he normally forgives when given the least excuse. I don't give a damn about women's rights, or the rights of rape victims. I really could give a shit about human rights for that matter. Wronging me is the surest way to early retirement. It is not a matter of strong versus weak, or right versus wrong. What matters to me is who I can trust. I don't know you, thus I don't trust you. I trust your government to be so much chicken shit. I base this on the lack of public torture and execution. I want the families of dying criminals paraded in front of those cock-suckers before the condemned finally perish in agony. I want to see thieves get their forearms hacked off, trial by combat, and respect for your elders. I want to see public officials being sacrificed upon the altar of Jehovah when they leave office. I want to see a system of justice with a soul, not law books thicker than an aircraft carrier's hull. A government 'of the People, by the People, for the People' should be the sole guiding force for your culture and we both know that's never going to happen. I admire your soldiers; not because they are brave and combat effective, they are. I admire them because they are fighting and dying for elected officials and a population that can't locate Afghanistan, or Iraq on a map, can't tell the difference between a Sikh and a Muslim, and thinks 'Pashtun' is an exotic piece of furniture. I admire them because they are better human beings despite you, not because of you," Pamela was coming to her crescendo. "Basically you people, by that I mean most of the human race, are dangerous in your idiocy, arrogance and pride in your ignorance. Not one of you should be allowed to use weapons, or play with fire. For you, unrestricted voting is a crime right up there with inventing, disease prevention, bilingualism and anything that perpetuates your educational system." "Lady, why are you so angry with the world?" Maddox studied Pamela intensely. I wished her luck with divining and then unwrapping that lady's mind. "I hold dear to my heart anyone's hunger to learn, honesty when it hurts and love no matter what the cost, so I find myself alone most of the time," Pamela grinned. "Above even those, I adore humor in the face of ridicule, condemnation and adversity. You can dodge bullets and parry knives. Humor always strikes home," she finished. "It is the perfect weapon." "Liar," I smiled. "You like high performance automobiles too." Did she? I didn't know. "Only with a 2X4 pressing the accelerator as it races toward the lip of a canyon," Pamela bantered back, "with Ursula K. Le Guin strapped in the back seat." "Who?" I inquired. "She's an author. I take exception to some of her work and unwillingness to appreciate the fusion of exceptional feminine characteristics with power positions," Pamela answered. "And your critique of her life's work is an exploding car at the bottom of a cliff?" I smiled. "Starting uncontrolled wildfires and littering, two of my favorite activities," she laughed. "I'll stick with blondes and brunettes, and red- and raven-haired, bald has its own appeal, green and purple have their own kink going on, " I joked. "Wait! We were talking about people being murdered and you two are cracking jokes?" Maddox rumbled. "I had a dream about tying them together with nylon cord and tossing them off the back ramp of a transport aircraft, and watching them fall, and fall," Rachel sighed dreamily. "Atta girl," I play-punched Rachel's shoulder. "What is your part in all of this?" Maddox turned to Rachel. "I'm the head of his bodyguard detail," Rachel gave her confession of the damned. "And you want to kill him, " Virginia struggled to keep up. "Given time, you will too," Rachel promised. "According to his pre-employment records, only one woman he's had a sexual relationship with hasn't wanted to at least hurt him," glaring at me, "badly." "The nun doesn't want me dead!" I vocally protested. "It is so wrong that you are proud that of over 200 women you've slept with, TWO have not, at some point in knowing you, wanted to maul you and one of those is in the 'forgiving' business," Rachel chastised me. Virginia had an answer for my madness. Her phone came out and she hit speed-dial, work. "Ms. Castello, this is Special Agent Maddox, do you have a moment?" Virginia calmly asked when she finally wrangled my current-favorite fed's attention. "You do now? Thank you. I'd like to know what the fuck have you done to me? This assignment is nuts. Either I'm part of some elaborate prank, or I'm in an S U V with escapees from the looney bin." Ten seconds later Maddox gave me the phone. "Stop it. I've upheld my end of the bargain, so behave," Javiera ordered. Man, she'd shot me straight to the core and we hadn't even slept together yet. Clever, clever girl. "Yes Ma'am," I swore. "I'll do my best to buffer Special Agent Maddox from the truth." "I'll have to accept that," Javiera conceded. "Give Maddox the phone back." A brief conversation later and Maddox was no better off than when she started. Thankfully we parked in front of the Kazakhstan Consulate in New York, giving us all an excuse to face facts. Maddox was feeling compelled to ask questions she didn't want the answers to, and that we didn't want to answer. Saved by work. "Kazakhstan Consulate? Why are we here?" both Virginia and Rachel asked. "Oh! This is going to be good," Pamela leaned forward excitedly. "Change the course of human history," I answered with a great deal of confidence I didn't feel. See, I had knowledge critical to the Earth and Sky. That knowledge was also something they wanted kept compartmentalized, so they might take exception to it being possessed by an outsider. Oh, so that's why Pamela earlier insisted on four ladies being with me, so we could shoot our way out if things turned ugly. I hugged my mentor. "Thank you, Pamela." "You are coming along nicely, Mr. Potter," Pamela patted my cheek. "Your praise leaves me suspicious, Professor Snape. Besides, if I'm going to die, it helps me to know you'll go first ." "That was uncalled for," Pamela chided me. It was the 'Snape' role she rejected. "Snape gave up his life for Harry, Dumbledore died for Draco," I countered. "Well, let's hope it doesn't come to that," Pamela shone with joy and pride. "You act like I have a choice," I sighed. "Touché," Pamela nodded. "I see what you mean about these two," Maddox addressed Rachel. "Oh my God," Delilah laughed. "You wove Harry Potter into a life and death conversation and it made sense. I am probably going to die, but I'll die knowing I have lived." "Not you too?" Maddox glared at Delilah. Rachel just shook her head. We exited the car, settled ourselves out. Rachel took point, Delilah took one flank while Pamela took the other. By happenstance, I ended up in the middle, yeah right, with Virginia covering my back. "You stay here," Pamela put a hand on Rachel's shoulder. "You'll need to lead the team in if someone 'pumps up the volume'." Interesting euphemism for 'when people start killing people'. "What are we doing today?" Miyako 'appeared'. She'd been walking down the sidewalk toward us, the Kazak Consulate was a townhouse, but her presence hadn't registered. "I require your pledge of silence on what is to transpire. No death is intended," I stated calmly to Miyako. "I didn't know you were versed in ninja contracts, much less spoke Japanese?" Miyako responded. Blink. "I didn't know I spoke it either, " I mumbled. "No sweat," Pamela tried to hustle us along. "He's a quick study." Yeah. I didn't feel it apropos to point out I hadn't heard myself speaking Japanese, or understood that my words had some secret meaning. "How important is this to my people?" Miyako asked. Now that I was paying attention to it, I could make out that she was speaking in her native tongue. "If they don't think we can be trusted to not speak of what is to transpire for a week, they are going to kill us," I related my suspicions. "My mind and heart are joined in this decision." "I give you my pledge," Miyako nodded. She looped her arm in mine. "Does anyone care to enlighten me?" Maddox prodded. Whoa. It seemed that, beside me and Miyako, only Pamela spoke Japanese. "Special Agent Maddox, no matter what, don't give up your gun, when we say run, run, and shoot to kill because they will be trying to kill us," I informed her. "Does the term 'extraterritoriality' mean anything to anyone here?" Maddox snapped. Her nervousness was totally understandable. I stopped at the top of the steps, looking over my shoulder. I nodded. Pamela, Delilah and Miyako nodded as well. "Hold on, I can't believe I'm saying this. Does anyone have a back-up I can use?" Maddox groaned. Rachel quick-stepped forward and handed over a 22 automatic pistol then a spare clip with a smooth, practiced motion that suggested that SD swapped weapons all the time. Maddox didn't miss the casualness of the gesture. The firearm and magazine disappeared. "Fine, we will never discuss the laws we just butchered, ever, and if I die and any of you make it out alive, I will seek revenge at whatever cost FROM WHEREVER I AM," FBI girl growled. "One of us," Pamela smirked at me as I touched the doorbell. It opened promptly. We weren't on a crowded street, we were on their stoop and a security camera was pointed right at us. We were invited in and two rather Caucasian-looking gentlemen (Kazaks are a mixed bag of Turks and Cumans) were waiting with the doorman. They looked tough in that they took personality lessons from saddle leather. "You will place your weapons there," the more charismatic of the two spoke up. He was pointing to a side table that looked large enough for the task. "No," was the most courteous response I could muster. He didn't look surprised. He didn't look much like he was breathing, or blinking either. "Go," he pointed to the door. I looked to Pamela. "Well, that didn't take long," I grinned. I felt out the necklace under my shirt and pulled it over my head. "Please return this to its owner in the spirit it was given." He took it. The doorman opened the door and out we went. Rachel was back in our GL550, using the door as possible cover. She said we could take our seats and away we rolled. Maddox looked apoplectic. She had prepared herself for the Wild, Wild West, not a doe-see-doe at the door. In her mind, I had wound her up for nothing. My phone rang. "Cáel Ishara, there seems to have been a diplomatic miscommunication," a male native Turkish-speaker said in heavily accented English. "The person you are meeting must be approached in the spirit of peace." "No, I understood you perfectly," I assured him. "We aren't the Brownies, or the Girl Scouts, Buddy. I don't know, or trust you and you don't know, or trust me, yet. I will compromise though. I will respect your traditions. I will enter your home unarmed. In turn, everyone in the building will line up outside on the street except for the person I'm supposed to meet. Is that acceptable?" Pause. "Do you hate these people, or like them?" Maddox grumbled. "With you, I can't quite tell." "That would not be acceptable," the man finally responded. "Perhaps an alternative. You come in, alone yet armed." "Nope. Due to the efforts of people far smarter than me, I know pretty much who I am meeting, so I am either very rude, insane, or bear a message that is worth my life," I countered. "Your personal safety is guaranteed," was the counter-offer. "That is a false promise, not because you lack honor, or respect for me, but because you are from a wise and noble lineage with a historical propensity of cutting to the heart of any problem." By that, I meant they'd cut my heart out. "What I expect is for every one of you to hold the future of the Earth and Sky above any such concepts as personal promises, hospitality, and honor. I am even putting my faith in your willingness to put the survival of the Earth and Sky over your own well-being," I riposted. "If the message is so crucial, you should be willing to come alone," back at me. "It isn't important to me," I stated. "Listen, a war is about to break out. Unless we both want to be found all alone in the outhouse masturbating when the headsman comes, one of us has to blink. Today, it is you. Tomorrow you may be able to return the favor and mess with my head." Pause. "Your koumiss is getting warm." "We'll be right there. We apologize for the delay. Traffic is murder these days, or a close facsimile thereof," I gave a little back in the humility department. "Tiger Lily, " "On it, Ishara, Wakko Ishara. I've been circling the block," Tiger Lily had anticipated my antics. Sure, I acted like I had no game plan, but I never wasted people's time. Maybe if I developed an actual game plan I could do even better. "Wakko Ishara?" it was Delilah's and Maddox's turn to share a 'what the?' moment. "May I explain the sacred names?" Rachel requested of me. "I have a feeling these two might become a fixture." "By all means, Rachel. Our trust runs deep," I trusted Rachel with more than my life; I trusted her with my future. "Wakko, as in you're the nutty one?" Delilah made a stab at our arcane nomenclature. If you use small words does that make it gnomenclature? Pamela winked at me, psychic twin grandmother powers activate! "We need complementary rings," Pamela remarked. Sweet! "Cáel Ishara is differentiated as Wakko Ishara, Ishara, first of House Ishara, is Yakko Ishara, and, " Rachel began. "The Animaniacs? Your code names are the Warner Brothers and their sister Dot?" Maddox gasped. "You are beyond nuts." "And the Goddess Ishara is named, by House Ishara and House Ishara alone," Rachel made some warding appeal against divine punishment, "as Dot Ishara." Maddox's face shown with disbelief. "Following Cáel Ishara into battle has been one of my greatest pleasures," Rachel stared at Maddox. "I never knew insanity could be so liberating, or that laughing at death could be such an aphrodisiac." "When did you two go into battle?" Delilah wondered. "In a morgue, fighting to retrieve the body of his fallen father so that our enemies could not desecrate it," Rachel explained. Ah, the walls of Troy, fighting over the spoils of the dead. "You mean when I face-planted?" I grinned at Rachel. "Even without a weapon, your instincts were good, forcing our enemy to commit to multiple angles of coverage even though your efforts were foiled by a footing failure. Your rushing their leader was even more heroic in that you were unarmed and using your body as a decoy, knowing your enemy's superior skill would stop him from shooting you," Rachel smiled my way, sex. "Let me get this straight," Miyako finally spoke up. "You charged an enemy unarmed then stumbled and failed. They were armed?" "Yes, with a 3 57 Magnum revolver and a 10 gauge sawed-off automatic shotgun, in tight confines and close range, oh, and no cover." Maddox replied, then to me, "I read the report." "Then you repeated the action a few minutes," Miyako. "Less than a minute later," Maddox clarified. "A minute later, wow! You are as fearless as we've heard. Please don't die before we have a baby," Miyako gave me a quick hug. If you cover a zeppelin with uranium paint, can it still fly, or does it sink to the center of the Earth? Ninja babies, We had returned to the stairs at the Consulate. This time the door swung open upon our approach. "Is there some drug you are all taking to bask in this shared fantasy life?" Maddox mumbled. "One of us," Pamela retorted. "One of us." "One of us," I joined in. It helped cut the tension. The bodyguards were present right where we'd them last time. They ushered us up the stairs to a second floor sitting room that ate up half the floor. There were two men there; radiating that subtle assurance that a half-dozen killers were close by. The man standing was Iskender, the E and S emissary from Dad's funeral. I broke all decorum, strode to the man, locked arms, hugged him tight and patted him on the back. "Thank the spirits you are here," I whispered, "all this lack of dick is making me a bit stir-crazy." "Ah, yes, it is good to see you again too," Iskender imparted as we broke our embrace. His boss, the guy on the sofa, shot me and my Kyrgyz buddy a sharp look. The Main Man was clearly Mongolian and must have thought blank, white walls exhibited too much empathy. "Koumiss," the boss offered. I sipped it from a simple, yet regal drinking mug that probably hit the kiln 200 years ago. "Mare, or yak?" I inquired as I handed the cup around. Iskender came first, but it was clearly my intention that we all partake. It was more a matter of the host's pledge of sanctuary than me wanting to share the koumiss. It tasted like thin, lightly chilled, bitter beer with a vanilla-almond milk shake-chaser. "Mare, of course. Please sit," he offered. He defined the suggestion by slipping off the sofa onto the layered carpet rug. He was semi-reclined, so we followed suit. "We should pray for the protection of the spirits," was the suggestion that wasn't a suggestion. It was his itinerary. He clapped his hands and from beyond a curtained partition came this really sensual Mongolian chick carrying a large brass bowl. She flicked her eyes at me and an instant connection was formed. She liked to bark like a dog under the full moon, okay, I'm not sure where that came from. "Nice woman," I told the leader. "She looks like she has seen many winters." Whoa! Where the fuck did that come from? I got a shocked reaction from Iskender. The Leader looked pissed, if a flake of paint on the white wall indicated anger. The girl blushed like what I said was an incredible turn on. "She is my daughter," the Leader pointed out. Way past swallowing my foot. My ankle was tasty. "My name is Oyuun Tömörbaatar. My faithful Iskender, you know. This is my daughter T. Sarangerel. She is studying at N Y U and is not entertaining marriage proposals at this time," he slapped down his boundaries. Somehow 'I only want to sleep with her' didn't sound like the right response. Wait! Saying his 'daughter had many winters' was a marriage bargaining opening move. What the fuck! "What I meant was that surely many men have died trying to come before you," I back-pedaled. More happy looks from the daughter. More paint peeling from the dad. Pamela made sure more koumiss was going around. Getting drunk could hardly hurt at this juncture. Sarangeral placed the bowl between us. It was filled with clear, cold water undoubtedly collected from a mountain-fed glacier. "Let us cleanse our hands in the water so that we may speak with clarity," O. Tömörbaatar said. We dipped our fingers and, for a second, I saw him. Not 'O', but HIM. "It is good to finally meet you Ferko Ishara Cáel Nyilas," the man said. My Spidey senses told me he was feeling less 'good' about this meeting every second. "How can your people and mine better get along?" 'Let me impregnate your daughter', would probably get my skull split open. "No time for that," I replied. "I know where HE is. The Seven Pillars have found a way to search the Weave and are closing in. You must act with haste." Whether it was disbelief, or old schooled Ku Chun in the art of gambling, the older man gave no outward reaction. "Where is he?" O. Tömörbaatar asked in a gentle tone. "I can do you one better," I steeled myself for the unknown forces I was invoking. I put my hands on the bowl's lip and looked in. Several seconds later, he did as well. For a moment, nothing. It was like a ripple in reverse. The first earth tremor I barely noticed. The ripples grew and grew until I felt the whole row of townhouses would come crashing down. Wind snapped the locks on the windows, flinging them wide open and tearing at the curtains like streamers in a hurricane. Then we saw HIM clearly. HE stopped driving this old, beat-up Peugeot and was pulling to the side of a desolate stretch of highway. HE could sense something yet couldn't pinpoint the source of his unease. We definitely got the impression this wasn't his first taste of this experience, the Seven Pillars. He was young, maybe my age. He looked like an educated man turned vagabond/boundless traveler. HIS eyes, his eyes had a depth that were a microcosm of what I'd glimpsed in Ishara, Dot Ishara's unshielded glance when we first met. All lingering doubts vanished in my mind. "I know that place," O T muttered, his eyes fixated on the only feature in the vacant expanse, a road sign, in Chinese. Yikes. "I know that place." The image faded. Our meeting venue was intact. Whatever I felt transpire, I had shared with O. Tömörbaatar alone. "You have work to do," I stated as I cleared my throat. "I will leave you to it." I stood. "What do you wish for this gift?" O T reached out and touched my sleeve. "When the time comes, maybe you can help us," I replied. "A man who asks for nothing can expect anything," O T smiled for the first time. "Go." I did not take a fear-free breath until the cars started up and we pulled away. He'd let us live. Even with that priceless piece of magical insight, he'd let us live. "I'm still stunned we got out alive," I sighed. "I wasn't really sure he'd take the news as well as he did." No one said anything for a minute. "Why would he have killed us?" Delilah inquired. "You, I understand. I don't know what you communicated to that young lady, but the old guy wasn't happy about it. He was going to kill us over that?" Pause. "What did the rest of you see and hear?" I looked around the cabin. Pamela appeared worried. "I didn't know you spoke Chagatai," Miyako smiled at me. "You are full of surprise. I only caught a word, or two, and none of it made sense." "MRI," I groaned. "Magnetoencephalography," Pamela said in the same breath. "Mine is better, Boyo." "What is going on?" Rachel upped her alertness level. "We need to take Cáel to a hospital that has a Magnetoencephalography device," Pamela insisted. "He's spontaneously speaking languages he didn't know moments earlier, " Maddox put things together first. The rest nodded at her assessment. "We'll need to have his records from Havenstone sent over as a baseline." Poor Virginia, the absurdity of my life was sucking her in. "I'll call Katrina," Rachel informed us. I was a mental case once more. At least my input was still being solicited. "How many guns do you have on you?" Pamela zinged me. The answer was obvious, two. My Glock and my back-up. That didn't seem right. "Ah, two?" I responded. "Yeah, something is happening to your muscle memory as well," Pamela shook her head. "What exactly does that mean, and what's wrong with Cáel's brain?" Delilah studied the group. "It means he could spontaneously pull out his gun and start shooting us?" Pamela confessed her uncertainty. "I don't know. We'd better figure out which impulses are his guiding light right now before that happens." "I don't even know how to begin reporting this," Maddox muttered. "Cheer up. Our Cáel is still currently in charge. Did you appreciate how he lured in that young Mongolian girl? That's classic Cáel," Pamela comforted the crowd. I was saved from a straightjacket because I was a 'Playa'. (Meadowlands Medical Center in far off New Jersey) I'm not political. For me, that means I am completely and utterly dedicated to whatever doctrine that the cutest political campaigner in front of me endorses. Fifteen minutes on the internet and you can fake it like a pro. Be careful to be with the winning team when the results come in. Nothing makes a political chick go wild like sneaking into the candidate's office and screwing her on the newly elected/re-elected figure's desk. Let her scream out her idol's name. Odds are neither of you will be welcomed back afterwards anyway. Why politics now? Javiera called some people. I had a sneaking suspicion that someone I knew and trusted got in touch with my 'Aunts' as well. All I knew for sure was the Hospital's Administrator's phone began ringing off the hook and I'd become the hospital's number one priority. The hospital staff was visibly irritated with the clout raining down on their heads for about an hour. Once they digested my Havenstone records, all of that changed. Holy 'Published in The New England Journal of Medicine', someone had drilled a micro-surgical hole in my skull in the middle of a wrestling match with no resulting cerebral scarring. THEN this unknown device shot into my skull with pinpoint accuracy and pumped a ghastly amount of energy into my cerebrum. They were fascinated. They were so fascinated I heard two medical technicians mutter about where the Zombie Survival Guide could be found. They triple checked my vital signs, again. I was still as much alive as when I checked myself in. There was a rumor that a fire ax disappeared from a stairwell close by, but not one confessed to the deed. I was speaking in languages I had no reason to know? They were surprised I could contain my mouth drool. It was somewhat disheartening to hear three seasoned physicians discuss what probable scenarios could explain me still being in a non-vegetative state, or alive for that matter. Some poor nurse had to ask. "Do you feel an unnatural, interest in human brains?" she whispered when she though no one was close by. "I'm not sure what you mean," I whispered back. "I always respect a woman's intelligence. Sex is a cerebral passion. What's the point if you can't communicate with your partner?" Pamela slapped me upside my head. That disturbed just about everybody else in the vicinity and my mentor was promptly exiled from the room. I was curious about what havoc she was perpetrating on this establishment. My condition had gotten her past all the heavy security and I knew without seeing that someone high ranking had misplaced their ID badge. Maybe Pamela was the love-child of Batman and Cat woman. Before you think that's comic fanboy talk, recall what my life was like at that moment. Tests ensued. The staff decided that Havenstone employed a bunch of quacks and snake charmers. Two hours later, they found out they were wrong. Larger battery of tests, same results. I was the second coming of Christ, back from the dead, or a zombie living in a convincing state of denial. Some folks wouldn't let that go. Pamela had proved to be prophetic. Her pet gizmo finally provided a new picture of what my neural pathways were up to. If there is any doubt, 'I've never seen that before' is not what you want to hear one of North America's experts in the field of neuroscience say. The first educated opinion was that I suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, that meant I was hit in the head a lot. Normally that diagnosis comes in the midst of an autopsy. I was having paralytic seizures. They had me juggle a squeeze-ball, then two and finally three. My perfect performance frustrated them. Women find relatively simple carnival tricks to be seductive. Pluck a card from a girl's bra gets you both to some dark corner, hungrily looking for the rest of the deck, I speak from experience. Next up at bat: 'I was possessed', I shit you not. Holistic medicine was right on board with the team. Was I influenced by a supernatural power? Yes I was. So claimed the majority of people on Earth. Did I receive specific instructions? Yes, and so did practitioners of Voodoo/Vodun on three continents. I added that I attempted to evade said instructions when I could. Did I have 'evil' impulses to hurt myself, or others? Huh? For starters, my matron goddess was more of a 'fucker' than a 'fighter' and her instructions were always suitably vague, the same way a Philosophy professor would give you a ten word pointless sentence on Friday and expect you to have a 250 page doctrine on Monday morning. That hit home. Too many normally smart people take a philosophy class in college hoping for an easy-A. Some teachers love dissolving those delusion, sitting back and watching your hopes and dreams of task-free weekends go down the drain. The more obscure the discipline, the more perverse the desire. That is why you always pick a teacher of the opposite gender (if in doubt, use a gay/lesbian test) and keep 'sex for grades' on the menu. Was I suffering from optical illusions, or phantom noises? Straight to the point, yes, I saw and talked with ghosts. So did the Long Island Medium, the casts of Ghost Hunters, Paranormal Witness plus George Anderson and Chip Coffey. To my credit, I didn't do it for profit, or in order to influence people. Was I seeing ghosts now? I was in hospital, so odds weren't bad. I had every non-ghost raise their left hand. No ghosts. Was my paranormal dementia pre- or post-brain trauma? Did seeing a college student being called before his class and successfully accused of plagiarism on his senior thesis, turning him into one of the Restless Dead count? No? My 'disputed' abilities were all post-college employment, thank you very much. Did the ghosts possess me/tell me to do things? I was not possessed and, discounting sexual bondage and my current work venue, had never been possessed. From my limited exposure, ghosts wanted to not be alone in the afterlife, to be guided to a final resting place with others of their kind/family/friends. None had taught me languages, asked me to steal something, or kill anyone. Had any done so, I would have denied them. Such actions were immoral and I could still freely differentiate between right and wrong. I preferred to commit wrong on my own initiative and making me do good was a chore most sane people abandoned after a few days. I took a Rorschach test. The results were predictable because I had taken old 'R' several times before. Just like every other time, I'd mixed up sexual innuendo with a psychological test to seduce the test-giver, everything reminded me of intercourse. I changed it up with this girl. I gave her numbers. Sometime after I was long gone, they were going to figure out the ink blots were numbered after whichever erotic positions from the Kama Sutra I was reminded of at the time. I knew that wasn't being helpful and I was certain I wasn't a brain specialist. I also knew Rorschach wasn't the key to solving my woes. Final remaining hypothesis, I was utilizing 30 % of my brain capacity with three independent patterns emerging, not the usual 5 %. For that to work, my brain had to be oozing out my ears because brains generate a terrific amount of heat. My temperature was a steady 37.3 C (99 F) and my ear channels were free of obstruction. Hey man, cleaning your ears is quick and easy. Don't risk turning off a date with misfortunately located ear-hair and wax. How was my brain shedding the heat? Their solution, let's do a Spinal Tap. No way. I'd seen that band and they were all extremely fucked up, even for old guys. I wasn't going down that road. They insisted. I suggested that I consent to the procedure with the condition that I received no pain killers/sedatives of any kind and I got to grab and hold onto the testicles of my two, current, least favorite doctors. When they realized I was deadly serious and immovable on the issue, they came up with a new plan, no Spinal Tap. Gutless sissies. Into this vacuum of information, a brainstorm emerged (besides my inexplicable one). They would talk to me, no more interrogations, an actual verbal exchange. They couldn't come over and start flapping their gums like some punk rock band with no talent. They were suddenly worried about 'concerning' me and 'agitating my unstable state'. I pray to Goddess Ishara that one day soon they play back the tapes of their early hours working on me and pay close attention to my facial expressions of shock, horror, fear and depression as they clearly and openly talked about me as if I was the Fiji Mermaid. But hey, a few of them were kinda cute, so in the final analysis all that emotional trauma worked its way out. Hospital highlights: (Understand, I was lying on a table while various specialists prodded and talked about me as if I wasn't there. To strike back at reality, I throbbed my penis every time this cute Parasitologist looked at it. Finally ) Female Chief of Neurosurgery: "Did anyone think to study changes in is body's nervous system?" (Guilty looks all around) Neuro Surgeon: "What are all these needle marks?" Havenstone Medico, "Those are muscle stimuli insertion sites. They kept his musculature from atrophying while he was in a coma." Neuro Surgeon: "Let me get this straight. This man had a lightning bolt go off in his head and part of your healthcare regimen was to run a constant current of electricity throughout the rest of his body." (Scathing looks at the Medico from everyone else, jackals) HM: "He has retained excellent muscle tone." Neuro Surgeon: "Have you even taken the Hippocratic Oath?" HM: (offended) "Of course not, he's Greek." Neuro Surgeon: "What does my patient being Greek have to do with anything?" HM: "Not him (pointing at me). Hippocrates, he was a Greek. Cáel is Magyar/Irish Gaelic." Neuro Surgeon: "Helpful, that's not. He seems to have a great deal of bruises and scarring, some of it certainly received over an extensive period of time. Is this your work?" HM: (in a positive note) "No. It has not been my pleasure to spar with Cáel yet." Neuro Surgeon: "Isn't he a bit, big for you?" &

god love jesus christ women new york amazon time death head father english stories earth man house sports olympic games hell reality deep war ms chinese wild sex japanese russian leader batman new jersey medicine north america dad mom greek shame hospitals afghanistan respect harry potter fbi philosophy fantasy saved champion stage wind leads humor touch beyonce atlantic manhattan muslims straight mine council narrative iraq acting cult id records cat worse senior names rio fate sexuality tests raiders odds fuck gaza faces connected constitution jail qatar guilty fatherhood traffic ot holistic knock buddy houses janeiro missionary goddess bahamas quebec keeper psychologist tlc fifty compassionate liar new york giants blink taxi translation rolls recall wild west sd mri cheer bing girl scouts jehovah explicit adultery ancestors anal nsa administrators underworld mano bastards clever protocols warner brothers slaughter scandinavian bitches lay larger mare runners novels ajax arial lebanese internship band aids conqueror mysticism buttons hm dumbledore duh secret societies yummy grizzly magnum stud caucasians canada day turks erotica maldives brownies fp spinal tap nerf weave mongolian cyclops grandson assyria new england journal tad animaniacs iliad peugeot endo orgies clans high priestess glock draco foe forc burnham rorschach ako medico umm hippocrates appoint coughing castello ursula k le guin pluck amway eek my house legions canadian american trojan war anat consulate scathing hippocratic oath developing world evian ruger granddad cunnilingus first house seven pillars other half oink tigerlily bestiality mountie estere main man gutless long island medium javiera yalda friendless issue one marilynn un charter corporate security professor snape kyrgyz paranormal witness temujin council chambers george anderson wakko miyako literotica zombie survival guide chip coffey house heads mycenaeans black sands shammy nicorette 2x4 fiji mermaid amazon c kazaks katrina love

Cáel and the Manhattan Amazons: Part 8

sean combs puff anthony joshua lawd shammy

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 8, 2024

Cáel's tombstone: For the love of women, women put him here.In 25 parts, edited from the works of FinalStand.Listen and subscribe to the ► Podcast at Connected..

christmas united states america god tv love jesus christ ceo women american new york director family amazon time new year netflix death live money head game canada world learning president friends trust thanksgiving new york city church father chicago australia lord art europe english babies stories business hollywood earth starting china peace school science spirit man freedom mother los angeles house rock body las vegas france men secret work england voice sports giving woman personal college olympic games talk water mission hell law service real running training state crisis change reality land americans british living gospel child french pain stand young speaking germany canadian care west deep building truth club video race nature war society africa ms office girl brothers chinese gold european wild masters home dating blood fire sleep spiritual ukraine government cross italy rich sex simple walking evolution strength fighting german brain turning murder japanese board russian leader reach kings psychology spanish batman moon european union victory search dna mind girls local evil new jersey western italian putting speak medicine romans missing guns holy army universe leaving public north america drop safe south dad write darkness open mom berlin surprise chief funny safety hands night mars brazil police professional silence fake wife hawaii jewish santa fortune tales meaning south africa illinois north irish greek europa keys shame new orleans african americans wealth clients african serve hospitals rome field east afghanistan weird indian respect nasa connecting high school harry potter security argentina pass fbi world war ii philosophy shadow maryland facing fantasy poor legal watching saved asian boss park champion middle east code temple court stage ladies target wind awards wall dragon afraid divine worry massachusetts md driving leads humor broadway portugal sun nazis color economics balancing jews fall in love run hong kong winner drugs violence families union force touch dark saving sweden wolf cleveland beyonce standing alaska player daughter clear medical south carolina captain quit killing walmart laws curse fight tool britain danger chicken rights atlantic manhattan catholic muslims straight mothers dangerous kiss wise casa old testament threats forgive warriors partners snow queens couple bubbles scary netherlands daddy cops act mine council narrative iraq paradise calm sexual tears dinner married figure civil war bond fathers acting cult covenant plant obedience id gang new england guilt mac stanford breakfast flash taste columbia records cat adolf hitler cd mass worse lust male senior names kick sister doom cia air tiger shit hang worthy caring james bond unknown philippines credit sitting beginners blame indonesia poland engaging mma venezuela soccer peru eat federal smile southern accept laugh define latin anime rio sisters pure chocolate criminals honestly west coast prepared fate south america wikipedia gotta hint pope dare norway attorney ninjas trick sense kicking sexuality stepping oz alpha flesh korean secure gps picking failing tests offering raiders sword bodies denmark odds outdoors fuel belgium shoot heads flowers drunk entering brazilian egyptian sucks scream fuck gaza faces twenty confusion connected guys thousands highways constitution bbq lying jail equality east coast hunting heading albert einstein bang honesty walls new hampshire congratulations qatar tasks funeral factor boxing guilty lent defeat bright laughter loyalty fatherhood lonely sort traffic steal bass astrology delivery neighbor ot long island lift eleven cold war fantastic wearing beating implications sins pillars logic dracula heritage harder investigation jedi physicians civil uganda lunch pants mafia holistic knock explain ecuador confused finished crimes best friend cpa treating armed publishers hanging cancel swiss ram personally cheap warm ash buddy worried eyes ottawa quitting cows contest mount hundreds fed serial killers bitch nun delaware drinks excuse clothes polish uncle finishing idiots stealing prey samaritan denial careful houses southwest domestic violence nepal catholic church janeiro shut virgin nirvana assistant pulling doc smoking esp upset missionary sad constant selfish southeast asia vengeance goddess slap domestic cliff punch human resources soviet union buddha bahamas professionals rapid ethiopia mexico city antarctica legion badass portuguese menu hook batteries discrimination valor northeast afterlife padre needless hungary selection ark quebec psycho keeper islamic soviet thai sharp psychologist bmw thirty tlc arm mutter warfare home alone northern correct conscience amendment rios subway turkish lie great britain washington state competing gemini horn indians won retire champagne arctic worked laughing thank god day one cgi goodbye knife touching hoping celtic gamble top ten old man runner shirt warner spring break defend plague halfway arab contrary chose mourning fifty recycling ladder bullshit silly terrorists protocol household nah compassionate tested tight cosmos bdsm liar lighting jerks conduct smooth penis new york giants nobel prize carnival ignoring canceled theft lemon arabic blink little mermaid fascinating orders painful hern grandmothers tide cycling knives ding masculine taxi gremlins syrian possession eastern europe afghan translation hunters bit lands myanmar communists belly grandpa acid rolls added mp recall bedroom wild west brotherhood foolish saturday night mumbai kindergarten handbook minimum companion forgetting physically homeland security crap illuminati hurry screw burned cobra vietnamese unc petty babe bro almighty remind hierarchy real housewives relentless serpent allah guinness secret service sd irishman peter pan libra goodnight mansion bluetooth mri king kong pops cheer roman empire ranger abyss tango homer smaller btw bing dmv salmon gangs girl scouts newark hq jehovah explicit sixth good morning blonde martian charging ak casper grandparents glasses fiscal yahweh appeals fucking planned parenthood state department acquisitions grandfather adultery pole belarus nypd bibles aunt murdered rude central park heavens holy grail ancestors fuego breach libertarians mister anal wisely plea winds nsa patagonia santa fe momma boy scouts device bordeaux feds ballet converting bounce rope administrators sasquatch south koreans lemonade shore estonia 401k atm underworld mano monday night sir meth puerto rican dwellings predators bastards rockies clever menace torn hungarian knees promising apologize naples protocols warner brothers slaughter cpr tender tend diaspora laden slayer unable south asian cape cargo scandinavian bitches jaguar lay immortal homicide tibet technically underwear copper cheerleaders condoms refer pd lacking guarding asians esquire al qaeda stevenson devo appalachian virtually ambitious larger ro automatic benjamin franklin mare nile summer camp life insurance runners fist sunday night taurus equally novels personnel oath midway std nazi germany thursday night dwayne johnson lithuania angola conversely liquor insults stephen hawking respecting ems hmmm kerr hamsters middle ages swinging pile atlantic ocean pratt tarzan hush sneak ajax mecca wwi seduction lost ark cock mistress verbal scotch kkk special forces morals east africa tibetans slovakia justice department smiling friendzone my father business management odd free will placing dominican erotic affordable care act sixty swear accuracy excessive flavors asshole lebanese goth halls illusions internship martial cort day two dunkirk jefe band aids pointing azerbaijan reception british empire conqueror mysticism alps stupidity tuna underneath latvia bow milfs sully workday buttons pin anima sexually windy city papua new guinea grinding allied lone hm spear ids understood dumbledore muay thai wham professors duh hooters guards western europe supreme court justice introspection repeating vacuum burma males green beret nikita defy democratic republic kinky trojan bce missing link charlie chaplin interpol big one cheetahs freemasons hamptons virginity angelic jason statham pity oak kill bill mccabe parasites ear year one behave irrelevant thrilling nutcracker mothering futurama convincing george carlin vessels eastside white christmas depaul yugoslavia al capone secret societies ran slight yum neanderthals serbian yummy central asia cha extensive grizzly cougar vulcans pinnacle liking sweaty tragically storming triple crown whore morons lesbians chinese communist party airborne sikh reminding great wall exiting magnum heavily grappling osama pleased savor obama administration u s missing person state fairs stud generals dispelling bulgarian deep south pocahontas man up lawless emergency rooms gf state senators caucasians nipple madi obtain suffice shampoo inuit tandem canada day turks maldives erotica sensing goddesses speeding brownies soviets archery purple heart cambodians fp sob strangely rising sun atf spinal tap fdic oh god nerf weave mmm helium anthrax hostility marshal god almighty comforting lk mongolian federal court apologizing ghost hunters renfield moor holy cross princess leia ncis old world cyclops cicero restraint roman catholic church grandson trojans barnum oaths rasputin good guy grenades reload oh my god sop assyria brewster collar sz new england journal east asian kurdish referring ade amazonian creeping jonestown jason voorhees special agents janus my dad ish dg braille horace belles jokers third reich fraternity ballroom carmichael medical center diplomatic stalkers tad federal bureau eurasia taser messina seti timer christmas holiday legalize feinstein sub saharan africa soaking genghis khan winslow arabian spirit world nimrod laguardia patriot act farsi hecklers district court pla carnegie mellon animaniacs wiccans goddamn testicles directive iliad stasi slavic bohemia peeling peugeot poo luxemburg truce chalmers columbian endo chicagoans equestrian catholic school orgies faults modernism home loans village voice kneel recount kurdistan harmonious sipping clans precinct my mother high priestess glock team lead resonate lombard lcd draco ancestor invading foe keyes donetsk emergency services magna carta coroner forc burnham krav maga celts bushido hubby rhodes scholar rorschach violating assyrian penetration grace kelly congolese fabiola asc bolivian snape frat ako mah atwood blush second language enrique iglesias friday morning medico darwinian ancient world umm germanic prc i won big boss hippocrates buster keaton pinhead eurasian woot snapping ishtar world domination kama sutra bum dumbass swiss alps coal mine holy crap improper life plans tigger sizzling armory my son holy shit prick beg appoint holy cow four days hunting season castello coughing amusement park rangers speedo neapolitan athleticism vassar college orphan black central africa omniscient felicit hadrian timothy leary his house eharmony father daughter wha alphas amazonia little sister great pumpkin pandering naughty list infighting finnes ursula k le guin propelled birthed umami pluck evasion timur magyar us navy seals chuckles hittites solar plexus amway barring intensive care geisha cowardly eek my house legions hilton head danube motherfuckers restraining orders mongoose western united states evil empire black forest zen masters brainiac iron age disrespecting yakima intercourse silky trust funds acp vietnamese american ow bacchus mein kampf bad girl taunting internal affairs abed assistant manager kindergarten cop canadian american cavemen 3f padawan trojan war anat old spice mesoamerican hellas crouching tiger lumpy ramses consulate shotguns medical examiners top shot last place patching hittite oliver cromwell boohoo chicago pd east river crewe intensive care units cunt scathing your father constanza imhotep hippocratic oath sick leave rolling thunder groan dominicans saturday afternoon deyoung scythians northern district ash ketchum fifth amendment developing world octopussy evian fuckers flatbush voa jacking laughable nonviolent maoist aerospace engineer atta tasmanian devils ssr girls gone wild hidden dragon khmer surrogates bbc america ruger wonder twins troika firemen huns vassar soe insulted exceptionally every member security services arwen extermination big wheels ace hardware incan saint james chicago police department writ gibbon granddad wies united states district court good hope bravado sterile alternating littering nubian ragged humping ohio valley little bighorn cunnilingus sex addicts first house ngozi sparing united states attorney seven pillars colonial america clearinghouse iridium baring ravine witness protection flailing cleverly other half bitchy sky blue central european invariably overt your mother international finance braulio mafioso hic sapphic black hand holy mother oink tigerlily brawling other' inadvertently moorish azerbaijani murmurs mmmmmm bouncers errands pharos lashing moose jaw bestiality quebecois smg retrieve stanhope sot uzbek mountie supremacists southern india sex god gruff black lotus modern american searing kibble wmds estere shoshone miranda rights augur sperm whales sheath matron caress olmec durex coils amory madame butterfly grans big sis main man gutless jaywalking minoan sinaloa cartel belafonte foolishly lead investigator slaughtering genghis long island medium unconquered squirts slavs romany mumbling javiera hey dad normals caller id muay yalda friendless cherrie bolingbrook egg mcmuffins latin kings yuppie blood feud wakefulness ibew sunni islam garden gnomes you god tri state area issue one picts cloaking han chinese mossberg holy fuck low countries bereft western roman empire marilynn we americans un charter rusty nail misinterpreting reichmann amateur night new agers peregrine falcon tabriz mississippi valley corporate security weeee magyars inflicted dutch east indies bwana death certificate ninja assassin professor snape momma bear kyrgyz christmas elf communist russia cambodian americans bomo englishwoman tamerlane lothario amerindian epona casus belli counter intelligence angel falls otolaryngologist subcontinent paranormal witness temujin dcup council chambers negative reinforcement pillow guy george anderson wagnerian wakko arpad fbi headquarters my aunt genoese obedience training welcome wagon miyako nazg hey bro british sas good golly wiggling zombie survival guide yes ma literotica chip coffey mediterranean world divulging my sisters personal defense bumpkin me let charlie horses savate hron new york county free tibet director c unluckily motherfu dual survival collapsible house heads century bce italian deli lucky bastards mycenaeans lilliputian natural born killer shammy eminently black sands hey lady daniel burnham english midlands dacian policia federal thorazine nicorette cheese puffs 2x4 in soviet russia 'thelma marda dimwit us tax code brian fung currying firing range cherry vanilla every amazon dutifully carnegie melon green meadows she had cocksucker unbutton fiji mermaid late saturday lydians amazon c neutron bomb bersa homicide division thuggee goddess ishtar united states federal wiccan priestess cyberdyne systems stanica girl you sarmatians deoxyribonucleic avars my japanese mirandized kazaks karvala bulgars her aunt gotchya maldives islands ruger lcr katrina love you broke

LAWD 139 - Puff Shammy

Lawd Have Mercy

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 22, 2024 97:01

Today, we discuss P. Diddy shenanigans, Anthony Joshua's defeat, the moon landing(was it a hoax?) and more.

Mocean Worker: ‘Shammy Davis Jr's'

Today's Top Tune

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 9, 2023 3:44

Adam Dorn, better known as Mocean Worker, lays down a thick bass line on his tenth LP, BOOMBOX, which he calls “a love letter to the bass.” Though his career began with the instrument, Dorn shied away from showcasing his virtuosic bass chops on his first eight albums, instead focusing on hyper-detailed mini-sampling, digital production, and synthesizers. That's no longer the case on BOOMBOX, where Mocean Worker balls out on “Shammy Davis Jr's.”

lp dorn boombox shammy mocean worker adam dorn

5.1.14 Turning Passion into Profit: Achieving A Nail Business At A Young Age - Shammy

On-The-Go Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 12, 2023 68:36

Meet Shammy, a young entrepreneur, who shares her remarkable journey of starting a successful nail business at a young age. From finding her passion for nail art to building a thriving business through hard work and word-of-mouth referrals, Shammy's story is a testament to the power of determination and mental strength. In this candid conversation, Shammy discusses the challenges and sacrifices she faced as a young entrepreneur, the support she received from her family, and the positive influences that shaped her path to success. Discover how personal development and surrounding oneself with high-energy individuals play a crucial role in achieving entrepreneurial goals. Tune in now to hear Shammy's insights on prioritizing her business, finding balance in motherhood, and the value of creating genuine connections with clients. If you're seeking motivation and tips for your own entrepreneurial journey, this episode is a must-listen! More about Shammy and her services: Website Booking: https://NailsByShammy.booksy.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/nailsbyshammy Find Voiced Now Instagram: ⁠Instagram.com/VoicedNow⁠ Facebook: ⁠https://www.facebook.com/voicednow⁠ Twitter: ⁠Twitter.com/voicednow⁠ Tik Tok: ⁠TikTok.com/Voicednow⁠ Youtube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaiVEnJgPg38asiX_sCUEwQ⁠ Podcast:⁠https://anchor.fm/voicednow⁠ Spotify: ⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/4E55IwsWzyQgnOMqDkBdkM⁠ Apple Podcast: ⁠https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/on-the-go-podcast/id1454631070?mt=2⁠ Google Podcast: ⁠https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy85NmUzZjQ0L3BvZGNhc3QvcnNz⁠ Produced by ORCA MEDIA Website: ⁠www.orcamediaca.com Facebook: ⁠https://www.facebook.com/orcamediaca⁠ Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/orcamediaca/ Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/company/90460712/admin/ Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@orcamediaca Threads: https://www.threads.net/@orcamediaca Want to work with our team through our services? ORCA Services Promo: https://calendly.com/orcamedia/voicedpodcast-promo Want to be a guest or know someone in mind? Recommend them or yourself here! Guest Sign Up Link: https://forms.monday.com/forms/42caea6b8c5091e60f9274ae1f4f51e9?r=use1 --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/voicednow/message

spotify tiktok discover passion turning profit google podcasts achieving threads nail recommend young age shammy

EP92: Bitcoin Karma with Scott, Mallory and Charlotte Sibley

2-Bit Idiots

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 8, 2023 44:30

Some would call it Karma. The more you try to do good, the more good seeks you out. We started the Kids Art Competition with a modest 200,000 Satoshi's to give away and our fingers crossed, but at time of writing, that prize is now 1,222,047 sats. Cool, right (thanks to all the supporters). We also got an e-mail from Scott and Mallory Sibley, whose daughter Charlotte wanted to enter the competition, and they wanted to add a few prizes as well (if that didn't disqualify Charlotte!) They have kindly offered to donate a copy of their books “Goodnight Bitcoin” and “If You Give a Monster a Bitcoin” to the winner of the 0–4-year-old competition, and a copy of their game “SHAmory” to the winners of the other 3 age groups. Plus, there will be a 50% discount at www.shamory.com to all those who enter the competition. We are very grateful for this kind gesture. So, get creative kids! We asked them to come on the podcast to tell their story. We discuss: Pacific Time minimalism Recognising that Bitcoin families working and learning together is important Teaching in a fun way Bringing the skills you have into Bitcoin Realising that you're part of something special Simplifying complex concepts Satoshi and Hal Manufacturing a product with no experience SHAmmy for Africa Built with Bitcoin Raising money to build a water well Finding a Bitcoin designer Selling bracelets for Satoshis Pod Shout-outs https://twitter.com/TheBitcoinConf https://twitter.com/rjames_BTC https://twitter.com/builtwithbtc https://twitter.com/YusufBWB https://twitter.com/BitcoinerJobs https://twitter.com/pacificbitcoin https://twitter.com/BitcoinAlive https://twitter.com/geyserfund https://twitter.com/Paulbuybtc https://twitter.com/PrinceySOV https://twitter.com/CryptoCloaks https://twitter.com/BtcPins Book Recommendations Goodnight Bitcoin, https://shamory.com/product-category/books/ If You Give a Monster a Bitcoin Bitcoin Money: A Tale of Bitville Discovering Good Money, https://amzn.to/44BpOr7 Enter or Support the Kids Art Competition https://bitcoin-first.com/kids-art-competition/ At least 1,222,047 sats to be won! Contact Us www.2bitidiots.com

teaching selling bitcoin monster karma simplifying btc recognising satoshi shammy shamory scott mallory

Energy and Savings with the Café Bitcoin Crew and My SHAmmy Project with Scott and Yusuf from Built with Bitcoin Foundation - May 30th, 2023

The Café Bitcoin Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later May 30, 2023 117:01

Alex Stanczyk, Tomer Strolight and the Café Bitcoin crew break down the importance of educating yourself on Bitcoin and being financially literate. We discuss some of the best steps you can take toward educating yourself, the unfortunate truths behind pension plans in American and ask, "what is money?". We also speak with Blockbain for a energy and mining update, our stats update with Ant with Timechainstats and lastly, Yusuf with the Built with Bitcoin Foundation and Scott with the SHAmmy project to talk about how their educating children and adults about Bitcoin with board games, toys and how they're using the funds to build wells in Africa for children. Timestamps: 00:00:00 "Café Bitcoin" Intro 00:01:01 Bitcoin Education, Pension Plans and Savings 00:16:39 What Is Money? 00:37:04 Bitcoin Stats with Ant and TimeChainStats.com 01:02:48 Energy Update with BlockBain 01:30:00 My SHAmmy Project with Scott and Yusuf with Building with Bitcoin 01:52:03 “Café Bitcoin” Outro Link to Staceski12 Lightning Donation: https://twitter.com/brian_trollz/status/1661107110128525339?s=20 Swan Private Team Members: Alex Stanczyk Twitter: https://twitter.com/alexstanczyk Café Bitcoin Crew: Ant: https://twitter.com/2140data Tomer: https://twitter.com/TomerStrolight Wicked: https://twitter.com/w_s_bitcoin Peter: https://twitter.com/PeterAnsel9 Produced by: https://twitter.com/Producer_Jacob Free Bitcoin-only live data (no ads) http://TimechainStats.com Swan Bitcoin is the best way to accumulate Bitcoin with automatic recurring buys and instant buys from $10 to $10 million. Get started in just 5 minutes. Your first $10 purchase is on us: https://swanbitcoin.com/yt Download the all new Swan app! iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/swan-bitcoin/id1576287352 Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.swanbitcoin.android&pli=1 Join us for Pacific Bitcoin Festival 2023! Purchase your tickets now before prices go up: https://PacificBitcoin2023.com Are you a high net worth individual or do you represent corporation that might be interested in learning more about Bitcoin? Swan Private guides corporations and high net worth individuals toward building generational wealth with Bitcoin. Find out more at https://swanbitcoin.com/private Check out the best place for Bitcoin education, Swan Bitcoin's “Bitcoin Canon”. Compiling all of the greatest articles, news sources, videos and more from your favorite bitcoiners! https://www.swanbitcoin.com/canon/ Get paid to recruit new Bitcoiners: https://swanbitcoin.com/enlist Hello and welcome to The Café Bitcoin Podcast brought to you by Swan Bitcoin, the best way to buy and learn about Bitcoin. We're excited to announce we are bringing the The Café Bitcoin conversation from Twitter Spaces to you on this show, The Café Bitcoin Podcast, Monday - Friday every week. Join us as we speak to guest like Max Keiser, Lyn Alden, Tomer Strolight, Cory Klippsten and many others from the bitcoin space. Also, be sure to hit that subscribe button to make sure you get the notifications when we launch an episode. Join us Monday - Friday 7pst/10est every Morning and become apart of the conversation! Thank you again and we look forward to giving you the best bitcoin content daily here on The Café Bitcoin Podcast. Swan Bitcoin is the best way to accumulate Bitcoin with automatic recurring buys and instant buys from $10 to $10 million. Get started in just 5 minutes. Your first $10 purchase is on us: ⁠⁠https://swanbitcoin.com/yt⁠⁠ Connect with Swan on social media: Twitter: ⁠⁠https://twitter.com/SwanBitcoin⁠

AMBOSS at MIRCIM: the 8th McMaster International Review Course in Internal Medicine in Krakow, Poland with Dr. Tanner Schrank and Shammy Benjamin

AMBOSS: Beyond the Textbook

Play Episode Listen Later May 15, 2023 8:44

In this very special episode, we're exploring the world of internal medicine in-the-field at the 8th McMaster International Review Course in Internal Medicine. We are talking with medical doctors and students at the event to find out their experiences, challenges, and advice beyond the textbook. Our interviewee is Shammy Benjamin, an AMBOSSador and soon-to-be fresh graduate at Poznań University of Medical Sciences in Poland. //8th McMaster International Review Course in Internal Medicine (MIRCIM) / https://empendium.com/mircim/ Shammy Benjamin / IG @heyshammyshammy / YT youtube.com/c/ShammyBenjamin How to approach the USMLE® as an International Medical Graduate / https://www.amboss.com/int/usmle/img/knowledge/usmle-match-preparation Beating resource and information overload in medical school with AMBOSS / https://youtu.be/Vxn6ksBzI2I Sign up for a free 5-day trial at https://go.amboss.com/pod-5day-trial. Read more at the AMBOSS blog: https://go.amboss.com/blog-ambosspod. Find out more about the AMBOSS podcast: https://go.amboss.com/int_podcast-23.

international poland beating yt internal medicine medical science mcmaster schrank usmle amboss krakow poland shammy

ANY SHAMMY SPOTS?

bittrio

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 3, 2023 126:39

ANY SHAMMY SPOTS?

spots shammy

Shammy Shake Salad

Eating Salads

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 18, 2023 21:53

Plus my review of one of the most disappointing movies I've seen in ages.

shake salad shammy

THE THIRD ANNUAL SHAMMY AWARDS - Return of the Panel, Bloomers, and Barrack's Bunny Bachelorette

awards panel memes bachelorette barrack bloomers shammy

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 28, 2022 107:42

IT'S SHAMMY SEASON! Thank you to my co-host Ben Gillen, for helping me present this year's Shammy Awards! 0:32 Special Announcement About the Podcast 4:38 The Panel of Preposterous Returns 14:10 Best Content Creator, Kait Hsu joins the show 26:57 Jenna Carlton joins the show, Meme of the Year 41:07 Episode of the Year, Matthew and Elena join the show 59:53 Barrack's Bunny Bachelorette, Insane Dana joins the show 1:14:24 Best In-Person Episode, Most Viewed Episode, Corinne Wong joins the show 1:20:29 Guest of the Year, George and J-Hop join the show, Questions for Shanon 1:37:48 Ryan Hamel joins the show #theshammys #theshanonshow #awards --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/theshanonshow/support

129 - Shammy away your shame with this key ingredient

Living Fearlessly Free with Heather Bunch

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 15, 2022 19:38

Do you ever feel shame? Have you ever said, “what's wrong with me!”? Or “I'm broken!” I know I have! We're talking about getting rid of shame with a key ingredient. So, today is for you if: If you're ready to stop feeling broken. If you're ready to release the shame. If you desire to step into your true identity, but shame is holding you back. Most of us have messed up somewhere along the way and felt bad about it. That's guilt. Guilt says, “dang, I messed up. I can make a change.” The other day I missed a scheduled networking call. I realized it wasn't on my calendar, which was a failure on my part. I felt guilty. I apologized, was able to reschedule it, and all was well. But shame is a whole other monkey. Shame says, “there's something wrong with me.” “I'm broken.” When I went through a divorce in my 20s, I felt shame. Here I was, “the good little Christian girl,” and I couldn't make my marriage work and felt deep shame. Something must be seriously wrong with me…broken beyond repair. How about you? Do you feel shame? That leads me to the first step to releasing shame. 1. Expose the shame You have to lay it all out on the table and expose it. See the shame for what it is. Look at how it shows up. Face it head-on. When I exposed my shame, I realized I thought I was better than divorce. Really I had pride and low self-esteem that made me ashamed of my divorce. 2. Wipe away the shame with grace Grace is the key ingredient to removing shame. Grace is your shammy that comes in and wipes away the shame. Ephesians 2:8-9 NIV For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God. Grace is greater than your shame. Receive Father's grace. Allow His grace to come in and wipe away your shame. 3. Rinse and repeat with thankfulness Shame will come back up because we've programmed our minds and body to hold onto the shame. But we can release it from our bodies and reprogram our minds by thanking God for His grace. Thank Him that His grace is greater than your shame. Every time shame tries to come up and take you back down into that black hole of shame, thank God you're forgiven, and His grace wipes away your shame. If you need more help overcoming shame, check out Your Fearless Journey podcast with Becky, Kat and Heather. Click here to check it out. https://open.spotify.com/episode/5oD7dncfnjH89lxIPcvk2J?si=rNFpN5tGSGaPWAtwikdq8Q We created a three-part series on shame, including shame we put on ourselves, shame others try to put on us and more tools to help you overcome shame. You've got this, and Father's got you! Thanks a Bunch for listening! Until Next Time, Live Fearlessly Free!!

god father shame ephesians guilt expose wipe rinse key ingredients shammy

Ep. 95 - George Glover | Revisiting the Trials, Shammy's Ballot Stuffing, and Sitting vs. Standing

vote defense standing trials sitting ballot us government glover united states navy stuffing united states marines shammy

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 9, 2022 78:39

George Glover is back on The Shanon Show! In a throwback edition of the podcast, George shares what is job is like working on aircraft as a United States Marine, looks back on the verdicts of our trials, and addresses the rumors that Kai Grubbs has been rigging the Shammy's elections. I provide a devastating update on the possibility of a Mr. Coia episode and preview this year's Shammy's award categories. Kai Grubbs himself joins the podcast to confront the ballot-stuffing allegations, participates in some Shanon Show trivia, and we all weigh in on an all-time debate regarding proper wiping technique: sitting or standing? The views expressed in this podcast do not reflect the official opinions of the Department of the United States Navy, Department of Defense, or the US Government. GO TO theshanonshow.com to VOTE for The Shammy Awards and follow @theshanonshow on instagram to vote in the Guest of the Year tournament!!! #theshanonshow #militaryfamily #usmc --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/theshanonshow/support

Episode 92 – A Wet Shammy

Door 14 Hockey

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 9, 2022 114:08

This week Marty, Dave, and John return to chat all things hockey. This week the lad's chat roster changes, foots ball, ref abuse, splashville, charity/good deeds all topped off with a special bedtime story. Plus all the news bits and features you have come to expect from the Door 14 hockey Podcast. The post Episode 92 – A Wet Shammy appeared first on Door 14 Hockey.

hockey shammy

Episode 305: The Chamois and the Cave Goat

Strange Animals Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 5, 2022 8:40

Thanks to Isaac for suggesting the chamois, our main topic this week! Further reading: The chamois in New Zealand Extinct goat was cold-blooded Myotragus balearicus: Extinction of mouse-goats A chamois in its summer coat: A chamois in its winter coat: Myotragus, the "cave goat," may have looked something like this museum restoration: Nuralagus's femur (left) compared to a regular rabbit femur: Show Transcript: Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I'm your host, Kate Shaw. This week we're going to talk about an animal suggested by Isaac, the chamois, along with a few other animals. I realize we've talked about a lot of mammals lately so I'll try to switch it up for the last few episodes of the year. The chamois is a species of what are called goat-antelopes. Its name is French and is spelled c-h-a-m-o-i-s, but in English a lot of people pronounce it “shammy.” Shammy is also what people call polishing cloths of various types, because it's short for chamois. If you ever heard those commercials on TV for something called the sham-wow, that's a paper towel thingy that's based on the shammy cloth. The reason for all this confusion between an animal and a cloth is that the original shammy cloth was a piece of leather from the animal that was used to polish high-quality items like fancy cars since it's very soft and won't scratch anything. Most shammy cloths you buy these days are likely to be made from plush cloth or the skin of domestic goats or sheep. As for the animal, it's native to mountainous parts of Europe, including the Alps. It's also been introduced to New Zealand's South Island where it's an invasive species that threatens many native plants. Since chamois meat is considered a delicacy, commercial hunters in New Zealand travel into the mountains by helicopter, kill as many of the animals as possible, and bring the meat back to sell to restaurants. This is encouraged by the New Zealand government in an attempt to protect native plants, although red deer, feral goats, and hares are also introduced animals that do a lot of damage to the delicate mountain environment. The chamois is small, only about two and a half feet tall at the shoulder, or 80 cm. It has cloven hooves and both males and females have small black horns. The horns are mostly straight but bend backwards at the tips into a sort of hook shape, and while males have thicker horns, they aren't usually that much longer than the female's. Horns grow up to 11 inches long, or 28 cm. In summer the chamois's fur is light brown with a darker stripe on each side of the face that runs from the nostrils, over the eyes, and up to the horns. In winter its fur grows very thick to keep it warm in its mountainous habitat, and it's a much darker brown, almost black. It still has the dark band on its face with lighter colored fur on its cheeks and jaw, though. Its tail is very short and isn't usually visible. Female chamois live in small groups along with their offspring. Males are solitary most of the year, but during mating season in autumn and early winter, called the rut, males fight each other for the attention of females. The female gives birth to a single kid in late spring. In the winter the chamois migrates to lower elevations where there's more food, but in summer it migrates to high elevations above the treeline where it's safer from predators. It can run extremely fast, up to about 30 miles per hour, or 50 km/hour, and can jump as much as 20 feet, or 6 meters. It can even jump over six and a half feet high, or 2 meters, straight up. It's very bouncy. I mentioned that the chamois is a goat-antelope, so let's go back to that term. The goat-antelope isn't actually a type of antelope, although it is an antelope relation. Goat-antelopes are bovids, along with antelopes, actual goats, sheep, cows, and many others. The goat-antelopes are members of the subfamily Caprinae, which includes goats, sheep, musk ox,

tv europe english french new zealand female goat caves extinction horns alps males south island kate shaw chamois shammy

Black Friday Sale On Shammy Cloth Gift Men Who Have Everything

UBC News World

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 24, 2022 2:28

The Man Sham is revealing a Black Friday sale, kicking off the Christmas season by making The Man Sham Chamois readily available as a unique and special gift for men that have everything!

christmas black friday cloth black friday sales shammy

Cyber Monday Deal on Car Drying Shammy Cloth For Car Guys That Have Everything

UBC News World

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 24, 2022 1:45

The Man Sham Announces a Cyber Monday sale on their shammy cloth. The Man Sham Chamois Cloth is a super-absorbent chamois cloth for car drying.

cyber monday cloth drying car guys shammy

So I gotta question…

Clownin With My Cousins

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 22, 2022 104:13

Tart has a question. Kee kee, Diamond, and our special guest Shammy might just have an answer. RATE AND SHARE!!!!! Be social! Tell us your opinions on the topics and follow us at ⬇️⬇️⬇️ Instagram: @CWMCPodcast TikTok: @CWMCPodcast We've got cool merch! https://clownin-with-my-cousins.creator-spring.com Business Inquiries: cwmc.tdk@gmail.com --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/clowninwithmycousins/support

gotta diamond tart kee shammy

Rock 'N Roll

Poo 'N Space

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 21, 2022 74:41

The guys are back!!! Shammy details his Covid experience, Sp8ghost questions the Biggie conspiracy, the guys go back and forth over the Elvis movie, and more!! ➜EMAIL QUESTIONS:  PooNSpaceShow [at] gmail [dot] com ➜JOIN THE Poo 'N Space FORCE:  bit.ly/PooNSpaceForce ➜CHECK OUT SOME Poo 'N Space CLOTHING:  PooSpace.com ➜JOIN THE Poo 'N Space DISCORD : discord.gg/ee9nNbm ➜Follow Us:  Instagram: instagram.com/PooNSpace

covid-19 elvis rock n roll biggie shammy

Girls Gone Gravel - Kathryn Taylor

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 9, 2022 44:48

This week on the podcast, Randall sits down with Kathryn Taylor, co-host of the Girls Gone Gravel Podcast and Chief of Staff at Feisty Media. Looking at inclusion in the sport of gravel cycling and how Feisty Media is looking to build a brand centered around helping active, performance-minded women find the resources they need to do the things they love. Episode Sponsor: Bike Index, a free, non-profit bicycle registry and stolen bike recovery platform. Girls Gone Gravel Podcast Fiesty Media Support the Podcast Join The Ridership Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos: Girls Gone Gravel [00:00:00] Craig Dalton: Hello, and welcome to the gravel ride podcast, where we go deep on the sport of gravel cycling through in-depth interviews with product designers, event organizers and athletes. Who are pioneering the sport I'm your host, Craig Dalton, a lifelong cyclist who discovered gravel cycling back in 2016 and made all the mistakes you don't need to make. I approach each episode as a beginner down, unlock all the knowledge you need to become a great gravel cyclist. This week on the podcast, my co-host Randall Jacobs is gonna take the reins. Randall did an interview with Catherine Taylor of feisty media and a co-host of the girls gone gravel podcast, Catherine. And the team at feisty media are helping active performance minded women find the resources they need to do the things they love. Many of you may be familiar with Catherine's work with Christie Mon on the girls gone gravel podcast. Christie is also a former guest of this podcast, and you can refer to that episode. We did about the big sugar gravel event. If you scroll back a little while in your feed, before we jump into the conversation I wanted to thank this week's sponsor bike index bike index is a nonprofit bicycle registry and stolen bike recovery platform. In fact, take a moment, hit pause, and go register your bike. It takes five to 10 minutes. The hardest part is locating your serial number, but once it's in the system, it's a free resource. Bike index has no business talking to you. They're hoping to just sit there in the background as a utility, but God forbid your bike goes missing and gets stolen. Bike indexes. One of the only resources you're gonna find online to help coordinate the efforts of recovering your bicycle. They're a nonprofit. Everything they do. Any donation you make is tax deductible. Registration is free, so you really don't have any excuse other than time to register your bikes. Go on, hit up bike index.org and get your bike registered with that said, let's jump on over to Randall's conversation with Katherine. [00:02:05] Randall: Katherine, thank you for coming on the gravel ride podcast. It's great to have this conversation. It seems like we have a lot of alignment in terms of the types of community building projects that we're most interested in and obviously our shared love of this particular sport. So, would just love to start with what's. What's your background with the sport? How did you end up doing a podcast called girls gone gravel . [00:02:26] Kathryn: Well, it's funny. I'm as many of the guests that we've actually had in our podcast, I've learned there's a lot of burnt out triathletes that end up in gravel. And that was definitely me. So I was really involved in triathlon for about 10 years. I raced coached. I even worked at a triathlon store. That was one of the top triathlon online retailers in the company. And I got really burned out from it because it's all about checking your power and your wants and. A lot of training all the time. And a friend of mine that was in the tri club was doing this race at the time called dirty cancer. And sh because she had heard this woman named Alison Terick on a podcast and she had never rid her bike more than 20 miles, but she signed up for the 200 mile event and was training through the company that I coached with. So I wasn't her coach, but one of my coworkers was her coach. And so I just heard all about this journey to this crazy gravel. Race. And I was like, oh, this sounds kind of fun. I think I'm gonna get a gravel bike instead of a traveling bike. And so I got a gravel bike and I would go out, she would go be doing like five laps of this local 20 mile loop. And I would go out and do one lap with her and just started to love it and love the adventure. And then started hosting some rides on the weekends for local community women. And Got into that. And then it's actually a funny story. So I was working at a bike shop at the time. And when I bought the bike, the bike shop owner was like, well, I don't think you're gonna like gravel because it's hard. And that made me really mad yeah. [00:04:00] Randall: oh [00:04:01] Kathryn: yeah. And so I had way too much wine one night and I woke up at two in the morning and I was like, I'm gonna start an Instagram account. It was when Instagram was. Starting to grow. And I was like, girl's gonna gravel, that's it. So I got the handle at two in the morning and I just started sharing like community pictures and it grew. And that ended up eventually turning into a podcast and now has become a whole brand where we have events. We have a little team, we, you know, go do cover, live events. We're done a few other things in the future, so yeah, that's, that's how it got started. [00:04:34] Randall: And I'm curious, where were you living at the time and what timeframe are we talking here? [00:04:38] Kathryn: So it was 2019. It wasn't that long ago. And I was living in Atlanta, Georgia. So, and, and there's not a ton of gravel around Atlanta. You really have to drive. So it was really in the Southeast the gravel scene. Was much behind kind of the Midwest Northwest, Northeast gravel. It was really just starting to come onto the scene. And the, and people didn't know about things like, you know, Unbound or, or any of those things at the time. My friend Lauren was the first person that any of us ever knew that had gone and done, you know, at the time it was dirty Kansas. So, so yeah. That's, that's where I was living. [00:05:15] Randall: One of the obvious questions that, that, you know, came up to me prior to us recording today was, you know, what was your inspiration? And I kind of feel like I got a little bit of a taste of it when you're talking about that bike shop person. I think that the industry has catered to a particular audience that mostly looks like me, frankly for a very long time. And there is a dire need for more accessible on ramps to other people who wanna participate. And it seems like you, you feel a niche And half the population. It's not really a niche I'd love to hear more about that inspiration and how you've gone about it. [00:05:49] Kathryn: Yeah. So I had been a part of Atlanta tri club, which is the. Probably the third largest triathlon club in the country. And I was one of the coaches for Atlanta tri club. I also was on the regional board for USA triathlon. And we were doing a lot of initiatives in the women's space at the time. And so I, I started to see, there were a few things, if you could do, you could really increase women's participation in the sport. And I had a, a good friend that we were doing. A lot of these things kind of side by side in that. And she, she actually passed away very unexpectedly in 2019 and. [00:06:27] Randall: to hear that. [00:06:29] Kathryn: Thank you. It was yeah, she, it was a, a brain aneurysm. So just out of the blue and I kind of looked back at her legacy and I was. I wanna continue this, but the triathlon space, isn't where I feel the passion anymore. At the same, I was starting to get into gravel. And at the same time I had another friend that was an ultra endurance cyclist. Her name is Danny Gable, and she's done all these crazy ultra endurance adventures. And I started hearing her stories about cycling and how male dominated it was and started looking into it. And I was like, oh, I think there are some things that we could do. That will really bring women to the forefront that are really simple things like telling women stories, giving women a place to connect with each other giving them a space and, and everything just happened to come together right around the time of the pandemic. That's when Christ and I started the podcast and we started a private Facebook group. The, I was like, oh, a couple hundred people. And within, I don't know, two months, it was like 5,000 people. And we were doing, you know, all kinds of webinars and stuff. Over the summer, cuz everybody was stuck at home. Laura King actually had connected with me and she said, Hey, we were gonna do this, this camp or this weekend with rooted, but we can't do it because of the pandemic. But do you wanna do it like just a virtual DIY gravel? Summer thing. And so we did like every Friday we would do a webinar where women could come on and learn for free. And, and so it just, everything started to come together and the community really naturally formed. And it it's really cool because now I go to races and people will say, oh, I heard the podcast. Or I followed your stuff or I'm in the Facebook group. And that's the reason I decided to come do this event or, you know, This inspired me or so. And so story inspired me. So, I think I started rambling, but that's kind of my, my very long answer to your question. It was really [00:08:18] Randall: is entirely the point. [00:08:20] Kathryn: Yeah, but, but I it's been driven by what the community wanted all along. You know, so. [00:08:25] Randall: Well, and I was sharing before we started recording that I actually heard about you and your work from one of our listeners who, who came up to me at rooted Vermont, her name escapes me is actually two women. So if you're listening please drop me a note and remind me your name and just thank you for the introduction. And I asked them, who should we be bringing onto the podcast to talk about community and to elevate their work. And you were the first person that they mentioned. So, there's clearly a deep resonance with what you do. So you have a background having worked in shops, you've been a pretty serious triathlete. You had your own journey into the sport. I'm curious to unpack that a bit. What was it like when you were first getting into cycling or endurance athletics generally? How far back does that go? And what aspects of that experience do you think were different as a consequence of being a woman versus a man coming into it . [00:09:16] Kathryn: Yeah. I actually got into triathlon when I moved to Atlanta. So it was like 2010, I think, 2009, 2010, somewhere right around there. And had lived a lot of places. I had moved there. I was living with my parents and I'd always wanted to do a triathlon. I was a swimmer growing up. I was a really bad runner, but I'd never, like, I'd only ridden my Walmart bike around town. I'd never ridden like a real bike. And so I Googled triathlon. Atlanta and team and training was actually having a info session for their summer training program. So the options were like, sit at home with my parents and watch wheel of fortune, or go meet a bunch of strangers and maybe raise money to do an event. So I ended up signing up for team and training and, and that experience really informed everything I did from then on out. The, the team in training chapter in, in Georgia is, is one of the strongest team in training chapters. At that time was one of the strongest team in training chapters in the country. And they were just so great at bringing people in and teaching them everything from, you know, how do you ride a bike? How do you prepare for a race and, and creating a community around it? And I didn't know anything, like I showed up at my first ride with my mom's bike. That was Just a, like a towny bike and Umbro shorts and a t-shirt everybody was there, there, you know, try bikes and their kits and stuff, but people had just made me feel so welcome. And so part of it, even though I felt like I don't belong here at that moment. And then took me through every piece of it from. Falling over in the parking lot, three times is the first time I tried to clip in and, you know, a woman stayed with me and rode with me that whole day to teaching me, you know, everything about the bike. And then on the contrary, I'd be like, oh, I'm gonna go to this group ride, which would be primarily guys and primarily a race instead of a group ride, like the Tuesday night race, but they didn't communicate that. And so I remember one time I was up I. Dog sitting with my parents or something. And so I was at their house, which is in the north side of Atlanta. And it's really hilly. It's kind of, you're starting to get up into the Appalachians. I went on this ride and I didn't have like a Q sheet. They didn't give them out. They didn't communicate. They didn't say hello at the ride. I was like, okay, well I can hang. I'm a travel now. And I got so lost. Didn't know where I was. Didn't have anybody to call to get back. Finally, like somebody came by and pointed me the way back to town. And I thought if that were my experience, like the first time I showed up at a group ride, I would've never, I would've walked away from the bike. I. Forever. And and I've heard that experience from so many women of just having horrific experiences. The first time they walk into a group ride or a bike shop. And so I just want women to feel confident and be excited about, you know, that, and, and so, because I had such a great experience with team and training and saw the difference, it just it informed the way I wanted to contribute to the community. [00:12:23] Randall: That's great. And I have a confession. I was absolutely one of those men who treated every group ride like a race. I came into the sport, very hard charging and just wanted to compete and go hard and crush it and go into the pain cave and all the things that are associated with that very aggressive more ego driven aspects of the sport that make it so inaccessible. And, it's in recent years that I've come full circle and seen the opportunity to not just take what I've learned and to help bring someone in but also the huge benefit that I get personally from just slowing it down and taking the time to connect and facilitating. So I'm curious, how do you define your community? You have your podcast listeners, you have your Facebook group. What is the extent of the community? How do people interact with you now? How many people are in involved ? What's the structure of it? [00:13:12] Kathryn: Yeah. That's well, just real quick before we move on from like the group ride. Cause I do want like, it's okay. If you have a really hard, fast charging group ride, right. Like I think that is totally fine. And it's appropriate for some people. It's the communication and helping people understand and even saying, like being able to say. this isn't for you. If somebody shows up that's not ready or like I'm willing to sacrifice my night for you. So like, I don't wanna get rid of the group rides that people love to go out and smash themselves on. I just wanna make sure there's spaces. What that, when we say we're welcome to new people, that we're actually welcome to do people [00:13:47] Randall: Yeah. I, I think that that's a really valid point. And if you're going to have a ride that you're opening up to a broader audience, having something in place, whether it be, Points where somebody can break off, to cut the ride shorter or having different groups going at different paces and making sure you have a ride leader for each one of those groups I think goes a long way towards avoiding that sort of scenario that you were describing, where you have a bad experience. And then it's like, well, the bike is not for me. [00:14:13] Kathryn: Yeah. Yeah. So at our community, we, we have several different layers. So we have obviously the podcast we have a free Facebook community called women, gravel, cyclists, and that's women from all over the world. I think it's like between 14 and 15,000 women right now. And it's, it's still. I thought it would fall off after the pandemic, but it's still really active. We have a, when people join, we ask them they're how long they've been riding gravel. And I would say at least a third of them are brand new to gravel cycling. So they're coming to look for advice on bikes, saddles, Shammy, how to train, what events to do, how to find friends. And then we do, we have a small team of about a hundred women Or just a little bit more connected within us. And then this past year, we had our first gravel festival, our women's gravel festival, which is not a competitive event. It's literally just three days of hanging out, having parties riding and learning. And our first one we had about 220 women and we're getting ready next week to announce the 20, 22 dates. 2023 dates. What year are we in? So we'll be back in Bentonville next year for our next one. And we may be able to bump that number up a little bit. [00:15:33] Randall: It's a great location, by the way, the bike infrastructure there is, is quite incredible. And the community there too is it's one of the, one of the country's great cycling communities at this point. [00:15:43] Kathryn: yeah, we were lucky we snapped up Amy Ross. Do you know, have you ever met connected with Amy Ross? [00:15:48] Randall: I don't believe so. Tell me more about her. [00:15:50] Kathryn: She has been in the bike world for a long time, worked for different brands like Santa Cruz that she worked for. Wow. One of the big mountain bike things I can't remember, but her husband's NA Ross. He was a professional mountain biker and they moved to Beville. She was the had a bike Beville. and so she had left bike Bentonville. I was going through, and that's the group that like, if you wanna do an event in Beville you go and you talk to them. So she was, we'd had her on as a podcast guest I'd driven through Bentonville was checking it out. She was like, well, I'm leaving bike Bentonville. And I was like, do you want a job? and so we hired her as our event coordinator on the ground. Basically two weeks later. So she contracts for us as our event coordinator for that event, which makes a huge difference when somebody is in the community day in and day out to, to put together a really great community event. [00:16:40] Randall: And in terms of where people gather online and find you online? Is it primarily the Facebook page, what's your software stack look like? [00:16:47] Kathryn: Yeah. We have a website, girls go gravel. We put, I actually write a lot of the articles and then a woman Celine Jager. Everybody probably knows in the gravel space. Also she works with us at feisty media, so she writes some for us. And then I have another woman from CNN that I pull in a little bit here and there to write articles for me. Her name is Claire and we write a lot of stuff based on what people ask for in the Facebook group. So we're taking. Somebody's asking a question and we're like, oh, we see tons of answers. And I'm like, well, that's an article. So we create a lot of content. So we get a lot of visitors to that site just because we're creating content that people are searching for. From our Facebook page we have our Instagram page and then we have just private Facebook communities. We, we tried like things like slack or other communities and it's, it's just hard. It's hard to get people to go off of Facebook. I know everybody wants them to, but it's so hard. [00:17:42] Randall: We had the same kind of discussion when we started the ridership, we built it in slack initially, or I should say we got it started in slack, the community built itself from there. And there were certain challenges that we saw with Facebook that we wanted to avoid. But slack is great because it's a great communication tool and it is something that people are already using for work in a lot of cases. But then you can't do a lot of the things you'd wanna do like event coordination or dealing with club membership. Then again, Facebook has its own issues. I'd actually love to unpack this a little bit because I've had this conversation with Russ over at path, less pedals and Monica Garrison over at black girls do bike. I'm curious, what are the things that you. Like about the platform and that we're enabling. And what are the things that frustrate you that you would ideally avoid in migrating to something different? [00:18:32] Kathryn: What I like about Facebook is people. Whether they say it, they people say they wanna get off Facebook, but they're still staying there. And a lot of people are lurkers, but they participate in groups. And Facebook has gone really in, on groups in the last few years, because they've seen that trend. Right. So. they're promoting that. And I, I also worked for a tech company for a little while in Atlanta, and I learned it's really hard to get people to use something they're not already using from that that experience, you know, that's the biggest challenge. Yeah. And slack, it just felt like the conversation was really, could be really stagnant a lot of times. Because if people. If they didn't use it for work, it was hard to get them to like, get excited about it. And if they used it for work, sometimes people were like, I'm already on slack all day long. I have PTSD from the dings so, We also one of our communities within Feist, the feisty ecosystem, tried to use my new networks and that also wasn't a good fit for the same reasons. So, so that's why I've stayed on Facebook. I think I have somebody that helps manage the posts if it were just, and, and then I have another person on our team that actually helps manage like all the people coming into the community now and like, The community is really good actually at, at self-regulating so if somebody, if a spammer gets in or if somebody we have a no assholes rule, I don't know if I can cus on your podcast, but we have a no assholes [00:19:53] Randall: Oh, go, go, go right ahead. [00:19:55] Kathryn: And so, they're really good at reporting that and. You know, like we watch it and catch those things and delete them, or just kind of, don't let people get away with being jerks. And I've seen that on a lot of other, especially gravel, Facebook groups that I've been on. There's some real jerks in those groups and the way they can give feedback to people is just it's mean what I don't like is I when not everybody's on the platform and then you. Facebook sometimes is like, I don't think you need to see that anymore. So you have to go to the group if you want something. So, and then the, the other thing I've seen, and I think this is a characteristic of women, we really like to give advice. And so I'll see somebody post something I'm like, oh, they're about to get overwhelmed with like, so much advice about, you know, like, like, so and so just ask like, I'm just, I'm new to riding and I wanna do this 25 mile event. What should I do? And somebody's gonna like give them like a step by step nutrition plan. And I'm like, just go ride your bike. right. Make sure you have water and food when you go out. So people and they mean well, but I, I just see I'm like that they're gonna overwhelm this poor person with like so much. About things. So, so that's why I try to take things and then put, put that into good content. That's a little bit more succinct on our website. [00:21:18] Randall: What are the things that you either are doing off platform, so off of Facebook or that you wish you could do, but you just don't have a tool that works well with your current [00:21:27] Kathryn: Sounds like you all are creating a tech product. [00:21:29] Randall: Well, we've been working on the side with a, like constructing a mighty network and we have a concept for that. So whenever I talk to community organizers, I wanna understand those issues cuz , our vision is to create something that's like a community of allied clubs that share a common infrastructure, and then that organization, it would be a nonprofit. And so, we're starting to do little things like coordinate group rides in the mighty network. Chapter for the ridership and then post that within the slack group to, to get people to join. And it's not seamless , but it's a way of slowly experimenting with it. We have a couple of clubs that have brought their members into their club space in the ridership mighty network. So we're not so much building a tech product as much as we see that there's an opportunity to build a better place for people to come and find out, what to ride, how to ride it and take care of it where to ride, who to ride with and what events are happen. And right now, there's not a one stop shop for that. So maybe you find the girls gone gravel podcast or the podcast that we do or some other resource. So you find some forum, but there's not like a clearing house or one place where you can go and just say, I live here, what's happening near me. Who's near me that I can ride with. What are the recommended tires for my terrain? Things like this. It's very fragmented. [00:22:48] Kathryn: Yeah. Yeah. I would agree on that. Like, one of the things that I know the community wants is they would like they would like to find more people to ride with and more local local things. You know, like regional, because we, especially cuz we're a worldwide group. So people are like you know, every day somebody will be like, I'm in Africa, I'm in here, anybody here that I can ride with. So, those connections and that, you know, that would just become a full-time job in our Facebook community. If you started managing all of those little mini groups and, and like you all, like, we don't, the Facebook community's free. Like it's like, everybody's a volunteer. That's doing it. My job is with feisty media and girls go, gravel came under feisty media. So I get quote unquote paid as a part of that. But I mean, I spent, you know, thousands of my own dollars and hours building everything for before that ever happened, or we ever made a dollar off of anything. So I wish we had that. And then also kind of the step back from that, one of the reasons I haven't been willing. Try to create things around group rides, as I would really like some kind of course or training that you need to go through to be a certified like girls can gravel group ride or something like that, just because of the experiences that I've had. And it's not, I don't want like this massive training, but I want things like you should introduce yourself to people when they show up, it seems like duh, but I think people just get nervous a lot of times if they've not led things in the past or. you know, make sure everybody knows the route, like little things like that. And I just haven't had the capacity to create that, [00:24:27] Randall: Yeah. Well, and these aren't unique to women or to any particular demographic, one of the folks that we've had on the group is Monica Garrison over at black girls do bike. She also started that as a Facebook group with people reaching out . And it's now, a hundred plus chapters and a hundred thousand women around the world and they're organizing events and doing all this stuff. And the challenges that they have are no different than the challenges that we have. And what you're describing too, so there should be some basic toolkit for someone to be able to organize a ride and people need to be able to sign up to post a route, to have a legal waiver. Right. That covers everybody. You know, you're not getting sued for trying to get people together. But then also having some protocols that are in place, like you're describing, introduce yourself, you're expected to arrive on this at this time. Here's the equipment that you should have. It's self-supported. And I think that these things can be largely standardized in a shared infrastructure. And if that were created, then you could leverage the expertise that this much bigger community of people who just wanna ride. You'll have some lawyers in there, you'll have some people who have a lot of technical expertise in there. And then this toolkits available to everyone, you don't have to be an expert in any domain to leverage it. [00:25:35] Kathryn: Yeah, that sounds really smart. And, and, you know, back in my triathlon days, I definitely, there were definitely men that I saw that if they didn't come in looking like a triathlon body, they were treated differently often. So it, it is not just a women issue. Like you said, like it's, it's, it's human issue. And every, I, I just go back to, everybody wants to have a place that they belong and they wanna feel. They're wanted places. And so if we can create those spaces for people, like at the end of the day, when I look at group rides, I'm like one ride a week. Me like riding at the very back of the pack at a super slow pace is not the end of the world for somebody to feel like they belonged. [00:26:16] Randall: Yeah. Everyone has something to gain from having a, common space for diverse people to come together. [00:26:22] Kathryn: Yeah, I was actually talking to Abby Robbins. The first non-binary athlete to finish Unbound. And so Abby just received a good bit of attention. And then there was I can't, I don't know which company was doing a, a video about them, but Abby was at Unbound camp and they were tell at the gravel festival. Abby was telling me about an experience that they were on a ride at a gravel camp. Ended up just like talking to this dude for a long time. Like it was a great conversation. And then the guy was like, oh, well, we should ride some Unbound together. And Abby was like, well, you should know, like, there's gonna be a camera crew following me because of this thing. And the guy was like, oh, what's the thing. Abby said, you know, I'm a non-binary athlete and the guy as well, you should know, like I'm a conservative Christian. And Abby was like, I would've never, and they had a great conversation and Abby was like, I would've never had this conversation. I'm like, I'm sure this, this, somebody that's like in this very conservative Christian camp would also have never like sought out a non-binary athlete to have a conversation with coming from a very conservative Christian background in my past. So I'm like, that's the beauty of it. Right? You experienced these people that you would've never experienced in these points of view and these conversations that shape your life. And I, I just love that about our sport, you know, [00:27:37] Randall: I find that gravel amongst all the different cycling disciplines does seem to be especially amenable to those sorts of really healthy and welcoming dynamics because there's no one thing that is gravel and there's no one type of bike that is a gravel bike. You can, much more so than in other disciplines , ride what you got or get started with what you got. If you ride it on mixed terrain, it's a gravel bike. And yes, you can have fancy equipment, but then also, there's lots of different ways to be a part of it. And we see that in our listenership and within the ridership and even amongst customers that ride the bikes that my company makes. But it's also, you have people of all different abilities who are going for it. It's very different than say roadie culture especially competitive roadie culture, or even mountain bike culture had a little bit more of that festivaly type atmosphere, but then also has its aggressive, hard edge to it too. [00:28:29] Kathryn: Yeah. I never feel like I'm cool enough for mountain biking. I'm like I gotta up my game or something. [00:28:36] Randall: So tell me a bit more about feisty media and how that collaboration started who's involved and the scope of its mission and what it's doing currently. [00:28:47] Kathryn: Sure. So feisty media is a, a women focused media company. So it's, we actually all women on our team. Although we, we would hire men and we focus primarily in the endurance sports space and the whole conversation is about creating an empowering culture for women. And, and we go, we really hone in on the culture piece because there's so much within culture that has. Has given women messages, whether it's about motherhood, whether it's about diet culture, whether it's about equality in sport, that, that if you can address the cultural piece, like a lot of the dominoes will fall. So as an example, one of the reasons that women often under fuel on the bike is because the message of diet culture that you need to look a certain way. And so if you go back to like, actually. We should be fueled and we should be fed when we're riding. And like this message of diet culture is causing us to not do that. So, so we really kind of, we kind of addressed that, but we're, we're kind of fun and cheeky and yeah, so feisty was started by this woman. Her name is Sarah Gross and she was a professional triathlete for 14 years. So back in the day when I was doing triathlon, I actually had a. Triathlon podcast with this friend of mine, Bethany who passed away. And Sarah was a guest on our podcast. And then when Bethany passed away, Sarah reached out to me and she said, I'm so sorry. They wanted to do at one of their events, an award in Bethany's honor. And so, we just kind of got connected through that. She came to Atlanta for the marathon trials. Right before COVID shut the world down, but it was the largest women women's field in the marathon trials ever. So, I helped her do some live coverage for that. And I was like, Hey, they came out you know, starting a podcast, everybody keeps asking for it, but I don't wanna edit a podcast on my, like, by myself again, so much work. Would you be interested in expanding beyond triathlon? And she said, yes. And so. And then she was also like, Hey, we're starting to really grow. We could do some contract work. Would you be interested in some contract work? I was like, sure. And so it, it just, we started with the podcast. I was doing a little contract work within. I think six months, six or eight months, I was working full time with them managing some of our brands. We, we have feisty triathlon. We have our women's performance brand. We have feisty menopause, which is what Celine Jager leads. So that was the brand that I was brought on to manage at first. And then the girls gone gravel brand. And is that all that we have? So within that we have about eight podcasts that fall under. Kind of those different topics. And yeah, so then when we decided to launch a gravel festival, we just brought girls gun gravel fully under the feisty brand, which for me is so great because that was, we were talking about systems. That was a lot of what was stopping me is like, these are all things I can do. I can figure out the financials. I can figure out. The contractors, but it's not stuff I wanted to do. [00:31:48] Randall: Mm-hmm mm-hmm [00:31:49] Kathryn: being able to say, we have a team that's gonna put this festival on. We have money that we can invest in the front end. So I'm not risking my own money for things. It just really opened up the door for us to be able to, to try and experiment with some more things. So it's been a, it's been a great partnership and, you know, part of what we do is we highlight what's happening in the women's fields, but then we also create educational materials. For women for training or racing or those cultural pieces. And then we create communities. So that's the third piece of it. [00:32:20] Randall: Well, I wanna take a moment to highlight. I'm just looking through some of the articles and it's like training and breastfeeding for active moms, or how to handle your period when you're on a gravel ride. These are things that are women's issues, but then also you can look at them as part of accessibility. As well, and these are not resources that I see in any of the media that I'm granted, it's not targeted at me of course, but [00:32:42] Kathryn: Yeah. Now you're gonna get the ads. Now that you've come on our site. [00:32:45] Randall: Yeah. But in just looking at some of the content here, it's obvious why this needs to exist. It is obvious why this is such a core part of making this sport accessible. And in fact, I would even add that it would be beneficial for some of, at least these headlines to exist in media sources, that men or people who don't necessarily need them are at least seeing so that they're aware that this is an issue for this particular group of people that you may be riding with [00:33:11] Kathryn: well, because Celine yer, who does our hip play out pause, which is our menopause podcast. You know, she does a ton of gravel writing. Her husband puts on unpaved and she's like I'm out at gravel rides all the time or gravel events and all these guys come up to me that their wives are like hitting perimenopause or menopause. And they're like, thank you so much for your podcast. I understand so much more about what my wife's going through. She's like, it's so weird having these conversations with guys while I'm racing a gravel of it. [00:33:36] Randall: That actually brings up a great question, what would be the bits of wisdom or knowledge that you would wanna share? To our audience, either for women listening or for men listening to help them be more aware of issues that women face when they're entering the sport or participating in the sport. [00:33:53] Kathryn: Yeah. I mean, I think like the more we can normalize conversations around periods and pregnancy and, you know, menopause, all those things even. especially with the guys we ride with. Right. Cuz that's sometimes what makes it awkward is we're like, Hey, I don't wanna say that. I need to stop on this ride because I have my period, but I really kind of need to stop along this ride. You know, so, or pregnancy it's I feel like a lot of times it's expected that the, the mom is gonna just take this long break while the dad, you know, if they're both into cycling. You see with Laura and Ted king, I just put a post up on Instagram the other day, celebrating Laura, because this is her choice. Like she, she wants to do this, but she wanted to come right back to writing. She wanted to come right back to directing the event. That's not what the choice that every person wants to make, but for so long, the choice was you're a bad bomb. If you wanna do these other things well, for the, the message for the dad was. Yeah, good for you. You're making it all work, you know, celebrating them because they were able to, to hold all those things together. And so, so, so I think like that's a, a big thing is just kind of being okay with normalizing those conversations and like, they feel awkward at first, but like, I don't like go around asking women at the group. Right. If they're on their period and they need to stop, like, don't get weird. [00:35:14] Randall: But maybe if you're organizing a really big group ride, be mindful of the fact that you need a place for people to be able to access a bathroom, or an isolated patch of woods where they can get well off the road. [00:35:25] Kathryn: Yeah. Or, or event directors, you know, we've had talk somebody, when we posted that period, article an event director reached out to me and he said I feel really dumb asking this question, but we wanna offer feminine supplies at the aid stops and I don't know what to buy. Can you just tell me what to buy? And I was like, I love that you asked me this question, [00:35:42] Randall: Hmm. [00:35:42] Kathryn: right? Like we're, we're talking to Laura about coming back on the podcast because she's doing Leadville and is it next weekend is Leadville. And she's like, I have to stop and pump along the way. Like this is the first time I've ever done a race. I'm gonna have to stop and pump. Does Leadville have any place to stop and pump? I don't know. but it'll be interesting to hear. you know, how that plays out for her. So, so yeah, I think like the more we can just say this is, this is normal. Just, just like a guy can just stop and pee on the side of the road, because it's easy. I've been on group rides with guys where it's like, everybody just stopped and is going all of a sudden I'm like, I, I don't know what just happened, but I think I'm gonna go too, since everybody else is [00:36:21] Randall: I'm fortunate. I have an older and two younger sisters and my older and immediately younger sister both have three kids each. And so children and breastfeeding things like this. I've been kind of normalized in my world. But I see how culturally, it's still something that's very uncomfortable for a lot of people. And certainly I also had my adaptation too, even being surrounded by it in my family or with female friends who had kids and had to stop and pump, and just understanding that and not having it be a big deal. I think it's part of a broader cultural shift that's needed to support mothers, but also fathers in playing a more involved, more mindful role that acknowledges the biological realities, and doesn't push it into the shadows. But actually celebrates it. [00:37:06] Kathryn: Yeah, I agree. It's I love seeing, like, I, I love watching Ted and Laura because Ted's like, you know, he obviously was a high level pro he's. They both race in the pro category, but Ted's obviously has more visibility in that because of his background. But, you know, he is also saying, well, I'm not gonna do this event, so Laura can do this event or like, we'll switch. [00:37:29] Randall: Yeah. [00:37:30] Kathryn: ride times and just, and just saying, this is a part of our family, this is something that's important to her. You know, and, and just making that the norm. And so I think they're a really great family. That's kind of leading the way for what that can look like. Yeah. [00:37:44] Randall: Yeah, there's there's a very central role that a mother plays early in a child's life in terms of attachment and so on. But at the same time the gender roles that our society generally has people play, has so much of the burden falling on the woman. And I think it's a missed opportunity, frankly, for a lot of men to connect with their kids really early on. [00:38:05] Kathryn: Yeah, and full transparency. I do not have kids. But you know, just having had many conversations with women, seeing, you know, in the sport of triathlon women, once they had kids, they were done. And now we're seeing like all these moms come back and race at the top levels after they've had. Had children and you're seeing that in the sport of running and gravel's such a new sport and especially the pointy under the spear is a really new sport as far as the pro racing. But I think we're gonna start to see that more and more as well with women saying, I wanna have a kid and I also want to continue to race at this level. And, and we know women can for a long time race those long distances at a high level. [00:38:47] Randall: One of the formative relationships I had in high school was with a then student teacher. She was somebody who was very supportive of me during the difficult periods of high school. And I reconnected with her a few years ago, and she was doing elite triathlons . She's in her mid, late forties, I believe has had two or three kids and just crushes it just as competing at a very high level. And it's really impressive to see what is possible. And it also Dispels a lot of the assumptions about what life can be like for women after having kids. [00:39:21] Kathryn: Yeah, well, Scotty Laga she won the outright Arkansas high country. She's twin boys that are, I can't remember how old they're eight or. And she was racing pro when she got pregnant and decided she wanted to continue racing. And you know, Ernie was racing as well and they just made that choice for their family. Like she actually has the more potential in her career. So, you know, which isn't the choice for everybody. Right. But it's, it's just like saying it doesn't have to be the way that society's always said it should be that you're a, you're a bad person or you're a bad mom. If you want to do these. [00:39:53] Randall: There's inevitably trade offs, but I think that there should be a lot more support from the father and the broader community so that a woman can continue to pursue being a complete version of herself even after kids [00:40:06] Kathryn: Yeah, exactly. [00:40:08] Randall: So what is the longer term vision for feisty media? [00:40:11] Kathryn: We really wanna create something. That's a little bit like the south by Southwest for women in endurance sports or women in sports where there's a place where women can come and gather and learn and have experiences together and, and, you know, connect and, and just feel like, feel like all those pieces, the community, the education of what we're learning about women's physiology and how that impacts. You know, our training and the way we approach life. And and yeah, just like the unique ex opportunity for brands all come together. It was really funny Randall. Like we, when we had our gravel festival, one of the brands there, so 220 women, one of the brands made more money at our festival than they did all three Belgium waffle rides last year because women were coming in an environment. They just felt comfortable and they wanted to spend money and we heard people were like we wish you would've had more brands there because we went, we came to spend money at the festival. And so, so I, I just think there's so many opportunities for creating those, those educational and gathering spaces. So, so that's where we're going. We're four years old, so. right now, we're really focused on bringing together the community and, and we really listen to what does the community want? And we try to create, create that from, for the community, instead of saying, this is what we, you know, it's the, the classic tech, right? Know your audience and then build, solve the problem the audience needs solved. [00:41:42] Randall: As I think. The initiatives that we're involved in, that reminder to validate the vision, getting out of one's own head and one's own biases and going out and actually listening. And what is it that, that the people who are already with you, what is it that they need with the problems that they have? So we've covered a fair amount of ground in terms of how you got your start. Both as a, as a cyclist and with girls gone gravel collaborations and so on. Is there any areas that we didn't cover that you wanna dive into before we split up today? [00:42:10] Kathryn: I think those are the big ones, you know, I think just the more we're celebrating, we're creating space for all people and gravel and, and just saying when the whole community is there. We're all better. I think that's really powerful. The, the other big thing that we try to do is to, is to support the pointy end of the field. And it's not because that's who our everyday person is. Right. But I think the more we can elevate the women's field in cycling and, and kind of create fans and create support around that. The more, it gives people opportunities to see somebody. I'll just give an example. My little niece, I was taking care of her. She had COVID a few weeks ago. So aunt cat got called in to take care of her. And she was feeling much better. She wanted to go on a bike ride. So we were out riding bikes. And then I showed her a video of Kate Courtney when we got back. And she's like, Ugh, she's amazing. Do you think I could ever do that? And that was she's six and I was. You can, but like, if I, if there weren't women like Kate Courtney, that I could show her videos of that are doing those amazing things at six years old, she wouldn't like, see that and dream, like I could do that. Right. And so, just, just being able to see those, those amazing women out there, I think is really important for the future cycling. [00:43:24] Randall: Well, I think you definitely set an example as one of those women, who's doing the work to make it a lot more accessible in allowing little girls like your needs to dream. So thank you for coming on the podcast to share your story. And I look forward to continuing the conversation. [00:43:38] Kathryn: Yeah, we'll have to connect at one of the events soon. [00:43:41] Randall: Absolutely. [00:43:42] Craig Dalton: That's gonna do it for this week's edition of the gravel ride podcast. Big, thanks to Randall and Catherine for that interesting interview. I love what they're doing over there at girls gone gravel, and I hope you go check out their podcast. We'll have links in the show notes for everything they mentioned during the show. And another big, thanks to our friends over at bike index, a nonprofit that's out there helping people get their stolen bikes back. Simply head over to bike index.org and register your bike today. If you're interested in connecting with me or Randall, please visit us in the ridership. That's www.theridership.com. That's a free global cycling community, connecting riders from around the world and sharing information about the sport we love. And if you have a. Please drop a rating or review. That's usually helpful in our discovery until next time here's to finding some dirt under your wheels.

Ep.528 - How to Use a Shammy

Elevate Construction

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 7, 2022 12:59

It's hard for someone to understand what I expect from them if I don't tell them what I expect. In this podcast we cover: How most people give instructions The proper way to explain expectations If you like the Elevate Construction podcast, please subscribe for free and you'll never miss an episode. And if you really like the Elevate Construction podcast, I'd appreciate you telling a friend (Maybe even two

project construction worker project managers superintendents project management foreman project director surveyor project engineer shammy elevate construction

Shammy leathers & soft play

Fix The World

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 6, 2022 53:14

We delve into listener feedback this week and discuss the pitfalls of children's parties. Plus Sam is set a challenge in our brand new feature 'Sam and Kate Try Stuff' Follow us on INSTAGRAM y'all! Get in touch via DM's or fixtheworld999@gmail.com

dm soft leathers shammy

Episode 51 - A shammy. A towel. A sponge.

Quitters Never Give Up

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 13, 2022 45:18

The return of Hollywood Babble-on, wheel of two vages, somehow still talking about La Bamba, Mike's gift to society, and a deep dive into Ralph's infomercial obsession. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/quitters-never-give-up/message

towels sponge la bamba shammy hollywood babble

Episode 51 - A shammy. A towel. A sponge.

Quitters Never Give Up

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 13, 2022 45:18

towels sponge la bamba shammy hollywood babble

THE 2021 SHAMMY AWARDS | J-Hop, Carolina Rivera, Brett Brown, Eric Ganci, Ryan Hamel, and Kai Grubbs

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 27, 2021 55:35

THE SHAMMYS HAVE ARRIVED! Shanon and Jonny host the best awards show in Military Kids podcasting by acknowleding the best of The Shanon Show in 2021. 2:32 Best Content Creator, Eric Ganci joins the show 6:47 Best Group Episode 12:41 200th Subscriber, Ryan Hamel joins the show 17:24 Banned from the Podcast Award 25:48 Most Viewed Episode 27:08 Kai Grubbs joins the show 34:30 Shan of the Year 35:44 Carolina Rivera joins the show 37:14 Guest of the Year Instagram Tournament Winner 41:40 Pet of the Year, Linda joins the show 43:40 Brett Brown joins the show 49:22 Best Bootcamp Episode 50:16 Dawg of the Year 51:50 Gent of the Year 52:38 BEST EPISODE #theshammyawards #theshanonshow #militarykidspodcast --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/theshanonshow/support

awards banned rivera dawg shan subscriber gent podcast awards hamel brett brown grubbs military kids shammy eric ganci

Ep. 62 - The Origins of the Shanon Show, Top 10 Episode Lists, and Shammy's Preview with Jonny Hoppe

origins lists penn state university in person hoppe shammy

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 20, 2021 44:35

Jonny Hoppe joins the podocast IN PERSON at Penn State University. We discuss the beginnings of The Shanon Show, advice for other podcasters, and out Top 10 Shanon Show episode lists. We also give our predictions for the Shammy Awards and more. VOTE ON THE SHAMMYS HERE: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/MPS7TWD --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/theshanonshow/support

The Shammys Strike Again, BTS/Harry Crossover & Swiftgron Is Real

Not To Be A Bitch, But...

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 25, 2021 66:28

Brooke and Katie are thankful for so many things this week, but mostly for being one week out from seeing BTS. We discuss BTS' whirlwind week in LA including their attending the Harry Styles concert, the AMAs, and their one single Grammy nomination. We talk about this year's Shammy nominations, from who was snubbed to who got a little bit TOO much recognition. We also talk about the tragedy that is Taylor Swift's Tik Tok, the resurgence of Swiftgron shippers, and Friendsgiving. For our NTBABBs we talk about people who publicly shame people for not wearing masks at concerts and people who idolize the Sex and the City characters. To wrap up, we share what we're thankful for.

tiktok thanksgiving taylor swift grammy strike crossover bts harry styles sex and the city amas friendsgiving hilary duff kaylor shammy love on tour

Episode 218: HOODCAST 217 PRODUCER EDITION w/ Guest Producer, Shammy Beats

HoodTech presents...Da HoodCast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 13, 2021 76:36

On this episode of DaHoodCast PRODUCER EDITION, we have special guest Shammy Beats. Shammy is a producer from the east coast who is really taking a serious business approach to his music making. Listen as we discuss his production technique, influences, and future plans for his business. Shammy also gives a shout out to some of his current clients and gives us a few tunes to look out for in the future. Of course we feature his beats in the background of the second segment and drag him down the rabbit hole of DaHoodcast craziness. Connect with Shammy at shammybeats.com and follow @shammybeats on all the social media platforms. Enjoy!

beats shammy

72: A Monk and a Shammy Walk into a Server

Forever Quest

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 5, 2021 33:31

music discover walk monk artwork server shammy

Tony Pereira - Breadwinner Cycles from the ENVE Builder Round Up

apple podcast parole vices drag kings transidentit shammy d'homme

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 20, 2021 33:14

This week we sit down with Tony Pereira of Breadwinner Cycles to learn more about this Portland, OR based custom builder. Tony was part of the 2021 ENVE Builder Round Up in Ogden, UT. This week's podcast is generously sponsored by ENVE. Breadwinner Cycles Support the podcast The Ridership Automated Transcription (Please excuse the typos): Breadwinner Craig Dalton: [00:00:00] Tony, welcome to the show. [00:00:01]Tony Pereira: [00:00:01] Thanks for having me, Craig. [00:00:02] Craig Dalton: [00:00:02] It's great to see you virtually from your office there. [00:00:05]Tony Pereira: [00:00:05] It's funny now that we're all accustomed to this it's it makes it really easy. [00:00:08] Craig Dalton: [00:00:08] Yeah. It really is. If you don't have your setup dialed at this point, I don't think you ever will. [00:00:13]Tony Pereira: [00:00:13] Yeah. Right. [00:00:15] Craig Dalton: [00:00:15] So let's start off a little bit by getting to know you and what led you to becoming a frame builder [00:00:21] Transcribing... [00:00:22] Tony Pereira: [00:00:22] It's been a while now. [00:00:23]I worked in, I started out in the outdoor, your industry, I started working in ski shops when I was 16, which was in 1985 and grew up working in ski shops. And then in college, I started working in a bike shop and after college, I moved to Utah and skied and rode and worked in bike shops there. [00:00:44] And I got really active. Like community when I lived in salt lake did that for quite a while. Eventually got bored of being a bike mechanic, just hit my limit on that and what I've always been a tinkerer. Playing around in the garage, working on cars and motorcycles and of course, bicycles. [00:01:01]I learned how to breeze a little and weld a little bit from a friend of mine. And then just brought all those things together. And I was a fan of the old mountain bikes, the, IBUs and salsa. And of course the Richie's, the Richie has always had those beautiful, huge fillets. [00:01:18] And and I'm like, I knew how to braise. So I'm like, I wonder if I could make a mountain bike and, it was, that was two, this was 2002 or so, so almost 20 years ago. The internet was there. We were using all like listserv type communication. But there's a pretty active frame, builder listserv. [00:01:37] It's still exists. But I got on there and started figuring it out, build a couple of mountain bikes and I, after building one, I was like, oh man, I gotta do this. Bringing my love of bikes together with making things and And I just, I was hooked for sure. Riding that first bike is such a joyous, [00:01:54]it's gotta be an amazing feeling to ride something that we've actually made super gratifying. [00:01:59] It sounds like you and I came up in the same era, which was that period of time where there was a lot of great mountain bike, frame builders and custom steel bikes. Every state seemed to have a builder of some notoriety. Yup. Yup. So how did you teach yourself? Was it really through, obviously you had a little bit of hands-on experience from your father's friend to teach you how to weld and, know what equipment was needed. [00:02:25]Craig Dalton: [00:02:25] Were you able to glean some of the basic fundamentals from that list? Serve and ask questions? [00:02:31] Tony Pereira: [00:02:31] Yeah. Yeah, it was great. I know I, Richard Sachs is one of the. More professional frame builders that was on there. And he's always been really generous with his time. And there were a number of others as well, but I remember him in particular, but yeah, there was a great group of people that, that I, you know, some of them I'm still friends with. [00:02:49] Remember Steve from Coconino was getting started exactly the same time. And the two of us were like bouncing things off of each other. And just getting our feet wet, but I, I'm fortunate to have, I have a natural aptitude for using tools and problem solving and, figuring things out. [00:03:08] So yeah, I was able to teach myself, with the help of that listserv, obviously how to make it all come together. And, I look back on those early frames and I still have a couple of them and they were pretty bad. The first there's 20 or so that I built for me and my friends. So they were pretty rough, I should say rough. [00:03:25]They weren't, the finish was rough. They worked fine. But I started building bikes for customers after about the first 20 or so bikes mostly worked, went to my friends and. And they were starting to get pretty good by that. [00:03:36] Craig Dalton: [00:03:36] And did that just happen via word of mouth with the 20 out there, people would see it and say, where did you get that thing? [00:03:42] I had some, I had a core group of friends in salt lake that worked in the bike shop with me, or were associated with the bike shop called wild rose. It was a, early mountain bike scene, mouth bike shop. And two of my friends, Alex and Jeff. They were all, they were 100% on board with me. [00:03:59] They were like, yeah, you got to do this. And we're going to help you build a, some bikes, let's go racing. And we went out, we were all mountain bikers. So we were out riding a single speeds and the inner mountain cup series in Utah, which is a, I think still exists was a really popular mountain bike series. [00:04:18] There were, I think there were 10 races around the whole state. And we got out there and we were top five races. In the single-speed category we started doing that and we would do 24 hours of Moab every year. So we just got out there, we just put it out there and we were having fun and people liked what we were doing. [00:04:33] And I know our very first, my very first customer, he was a guy that we beat in a race and he came up to me at the end of the race. He was like, you guys are having fun. I want one of those. [00:04:43]That's awesome. Were you operating under the breadwinner brand at that point? No. That was Pereira cycles. [00:04:50] The names, namesake brand at that point. [00:04:52] Tony Pereira: [00:04:52] Right. So that was in Utah and in 2004, or so, and then I moved to Portland in 2005. And when I moved here, I decided not to get a job and go in full-time building bikes. I had a few orders under my belt. And I just, I went for it and it worked out. [00:05:11] Craig Dalton: [00:05:11] And did you stay under your namesake as the [00:05:13] Tony Pereira: [00:05:13] Brandon? Yeah, it was prayer cycles until 2013. That's when I hooked up with IRA, we've been building under his name, I Ryan, and and we started breadwinner. [00:05:26]Craig Dalton: [00:05:26] What about that partnership with IRA made it attractive to you to bring different perspectives and skillsets to the team? [00:05:33] Yeah. [00:05:33] Tony Pereira: [00:05:33] Yeah. Different types of riders, but have a like-mind as far as there are eye for style and quality, we both worked with the Rafa clothing company and their very early years, we were friends with the guys that got it going here. And when they were based in. And our friend Daniel conceived of this project called the continental. [00:06:00] And it was a group of writers, originally six writers and IRA. And I were two of them who wrote around first in the Northwest here. And, we have a photographer along with us and they'd made some beautiful images and created that whole brand. That's now Rafa. And like a lot of that, the imagery that they still use is of that same stuff. [00:06:20] But like big mountain rides and we're actually doing a lot of gravel riding on 23 millimeter tires and our road bikes. But riding some really cool round, the epic kind of rides that everybody makes fun of Rafa for now. [00:06:33]Craig Dalton: [00:06:33] I certainly remember that era when those finished visuals and videos came out and they were. [00:06:38] They were certainly evocative of where ultimately gravel slotted in this big mountain adventure, not your Saturday group, not your normal Saturday group ride type of riding. [00:06:49] Tony Pereira: [00:06:49] Right yeah, that was super fun. And out of that Rafa asked us to build, they decided that they were going to get five bike companies. [00:06:58] We were the smallest one and market alignment. That was all through their website. They took the orders and then we would, we build the bikes and I can't remember. I can't remember exactly. It was like Cinelli I know Chanel Lee was one of them. It's they're slipping my mind now, but they're all like big bike brands. [00:07:17] And then it was me and IRA and we were the only ones that were on that continental team. So we called that bike, the continental. And it had my logo on the right side of the down tube in Iris on the left side of the down too. He built mostly with lugs. So it had a lugged head tube and a talk to C2 junction. [00:07:37] And then the bottom bracket was Phillip raised, which is my style, [00:07:40] Craig Dalton: [00:07:40] interesting collaboration [00:07:42] Tony Pereira: [00:07:42] together. We sold 22 of them. So not very many, but out of that, we've found that we really liked working together. And we were like, all right and honestly, we made some good money off of it. Like building that money. [00:07:55] That was how many bikes each of us would build in a year. Right back then I was building 25 likes a year or maybe even a [00:08:01] Craig Dalton: [00:08:01] little less. Yeah. It's funny. In talking to other builders, you talk, you think about the pace in which these bikes get built. If you're building them all by yourself. Two three weeks to build a bike is, about what it takes and do the math. [00:08:14] You can't do much more than 20, 25 in a year, and [00:08:18] Tony Pereira: [00:08:18] you nailed it. We were doing the math and we're like, all right, we can't scale what we're doing now anymore. Some people can, there's a few builders out there that can crank them out, but we couldn't. So we're like, let's figure out a way to keep building bikes, but make more of them. [00:08:34]And maybe make a little bit of a. And the breadwinner name was really something that we hung on that first Rafa project. It was just what we used to open a bank account. You've never had any plans to make it a brand. It was a, kind of an inside joke. [00:08:51] Craig Dalton: [00:08:51] Yeah. I love that. Yeah. We can't make bread any other way. [00:08:54] This is the breadwinner project. [00:08:55]Tony Pereira: [00:08:55] Yeah. Yeah. My S my son had just been born. IRA had just gotten married and we were. We got to figure something out here and we started calling breadwinner. It was again, a joke between us, but a year or two later actually a year after the Rafa thing we got approached by the folks that were starting up Shinola. [00:09:14] Yep. Just now mostly a watch [00:09:16] Craig Dalton: [00:09:16] company. Sure. I remember those bikes. Were they, were you behind them? Bikes as [00:09:20] Tony Pereira: [00:09:20] well. And we designed there. And bill built some prototypes for that. And we got paid well for that. And we took that money and started breadwinner. [00:09:33] Craig Dalton: [00:09:33] Okay. Yeah. You know it, I imagine it's always a challenge as a frame builder. [00:09:38] Once you have the knowledge of all the different types of machinery that could make your process more efficient. Acquiring said, machinery is a big financial outlay. So having those rare opportunities like with Shinola. Rapha before that I'm sure, really accelerated your ability to be a builder that can kick out more than 20 a year. [00:09:58] Tony Pereira: [00:09:58] Yeah. And it helped them. It gave us a little bit of time to come up with some new ideas. Like we could sit back and go, okay, what do we want this, what do we want this thing called breadwinner to be? And we realized that a lot of our customers. If we're waiting a year, sometimes two years to get their bike at the end of that long wait, they were often not happy. [00:10:21]There are lots of opportunities for things to go wrong and or for them to just lose interest or, just, it just it's too long. So we said, all right, with breadwinner, we're going to deliver the bikes in eight to 12 weeks. And that we've tried to do that the whole time. We've done pretty well until this. [00:10:39]And now that's completely out the window. It's six months now. [00:10:43] Craig Dalton: [00:10:43] Fortunately, everybody's waiting that long for a group of, at this moment. So you're all right. [00:10:47] Tony Pereira: [00:10:47] Yeah. The frames, we can turn around, we can build the frames in the same amount of time. If we can get materials, there's, we're run out of tubes. [00:10:55] We run out of head tubes or bottom bracket shells or whatever it is. And we've had moments where we just have to stop. We can't build bikes in the last year. That's really been unusual, but then our painters backed up because, there's this bike boom. So he's extra busy and but anyway, yeah, so it's a little longer now, but yeah, excuse me. [00:11:17]IRA's always been more of a a road rider and a gravel rider. He won the first trans, Iowa gravel race. And I've been a mountain biker. I started mountain biking in 87 and started riding a road bike. When I wrote with those Rafa guys, [00:11:31] Craig Dalton: [00:11:31] you said it sounded like at the inception of breadwinner, did you see the market opportunity being a little bit more adventurous road, bike style? [00:11:39]Tony Pereira: [00:11:39] Not particularly. We, that was just. So our first lineup, we didn't have a gravel bike. Sure. [00:11:48] Craig Dalton: [00:11:48] Yeah. And was it a mountain frame? Go ahead. [00:11:51] Tony Pereira: [00:11:51] Bye. The continental, which is a classic steel fork road bike, we still have that the low lows, our road bikes still are our mainstay road bike. [00:12:00]We have the JV racer, which is our cross country mountain bike. And then a city bike called the Arbor lodge, just the neighbor neighborhood we lived in. And we had a touring bike, which we don't actually don't offer anymore. So that was it. Six bikes that first year. And I believe it was the next year when we came out with the B road, which is now our most popular bike. [00:12:20] And that was our first ground. [00:12:22]Craig Dalton: [00:12:22] Interesting. So how long did, what did that look like in terms of the proportion of which frames were selling and when did you start to see that? Hey, the be road is actually the bike that is most appealing. [00:12:34]Tony Pereira: [00:12:34] At first we didn't have it. So it was, we were mostly selling Lolo's. [00:12:38] That was our logo was a Continentals, definitely on the road. And then we put the B road out there and the low the road bikes were still more popular for that first. So that would have been 20 14, 15. I think in 2016 it started to shift significantly. And then it was like 50% road or gravel bikes. [00:12:58] And then we came out, I think we came up the G road, the following year. And now. 60 or 70% gravel bikes, gravel slash bike packing bikes. Yep. [00:13:09] Craig Dalton: [00:13:09] Yup. Yeah. That's in that, that tracks, what I imagined would happen, it seems on point I was imagining that based on your sales stats, you would have your finger on the pulse of where, and when that gravel product started to break and break free of the pack. [00:13:25] Yeah. [00:13:25] Tony Pereira: [00:13:25] Yeah, no, it's been, yeah. It's. Four years or so where it's been clearly the front runner. And I feel like this year we did a few more road bikes and some of those were people that had bought gravel bikes from us. And they were like, all right, now I want to road bike. Yeah. People still have their quivers and the gravel bikes have been, real quiver, quiver busters. [00:13:45]A lot of people use those bikes for everything. When you come around and you're like, all right, I want a real fast bike too. And then you get that [00:13:53] Craig Dalton: [00:13:53] road bike. I think, as we were talking about offline, the geometry changes in mountain bikes have made them a different beast than what we were riding in the late nineties and a hell of a lot more fun. [00:14:06] Yeah. And I imagine that's a, kind of a growing segment of interest because people are looking for something special to have underneath. [00:14:14]Tony Pereira: [00:14:14] For in the mountain bike world. Yeah. I would love to sell more mountain bikes, but the reality of it is that we it's a niche thing for us. So we do a handful of mountain bikes a year. [00:14:24]I love them. I are good. Water's my all time favorite bike. But those it's designed around the plus tires. So I've been running two sixes or two eights on it lately. But man, that's just such a fun bike for all, all around riding and yeah, you're right. The geometry has changed. I think because forks have gotten longer, it's forced us to change the bikes, but the other thing that's changed a whole lot is the trails. [00:14:48]We went from old hiking trails that were Rocky and not necessarily flowing. Just go pick in your way through, through these trails to trails that are built for bikes, the bill for around bikes, with berms and jumps and rollers and all kinds of features. So the bikes have had, had to evolve with the trails. [00:15:07] Yeah. But yeah, I love riding the hard tails and the the they're super fun. That's, it's been a good, that has been a fun evolution to be, to feel like I've been. [00:15:16]Craig Dalton: [00:15:16] Let's talk about the mountain bike. One of the bikes you're bringing out to Utah for the envy builder Roundup. I know some of the listeners have probably caught pictures of it already, but why don't you talk us through that model? [00:15:25]Tony Pereira: [00:15:25] Sure. I told you about my friends, Jeff and Alex that helped me get started mountain bike with breadwinner or with prayer cycles. Jeff, his name is Jeff Bates. He passed away. A number of years ago of skin cancer. And so the first mountain bike that we made was called the JB racers named after him. [00:15:43] We still, and we still have it. That's our classic 20 Niner hard tail, cross-country machine. And we've, we'll always have that in our lineup. It's very similar to the bikes I was making under the Pereira banner. Talking about this trail evolution a few years ago I started riding a bunch at a trail system here near Portland called Sandy Ridge. [00:16:03] And it's this new Invus style flow trails are built just for mountain bikes. And that cross country bike is not the right bike for that. So I'm like, all right. And I'd had this in my head for a few years. I'm like, I think I want to build something that's more slack. It's a bigger. It's still a hard tail. [00:16:21] It was there weren't a lot of them happening at the time. But finally I'm like, all right, I'm building this thing. And so pretty slacked out. I think at the time that was a 66 degree head to bangle with a 1 64. It was around 27, 5 wheels. The first-generation about Otis and we started. [00:16:39] So we came up with the design and when it came time for a name, I thought about my buddy, Alex, who was the other guy that helped me start get started. And he's a funny guy. He'd always come up with these funny sayings and give everybody nicknames and just have these funny phrases. And he, one of them was when. [00:16:58]You'd see a cool bike or something. You'd say, dude, that's bad Otis. There's out of nowhere, I don't know where it came from, but he just used to say it all the time. So I'm like that's a great name for a bike. I'm going to call the bike bad Otis. So called the bike bad Otis. You bring it to the two north American handmade bike show, which was in, I don't remember where it was that year Sacramento. [00:17:23] Environmental. Yeah. Yeah. I think it was. Brought the bad odors to Sacramento, big hit. We got some nice press on it. A couple of weeks later, I get a note from a guy on Facebook and his name, bad Otis. He's Hey, like I see bad odors pop up in my messenger. Hey man, why do you have this bike called bad Otis? [00:17:47] That's my name? I was like, I don't know who you are, but all tell me why that's your name? And it turns out he's a fairly well-known artist in the punk rock world. Interesting. In the LA punk rock, like old school, seventies, eighties, he was like the t-shirt artists that did like the circle jerks and black flag. [00:18:10] And like all those I might be wrong about some of those bands, but He, if you see his work, it's like it's of that era and he's still working artists. And we had a conversation. I was like, I'm like, man, I don't know anything about you. I wish I did. Cause I'd want some of your, I would've wanted some of your stuff back then, This is just the name that came out of nowhere from my friend. [00:18:32] And he was like, all right, that's cool. He was totally cool about it, but he thought he's been ripped off over the years. Yeah. Like people that work in that realm there's counterfeit, there's making rip offs of his old t-shirt designs from the eighties and he's had enough of it. So he saw his name pop off and he's oh, here's another one. [00:18:50] And it turns out there was, it wasn't that wasn't the case. But Long story that has nothing to do with the bike, but funny about the name. Anyway, last year, we've seen this long travel hard tail, so big fork, hard tail, a ball over the past few years. There's a lot of them out there. [00:19:10] And just like with the full suspension bikes to get really slack and the head tube angle tend to have a long. Front center so much longer talk to you, but with a steep C2 which gives you a lot more stability when you're in the air, you're diving into berms or going down really steep stuff. And, we said, Hey, we should try this. [00:19:29]I guess maybe a year ago we built a bike cry there was for a Chris king event and and he's been riding that for the past year. And so just again, slacker, I think we went to a 64 degree head to bangle or something like that. His really steep, like 76 degrees C to bangle. [00:19:47]So it climbs you get your weight far enough forward that the front end doesn't want to walk you're around. Okay. But then once you put your dropper down, you stand up, you've got that hard charging, like super slack. [00:19:57] Craig Dalton: [00:19:57] Yeah, I find it really interesting. Just it helps looking at those bikes helps me think about gravel geometry in many ways. [00:20:03] Not that there's any parallels between the two, but I've often. Yeah, I had trouble like figuring out, what is the steepness of a C2 bangle do? What does the head tube angle do? And the more I play around with different bikes and different equipment, you start to see. And some of these things creep their way. [00:20:18] Some of these philosophies, not these extremes creep their way into gravel bikes in one shape or form IMS. [00:20:24] Tony Pereira: [00:20:24] Yeah. Yeah. W you've got the, I forgot what it's called, the transition. They have that [00:20:28] Craig Dalton: [00:20:28] crazy that isn't the slack evil Shammy, Hagar. Exactly. Tony let's talk about the gravel bikes in your lineup, and I'd be curious for you to describe to the listener, the different models and the different tubes that's that you use. [00:20:43] And, with carbon being like the material, that a lot of these bikes get pumped out. Yeah. Why don't you talk to the listener about what a steel bike can do and how it feels and why it's so special? Sure, [00:20:56] Tony Pereira: [00:20:56] sure. I think cars, there are many wonderful carbon bikes. There's nothing wrong. I'm not like a agnostic. [00:21:03]Gotta have steel. Steel is real guy I have been, but I've left all that behind, I think. Many great materials for bikes. The thing that, that keeps us making steel bikes is how great it is for custom bikes. Yep. And small production, small scale production. So there are, I don't know how many hundred hundreds of different tubes to choose from so we can really vary the. [00:21:34]The ride of the bike based on the two parameters. So your two parameters are the diameter, the wall thickness, and then the, but pro budding profile. So steel tubes are thicker on the ends. We call that the, but everyone's heard of budded tubing. Most people don't know what it means. But they're just, they're thicker on the ends where you do your welding is the welding affects the strength of the material. [00:21:57] So it has to be a little bit stronger where you. And then the middle of the two where you don't heat, it can be a lot thinner and a lot lighter. So you save some weight. And then each tube comes in a certain length and the butts are a certain length as well. You removed some of that to get your finished to blank. [00:22:12] So you, we can really tailor each individual to, for each bite and dial in, optimize the weight of the bike and optimize the ride quality, mostly through the diameter mall, thickness of the tube to the field. Optimize it for weight and strength. [00:22:30] Craig Dalton: [00:22:30] Is there in that sort of get to know the customer process, you're learning their weight and riding style. [00:22:36] Exactly. And you can make adjustments to the way the bike feels based on what they're telling you. How [00:22:43] Tony Pereira: [00:22:43] exactly. Exactly. Yeah. We have people come to us, oh yeah. I used to be a football player and I'm pretty big and I stomped on him. What I want to really like, bike, packing bike, and we're like, all right we're going to make it a little heavier and we're going to use a little bit bigger tubes and it's going to give you the best ride, and then on the other side, we have somebody that's a hundred pounds and they don't, they, and they don't want the bike to feel like a dead brick. We can either use a smaller van or two to where later to tailor to that, to their style and their size and their. [00:23:16]Craig Dalton: [00:23:16] For most of the listeners, I'm imagining that they aren't custom bike owners as someone, when they're going through the purchasing process, obviously the sky's the limit to blends things like that, that you can help work with them on how do you help guide people to get to the right spot? [00:23:33] Tony Pereira: [00:23:33] Yeah. Yeah. The way that we work we've we try to make it approachable and easy. That was another goal of ours with breadwinner was. When I'd made my Pereira cycles, I was like, what kind of do you want, and I would make you a road bike or a cross bike, or they didn't have names. [00:23:49] There was no model names of any kind, but, and I realized that was, that made it hard for people to come through the door. So now we have like our gravel bikes, our first one was called the be road and be roads are like rural roads in the Midwest where I grew up. And And so you would say, okay, I want to be road. [00:24:06] And that has a carbon fork and a steel frame. And we work with people on there with their fit and everything and how they want the bike to ride the design side's all on us. The customers, our customers, sometimes they want to have more say in what goes, where, and, but we've got a pretty good idea for what works and the materials we should use. [00:24:25] So we have all that. And then, yeah, and then the component. Whenever you [00:24:29] Craig Dalton: [00:24:29] want. So that be road model sounds like maybe it was the gravel bike extension of that continental. That was it more in their kind of road plus world than that to a cross bike. [00:24:41]Tony Pereira: [00:24:41] Yeah, we based it on our cross bike. Mostly because at the time the carbon forks you could get, it would fit a wire tire we're cross forks. [00:24:49] Yeah. So it kinda just fit into that realm. And we were we're very limited in what tires there were that time. And there was the the panel racer Passilla was really popular Yon Hina from [00:25:01] [00:25:01] Renee Harris, which was compass, which before that was something else I can remember what he called it, then they had, and there was another name before compass. [00:25:10]Those tires were around anyway. They weren't very wide. I think our first B road had 30 twos on it, which is like a big road tire now. Yeah. So yeah, we did the D road for awhile. I think two years. And then people started asking for, six 50 V with wider tire and said, all right how are we going to do that? [00:25:28] There wasn't a carbon for two years. So we've talked to our friend, Chris Iglehart who's across the street from us over here. And he's been making those segmented forks since he was at fat city [00:25:40]Craig Dalton: [00:25:40] back in the eighties. That's so the moment you said that, and I've got a picture up of that fork right now, and you're absolutely right. [00:25:47] That was the fat fork. [00:25:49] Tony Pereira: [00:25:49] Yeah. So Chris was the guy that made all those forks. Amazing. Yeah. And he's now across the street and he also welds all our bikes. So IRA and I have, we still touch every bike and I tack weld all the bikes, but Chris does our finish welding. Gotcha. We build three bikes a week, so we can't have a welder on staff. [00:26:10] We can't, you just can't have somebody. That's not a full-time job. Yeah. So ever since the very beginning of breadwinner, we built over, we built going on 900 bikes. Now Chris has welded every one of them. And so when we decided we were gonna, we were gonna do another bike Soon to be called the G road. [00:26:27]We went to Chris and Hey, how about we use an I go for it? And he was all for it. And man, those forks, he's got some magic dust in those forks. They are they're spectacular. And they look like the old fat forks, but they're not they're just the same style. He has a custom drawn fork leg made by Reynolds. [00:26:48] It's a one inch heat treated steel tube. The fork blades are made out of. And he has his own little gussets that he uses and is the way that he puts them all together. Just their magical fork. They've a really fantastic ride quality. And to go back to your earlier question about why steel it really, hasn't been a fantastic ride call it's springy and lively. [00:27:12] It's stiff when you need it to be, but compliant enough, it's really comfortable. I feel. It's everything that a carbon bike designer is trying to, and trying to work out. You're [00:27:24] Craig Dalton: [00:27:24] probably right there. [00:27:25] Tony Pereira: [00:27:25] Yeah. Yeah. If, oh, if we could only make this bike ride like a steel bike, it, and many of them do, some of those carbon bikes are beautiful. [00:27:31] They ride great. But anyway, but yeah the G road steel fork is fantastic. And that's still what differentiate differentiates the B road from the G road. It'd be roads, the carbon. Gravel bike erode the steel for both can be built with 700 C or six 50 B wheels. The B road. We now use that the envy the G series for the gravel for which works with six 50 B. [00:27:54] And it's got the mounts for cargo cages and internal wiring for life. Got all that stuff that we couldn't get before. And that's, that was what got us going with the idol for the idle fork, it's got a straight intranet, an eighth steer tube, so it has a different aesthetic to it. [00:28:11] It's a more slender bike. It looks like an old school mountain bike. We usually set them up with drop bars, but sometimes we do a flat bar too. And man, a flat bargy road feels a 1993. Bad city fat [00:28:24] Craig Dalton: [00:28:24] chance. That would be an amazing bike to have in your clinic. [00:28:28]Tony Pereira: [00:28:28] Probably a little lighter than that bike was just because the tubes are better now. [00:28:31] Yeah. But yeah I I love that. I love that style of bike. It's really fun to ride. Yeah. It brings me back to those early mountains. [00:28:38] Craig Dalton: [00:28:38] And which one will you be riding in the out in Utah. [00:28:41] Tony Pereira: [00:28:41] I've got I've got, it's actually the bike that we brought to envy last year. It's the it's a be rode with. And last year was when they launched that adventure for, I guess that's what it's called. [00:28:52] It's called the adventure for, and so yeah, the road with the adventure fork and I've got six 50 B, you've got these G won the Schwalbe, the G one bite, the two, the 2.0. That's such a fun tire. And again, it's like a really lightweight old-school cross-country tire reminds me of a, like an old continental damn. [00:29:13] What was that? The vertical. You remember that time? I don't remember that one before, [00:29:19]Craig Dalton: [00:29:19] but I do. I do. And appreciate that tread pattern. I'm a Panaracer gravel king plus guy were asking me the STK for the most part, and I love the way it rides on the road, but it's super capable. Off-road so you'll see that on my bike out. [00:29:33] And you great. Yeah. Cool. Tony, I appreciate the. I'll have links to all the bikes and the pictures and everything the listener needs to get to know Breadwinner a little bit better. [00:29:43] Tony Pereira: [00:29:43] Excellent. Thank you so much. [00:29:44] Craig Dalton: [00:29:44] Cheers. [00:29:45] [00:29:45]

Parole d'homme #56 : Shammy Des Vices Junior, drag king et transidentité

Parole d'homme

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 21, 2021 28:49

♂️ Parole d'homme, le podcast sur les masculinités modernes. Cette semaine, je reçois Shammy Des Vices Junior. On parlera de la pratique du drag king, de transidentité et de représentation des masculinités sud asiatique. ⭐ Pour soutenir Genre, n'hésitez pas à laisser un commentaire et 5 étoiles sur Apple Podcast !

Traveling with Bae

The Travel Girls Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 8, 2021 34:55

Travel Fam!!!! this is the episode so many have been waiting on. Have you taken a trip with that special person in your life? Or is that on your bucket list for 2021 and beyond? Either way listen to this episode on "Traveling with Bae". Our guest, Shammy is a lifestyle blogger who enjoys traveling with her husband Phil. They have been around the world and shared some great memories together. Listen to Shammy drop the TEA on traveling with bae. Get comfortable and invite bae or a friend.

traveling tea bae shammy

Dyson Sphere

86 Charles

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 3, 2021 81:59

John Derby and Travis Spencer the mind bending concept of a Dyson Sphere! At 18:13 they cover weird news including suicide by molten steel, a Scandinavian sperm shortage, an update on the "Treasure in the Rockies", hologram communication and of course the Capri Sun World Record Challenge. At 51:14, Jesse McIntosh stops by to explain how sh*t works! At 52:46 your Facebook World News Update. At 56:18, Deb Loftis goes back in time via her Totoro Notebook to sum up the past year. Finally, at 1:04:36, a tale as old as time involving a shammy! #Hesi

rockies scandinavian dyson spheres shammy

Episode 2 - The Shammy Legend

Mad Monday

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 23, 2021 45:14

This week the guys chat about The Warriors' close finish, discuss a new signing and Kevin Locke potentially coming back to the NRL...Plus, we put ourselves on trial with a new segment called 'The Judiciary'... See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

warriors nrl shammy kevin locke

6. The Cookie of Love with Mr Wesley Dykes

The Drag King Cast

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 18, 2021 62:29

Loose Willis regales John Travulva with his love life woes and Jodie and Katy discuss sexism in stand up comedy. They're joined by the phenomenally talented Mr Wesley Dykes to chat about their album launch with Wastewomxn and work with The Cocoa Butter Club, as well as the possibilities of the London drag scene. In Queer Histories Mr Golden Balls profiles Shammy des Vices Jr, who uses drag kinging to celebrate desi masculinities and deconstruct colonialism and Sexy Storytime returns with some poetry from the OG lesbian Sappho. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

acast dykes sappho shammy cocoa butter club sexy storytime

Arash Haile AKA Shammy Dee

People + Art Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 9, 2021 36:36

DJ, coach, singer-songwriter, and musician Arash Haile AKA Shammy Dee joins David to talk about the pandemic, how it has affected artists, mindset hacks to turn the challenges of the pandemic into a period of growth, and more. Follow Arash on twitter and instagram @shammydee www.shammydee.com Arash's book recommendations: 1) Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones (https://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Habits-...) 2) The Great Mental Models Volume 1: General Thinking Concepts - Shane Parrish and Rhiannon Beaubien (https://www.amazon.com/Great-Mental-M...) 3) The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever - Michael Bungay Stanier (https://www.amazon.com/Coaching-Habit...) 4) DaVinci and the 40 Answers: A Playbook for Creativity and Fresh Ideas - Mark Fox (https://www.amazon.com/Vinci-40-Answe...) Full episode is up on the People + Art YouTube Channel. -- -- -- Subscribe, follow, like and share! Follow David on twitter @dfcasta Follow, submit questions, and interact directly on instagram @peopleplusart

dj creativity atomic habits vinci da vinci arash haile build good habits break bad ones atomic habits an easy proven way shammy

Episode 356: Slammys are a Shammy

The Basement Bookers

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 2, 2021 108:45

This week we discuss the Slammys and Jerry hates them.

slammys shammy

Favorite Things 2020, Reacting Live To Shammy Noms & More!

Not To Be A Bitch, But...

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 26, 2020 85:29

Brooke and Katie celebrate Thanksgiving by delivering our take on Oprah's Favorite Things for this year, including our favorite food, beauty products, clothing, and celebrity ships. We also react to this year's Grammy nominations as they are announced. Listen to us, Fozzie, and the lawnmower outside struggle to process Harry Styles, Rina Sawayama, and The Weeknd's snubs, BTS' rightful victory, and Justin Bieber somehow scraping by. We talk about wishing we could experience a cruise as a teenager, being over people bragging about their "important" Zoom calls, and if we played Mrs Claus, who we would want to play our Santa in a movie.

thanksgiving zoom santa grammy oprah winfrey justin bieber reacting bts harry styles weeknd claus favorite things one direction shawn mendes fine line noms fozzie shammy

COFFEE WITH THE PLAYHOUSE Ft. Tyne Rafaeli, Alyce Smith Cooper and DJ Shammy Dee

La Jolla Playhouse Presents

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 7, 2020 61:01

Watch the full video episode here: https://youtu.be/MAMBLU69P4QCoffee with the Playhouse is a way to connect with us, virtually, every month as our very own Artistic Director, Christopher Ashley, shares behind-the-scenes stories, interviews artists and previews what is new and next at the Playhouse.For this week's coffee date, Christopher will be joined by Tyne Rafaeli, the director of last season's The Coast Starlight and next season's world-premiere play by Lauren Yee, Mother Russia. The morning will also include a chat with Alyce Smith-Cooper, a celebrated San Diego poet/storyteller/actress/community activist who was recently named Poet Laureate of the San Diego Veterans Museum, and Shammy Dee, an accomplished musical artist and DJ whom you may recognize from our production of Tiger Style! as well as our Opening Night celebrations and other Playhouse special events. Alyce and Shammy are collaborators of Digital WOW's forthcoming Spittin' Truth To Power While Light Leaping For the People, an inter-generational piece using images, music and storytelling styles reminiscent of the griot. (Griots are West African storytellers, musicians, praise singers, poets and oral historians of their communities.)Don't forget to subscribe!FOLLOW USFacebook: @LaJollaPlayhouse https://facebook.com/LaJollaPlayhouse/Instagram: @LaJollaPlayhouse https://instagram.com/LaJollaPlayhouse/Twitter: @LJPlayhouse https://twitter.com/LJPlayhouse#CoffeeWithThePlayhouse #DigitalWOW #TheCoastStarlight #TyneRafaeli #AlyceSmithCooper #ShammyDee #LaJollaPlayhouse

dj coffee san diego artistic directors opening night west african playhouse poet laureate spittin mother russia griots lauren yee shammy christopher ashley coast starlight

S2 E17: Showing Up, Serving, and Shining with DJ Shammy Dee

Dangerous Creatives Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 14, 2020 41:54

https://www.shammydee.comhttps://www.instagram.com/shammydee/https://www.facebook.com/shammydeehttps://www.youtube.com/user/ShammyDeeTV

serving shining showing up shammy

TDS 105 - You're Undead to Me (aka Chamois, Shimmy, or Shammy??)

This Doesn't Suck

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 22, 2020 85:37

Today, Sam and Areesah are joined by guest host Jackie. Damon is in vampire jail, Stefan is useless (except at making fresh mozzarella), and Elena plays detective. Comments? Find us on Twitter @doesntsuckpod or via email thisdoesntsuckpod@gmail.com. Please rate and subscribe on iTunes!

undead shimmy chamois shammy

Gravel Cycling for Women with Lorri Lee Lown

poland career changes uprooting amsa shammy

Play Episode Listen Later May 12, 2020 47:35

This week we speak with longtime coach, fitter, and women's cycling advocate Lorri Lee Lown about some of the roadblocks to growing participation in the sport and general tips and tricks for riding off-road. Sponsored by: Bike Index, a free, non-profit bicycle registration service and stolen bike recovery platform. Support the podcast - Buy me a coffee. Episode Links: Savvy Bike Savvy Bike Instagram Automated Transcription, please forgive the errors. Lorri, welcome to the show. Thanks, Craig. I'm excited to be here today. Yeah, I'm looking forward to our conversation. I'm always kind of excited to talk more about the women's side of the sport and how we get more women into gravel cycling. But before we begin, I'd love to give the listener just a little bit of your background. So if you could talk about how you got into cycling and later how you discovered gravel cycling, that would be an awesome place to start. Sounds good. I started writing in the nineties, which makes me feel really old. But the reality was it was 1999 so it's not that old. And I had moved to California and I was not an athlete, but when I moved here, everybody was fit and healthy and rich and beautiful. And I was like, I might be just like them. And I got the fit part down. That was good. And the healthy part, I don't know about the rich and beautiful. I participated in the California AIDS ride. I had signed up and had nine months to train. I didn't even really have a bike. I had a 1980 something specialized hard rock that I was training on. And at the time I thought this event was for world class athletes and Olympians and I was none of those things. I was a drinking, smoking, non-athletic person. And over the course of nine months training for the event, I realized, first of all, I was pretty good at riding a bike. I had never been good at sports, but in my mind all sports and bald, bald, you had to catch and you had to throw. And I couldn't do either. But then I realized there's this whole other area of sports that I was actually pretty good at, which were at sports. So things like skiing and skating and cycling. And because I have this pretty obsessive personality, I found that I really just wanted to ride my bike and ride my bike all the time and ride my bike fast and climb mountains and that kind of thing. So I started riding. And long story short, I was given the opportunity to change careers by my then employer. This was in 2001, Charles Schwab. And when the Bailey basically imploded, I found myself with some time on my hands and a career change in sight and I decided I wanted to share my love of cycling with other people in particular women. I had found that there weren't very many women who I saw riding bikes and I knew they were out there cause I'd see a big group of dudes and there would be one woman hanging on where their tongue hanging out at the back of the group. But I didn't see them riding together in groups and I knew that that was something that women really enjoy. I have a MBA in gender relations, so I spent some time studying what motivates us and women are really motivated by community and being involved with other people supporting each other in a very different way than men are. So men will compete against each other, women will collaborate. And I couldn't find an organization like that. I wanted to become a coach and I decided to start my own, even though my coach at the time said, who would want to ride with you? You're not a pro racer. And so I started Velo girls And that was back in 2002 right. Amazing. And Vela Vela girls, was it a road club or a mountain club? Well, we started as a road club and I was pretty adamant in my mind of what I wanted to do with the organization. We were only going to ride road. I didn't want to compete with Jackie felon who at the time was running wombat, and I don't know if you know wombat, but it was probably one of the first women's mountain bike organizations and we weren't going to race. I was going to race, but I was going to race with a different club and I just felt that we needed an organization that was really founded on fitness and friendship and fun and being inclusive. And luckily I listened to members. So when members started saying, Hey, we'd like to have mountain bike rides, even though originally I was reluctant, I was like, okay, let's try this. And I did not ride dirt at all when I started, I was strictly a roadie and I never intended to read dirt. And then when we started having large groups of women who were fast, I thought, okay, I'm going to start a racing team even though I knew nothing about racing. So in our second year we had our first racing team, 40 women, 39 of whom had never raced a bike before. And I felt this social responsibility to teach them how to ride their bikes because most of them were pretty sloppy and I didn't want them out there crashing out other racers. And so I developed a curriculum to teach folks how to ride their bikes and how to raise their bikes. Amazing, amazing. And I mean, obviously you, you, you set the intention to invite any woman who wanted to throw a leg over the bike to kind of give them the tools and the community to join in, which is amazing. Absolutely. Absolutely. And we've taken on many different iterations over the years. We had a protein for awhile that raised all over the U S we continue to have a road racing team and a development program for 12 years. And I finally got tired. It's hard to keep developing and recruiting and developing and recruiting and developing and churning out racers, many who have gone on to raise on proteins and we've had national champions on. So we during those years as well, we started mountain bike racing. We really had a multi multidisciplinary team. So we had four aspects. We had road racers, mountain bike racers, cyclocross racers, and then endurance road riders. So women who just wanted to train together with some structure and participate in events together. So go do the Cinderella classic or ride a century and have continued that model. So as I slowly retired the racing aspect of the club, we've continued the riding training, recreational aspect of the club. Okay. And I know we're going to circle back to some more of those elements and details around the training and clinics and skills that you, you helped build. When did gravel cycling start to come into your life? I was thinking about that. I so I was, I started cyclocross racing in 2003, which is kind of interesting cause I had intended a road race first and it didn't happen and I was okay from a fitness point of view, but I couldn't ride on the dirt. So then I decided, okay, I better mountain bike. And I worked at a bike shop at the time, so I borrowed a mountain bike and it was a disaster. I was terrified of the dirt. I didn't understand. I had the roadie mentality of right around things, not over things. I overinflated my tires. I didn't understand suspension, including my own body suspension. And so it took a long time for me to start to feel really comfortable with the dirt. I had started road racing and then I was coaching high school mountain bike team through the shop I worked at and this was back in 2005. And the high school league was pretty new and it was a bunch of boys who were BMX riders and we had an agreement that when we went out and trained I would do anything that they did and it really up to my bar from a skill point of view. And then I continued to, I really believe in lifelong learning. That's a part of me. I've been a teacher throughout my career before I was teaching bikes and so I continued to take clinics and I continued to learn. And mountain bike clinics have been super fun for me because it really pushes my envelope and I'm pretty conservative as a, as a person, as an athlete. So being on the dirt, I'm not the shredder type who's going to go and do crazy stuff. I am very practiced and measured in my writing, which is probably my detriment, but you know, I'm 54 years old, so I want to keep the skin on my knees in general. I continue to ride and race, cross and mountain bike and I guess the gravel thing really it happened when my relationship happened. Truthfully we, so I was mostly a roadie who I often joke owned mountain bike and I started dating someone who is mostly a mountain biker and a cyclocross or who owned a road bike. Actually he didn't even own a road bike at the time. He owned a cyclocross likely he would ride on the road and somehow those two worlds converged and we started doing an awful lot of road riding but going off road as well on a road bike. So hashtag gripping center and that continued and then we'd ride our class bikes under. But as you know, a cyclocross bike is not the most awesome gravel bike in the world. There are definitely some geometrical differences and some handling differences. So I would say probably in the last five years or so, really seeing an uptick. And spending time on the dirt as well. Yeah, I think the, you know that timeline exactly coincides with this acceleration of gravel specific equipment and enabling technologies such as tubeless tires and hydraulic disc brakes. Right. It's definitely a confidence booster and having the right tool I think is super important. I know we'll talk about that a little bit with bike fit and how that plays into it, but having a gravel bike that's awesome and super fun and joy inducing has made the sport very different. So you know, riding, when I started riding road we wrote on 19 millimeter tires and eventually went to 20 ones and 2325 I, my standard now is 30 and every time I ride my bike I'm on the dirt. I just, I, I guess after so many years of writing the same roads over and over and over again, you're just looking for something new and different and challenging and intellectually challenging as well. Yeah, I think that's pretty common, particularly in the Bay area because we've got great road riding. It's such a fun community to be a part of, but every road you ride on, you start to see these dirt paths and trails and little cut throughs that you could be riding if you had a little bit wider tire and a little bit more of a spirit of adventure. I would agree. Yes. So you obviously are more fun. Yeah, I mean that's, You know, you go out and you hammer for four hours on the road bike and you go out on the gravel bike and it's an all day adventure and you bring a sandwich and you can have a handlebar bag and it's all fun and cool and, and it's a very different culture. It's Rudy's, I always joke that Rudy's, we'll have a beer at the end of the season and a mountain biker, we'll have the beer at the end of the race and cyclocross or we'll have a beer during the race. It's very, the dirt culture is very different. And I think it's interesting now that we're seeing a lot of, of road riders and road racers making that transition into the more fun events and they can still be competitive. Yup. Yeah. It's almost like gravel has given road athletes permission to have a little bit of fun. Well, and what you talked about earlier, I think, you know, on a road ride, once the separation happens in a group ride and you're off the back or in the middle or trailing or chasing, you know, it stops being as fun. But I find gravel has some similarities to the mountain bike in that, you know, once you complete a section you kind of stop and wait for that high five and you kind of laugh about how you skidded out or Bumble the particular section. And it really, it just gives people the opportunity to talk more during the rides, which tends to lead to a lot of fun. Right. And I think in racing the same is true. And you, and the other interesting aspect I think is, and road riding, a lot of it is about fitness and leanness. And especially here in Northern California where you can't go out of your driveway without a Hill. So there is huge fitness split, gender split and age split when we ride on the road versus gravel, you may find that you have somebody who really good fitness and they have no skills to descend. So yeah, they're the first up the Hill and they're the last down and, and now it makes up every time. There's that transition point and so it becomes a much more social interactive group versus the road ride, which you know, tends to be kind of stuffy and serious and we're just going to go hammer. And if you're not with the group, it's over. And that was one of the interesting challenges in road racing. I think especially years ago when the women's field was, are larger, if you weren't in the group, it was over. And if, you know, once you've done that for a number of years, why keep doing it? And with gravel and with cross and mountain bike because of the type of courses that we're riding, it allows people to still be in the game. And to ride their own ride or race their own race, which is a little different than the road racing world. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, five years ago, according your timeline, you started riding a little bit more gravel and as you started to present yourself to this large community of female athletes through Vela girls that you were doing this new segment of the sport, what were women starting to ask you about How to do it? And it seemed at the time a lot of women felt, wow, that's for other people. That's not for me. And especially because we, well, we refer to it as gravel and I think more accurately, we should probably refer to it as mixed terrain because a lot of gravel events have a hundred percent gravel or 90% gravel, but there are a lot of gravel events that have 50% gravel or 25% gravel. You go and do the grasshoppers and maybe it's 50 50 or maybe you've got an event that's you know, 80% road, but there's this one little fun dirt stretch. So it's going to challenge you as far as your equipment choice and your tire choice. And so I think for women it's the question of how do I get started and is this actually do. And what I found is if I convince people, I feel like the pied Piper many times, right? If I convince people to just come try it and make it fun, then they're going to keep doing it. But it takes, it definitely takes an evangelist to encourage people to get out there and do it. And the same was true in every aspect of the sport. When I decided to race cross, I ended up with 25 women from below girls who were racing cross with me because I made it sound fun. And I think we have some public figures that do that. You know, you look at the Ali Tetrick and Ahmedi and stormy and this whole crew of women who are so inspirational. But at the same time, when I look at them as a mere mortal, I'm like, okay, there's a separation there. And for me, I'm cool with it cause I work with these women. But for someone who's just a recreational rider and they're like, Oh, I could never do Belgium waffle ride because you know, people like Ellie Tetrick are doing it. So it's the idea that we have to get someone out, give them a positive experience. And I think promoters are starting to learn a little more about that. You know, how do we, how do we create events that are not just for the pro women and all the dudes? And that's what I always think about, right? So when we look at the longer versions of events and many of these events, when they started including the low key series like grasshopper, they had one distance, one race mass start and a late master, you know, dress up or start at 10:00 AM. And it's like, okay, well this is great. But if you have the women who are not the pros and maybe they're, you know, not even as fast as the recreational gentlemen, then they're going to be out there longer. They're going to be, you know, rest ups or are cleared out of cookies. There's no more cookies. The rest app has gone, the finish line has gone. So we have to make people feel like, okay, this is an event for you too. And I've spent a lot of time talking to promoters about that. How do we do that? How do we retain women? Well, maybe do a staggered start and make it voluntary. So if you feel that you're on the slower end but you want to do the longer routes, you're, they're going to do an official start an hour earlier for those writers. And it's not just women. I mean there's lots of dudes who are hanging out out there for hours and hours and hours offering multiple distance options. And I think that's a real key. Just like with a century, once you've done a century or a dozen or a hundred or whatever, you're like, Ugh, whatever, it's a hundred miles. I could get just as much fun out of the metric. How did the 60 and a lot of folks will opt for that? And then you'll get the other folks who are like, no, whatever event I do, I'm going to do the longest, hardest version. But from a timing and a logistics point of view, it doesn't always work. If I'm there with my male partner and he finishes two hours before me, he has to sit around and wait. That doesn't do a lot for our relationship. So so creating multiple options and it's not dumbing down the event, it's just opening up the events and my opinion, they're still hard and they're still fun and you still get that experience, but you don't feel like, wow, the event is really not for me. It's just for the fast riders. It's for everybody. Yeah. And I think, I think it's, you know, intelligent course design leads itself to having multiple different options. And I think we have been fortunate and gravel that we've had a lot of strong women in leadership positions at these top events that have made inclusion and parody a big part of their messaging, which I hope is sort of just sending that invitation out to women to say, come join us. We're, we're thinking about everyone. We're not just thinking about the hammerheads. You want to ride 200 miles And other pieces of that play into that, you know, have age group awards and sometimes we do and sometimes we don't. And sometimes that age group starts at 35 which is very interesting cause you have a lot of women who start riding a bike later. You have a lot of women from the pro level who are still racing at 35 so 35 is not necessarily a good split for masters. Maybe have a 35 and a 45 or a 35 and a 55 and so you can acknowledge the effort of the other athletes as well. Having a women's t-shirt, I know that sounds silly, but when you have an event shirt and you only offer it in what they call a unisex shirt, it's really a men's shirt. Have happily one shirt. Yeah. Maybe it costs a little more. Probably it doesn't when you're doing that volume, but have something to acknowledge that we're there too. Yeah. I imagine when you see a unisex shirt, you're, it's reading does not fit women well at all. Right. I won't take them. I'm, I'm one of those people. I'm like, yeah, I don't want them to insure. Thank you. I won't wear it. You keep it and it's too bad because sometimes I really want, sure. Well it sounds like, you know, you've sort of been through a little bit of this journey before as someone who's sort of founded a largely road oriented program and then started mountain biking and inviting women to the mountain bike side of things. Now as you're inviting women and giving them permission to join us in gravel cycling or mixed terrain cycling, what are the sort of fundamental skills that you begin to teach as you're trying to get someone comfortable with what they might encounter on a grasshopper route or something similar? Right. It's, it's not unlike road in general in that most people on the road don't know how to ride their bike. I'll be honest with you, they don't understand the physics of how to ride a bike and what makes it stay up. Right. What makes it go forward and how not to fall down. I basically teach people not to fall down. And so what are we looking at? We're looking at balance and weight distribution. Weight distribution is huge on gravel. If you don't have the right weight distribution on the bike, you're not going to get up the short sheet stuff. You're going to slide out. You won't have traction on the downhills and on the corners. And so really understanding and even the technical aspects of you take a roadie and you put them on a gravel bike and teaching them that it's okay to have 15 PSI, that your bike is going to handle better and you're going to be faster and you're not going to fall down. Because again, that roadie mentality of Oh my God, I have to pump to 110 PSI and we're starting to learn, I think in the road world we're starting to have a little better education about that all around. But, but it's interesting, a lot of shops are still teaching people things that I feel are not correct. So what do I want to teach someone I need to teach them? Like I said, balance and weight distribution, how to move around on the bike. A lot of roadies feel like, okay, this is my throne and I'm never going to move my position at all. The saddle is my seat. Versus being a balanced point. How to properly use your brakes. I think that's huge. Understanding that breaking eliminates traction and so how and why and how can I use my brace to help me and how can I not overuse my brakes? And those are all things that we do on the road as well. But I'm the dirt. You can't fake it. I think that's the biggest difference is we get away with a lot on the road until we don't, until you have that day when you crash, but on the dirt, if you make a mistake, you're going to go down. Yeah. I feel like on the, on the road there's, there was a lot of room for error. So obviously you can lean a road bike really, really deep, much deeper than, than most people would think you can. And your tires are still gonna hold so you don't get people kind of tripping that error potential. But as you, as you sort of alluded to in gravel, you know, if you brake too hard in a loose corner, your wheel is going to slide out. Right. And, and I think it's very interesting. So I, so I've been fitting bikes since 2001 and I've always had someone else fit my road bikes for me. Whenever I get one just cause I like to learn, I like to have someone who is not biased look at me and my bike and I've had a number of interesting injuries over the years that have impacted my ability to ride. And when I got my, my thesis graveled like I decided I wasn't going to have anyone fit it and I was going to go through this iterative process, which I think fits on gravel is much more iterative than road and road. We have a position that is ideal for us based on our morphology and our strengths, our fitness, our weaknesses and all of that. But on gravel, your fit really has a lot to do with how your bike handles. And so I went through a process on my own bike of dialing in the fit but then riding and tweaking and sometimes you change your fit based on the terrain even. And that's where, I mean droppers are awesome, although I think women don't need them as much as men cause our bodies are a little different and our weight distribution is different. But yeah, so looking at STEM links and rise and, and where is the ideal position that's going to be comfortable and is going to be powerful and efficient but still allow me to ride in a technical way. And that's the, I think greatest challenge is the technical aspects. You have to find the hardest part of the course and make sure that you can ride that. Yeah, that's an interesting point you're bringing up there. In terms of sort of building your equipment or your position around the most difficult or most challenging to you, part of the course. Are you sort of advising women to kind of tweak their setup to help them in the areas where they feel like they might be deficient or less skilled? I don't typically advise anybody to tweak their own setup. And the reason for that, I mean, in my case I'm a professional, so doing it was in a very educated way and I was taking notes and I was comparing times and that kind of thing. But I do encourage people to consider the terrain they're going to ride before they're fit and spend some time thinking about what's the hardest thing and be honest with your fitter. I mean a good fit is going to be a conversation that really is based on the rider and Hey, I'm riding mountain town and I feel great except I can't get up the short steep stuff. So then we have to figure out, is that a gearing issue? Is it a fitness issue? Is it a weight distribution issue? And many times it is weight distribution. Hopefully they've purchased the right bike and they have the good fitness. Right? So w where it's going to be very different. And I, I'll share a couple of examples. So I raced last year in North Carolina at the Croatan buck 50 and it was a course that the version I did was the a hundred mile version. It had 500 feet of climbing. That was it. And in many places in the country, these gravel races are pretty flat. So that was super flat, which had, which had its own unique challenge. Let me tell you, when you're pounding, the pedal was four hours of stopping flat pavement. There is no break. Your, your saddle better be really good and your Shammy better be really good. Yeah. But then you contrast that with you know, in California we have old growth. Classic was phenomenal. It's total reverse of that, right? 50 miles, 8,000 feet of climbing. Interestingly enough, the only podiums I got last year in gravel were my first race proton, but 50. I got this and then I raised old-growth classic and I got fifth. Then I was like, Oh, this is great. I bookend with two races. That couldn't be any more different, but they worked for me I guess. You know. And then I raced in Oregon where we were looking at stage racing. So you're racing day after day after day, which has its own unique challenges too. But Oregon was, I don't know how much you've spent talking to the folks about their race or did you do the risk? I did not do that, but I had Chad, Chad Sperry on talking about the event. Oh yeah, yeah It was. It was Epic. And of course I'm the kind of woman that goes in and I say, Oh yeah, I've got great fitness and I'm going to go do the longest versions of because offered a longer and a shorter, a more Epic and a less Epic. And after the first day, and I was one of the last writers to make the time cut off on the long route. I was like, what was I thinking? That was when I made the decision that, you know, the long routes maybe really are for the pro women and all the dudes and maybe I should be doing, because it was super varied. For one thing. You're in the mountains, there was tons of sand, tons of technical stuff and just a ton of climbing as well. So it was definitely a really hard event and it was a first year event and they were definitely working out some challenges with promoting and organizing and you know, how do we manage rest stops and how do we manage the timing and the location of our steps so they make sense on the course and they're at the right points. And so yeah, so back to fit for gravel, whether it's a man or a woman, we definitely have to look at our course and what is the predominant terrain we're riding here in Northern California because most people aren't traveling too much. But then if I'm looking at a different type of race, what's going to help me there from a gearing point of view, from a handling point of view. And my assumption to that would be okay, if there's something really tricky and it's a very small percentage of the course or a small percentage of the type of writing you're doing. Yeah, maybe I want address that. If it would have a detriment to how I would fit for something else. Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think a common theme we've had on the podcast and you know, we've got listeners all over the world, you really do need to have an eye towards your local terrain because as you noted, you know, being here in the Bay area, we've got a lot of steep terrain that many people in many parts of the country may call mountain biking. Whereas whereas whereas gravel in in the Southeast, you know, as you said, you did a 500 foot climbing ride over 80 or a hundred miles, which is just insane when you know, you know, in your neck of the woods down a little bit South of me, you probably can't do an hour long lunch ride without hitting, you know, 800 to a thousand feet of climbing. Correct. Correct. And it's, the technical aspects are different too. We know this from the mountain bike world. I mean, and the East coast you have roots and rocks and ruts and swaps. I mean the race I did in North Carolina had a three mile long section of swamp called Savage road. And you have to navigate through this very wet swamp, which is something we don't see here in Northern California very often. You know, we have water crossing in, it's a puddle and we're all excited about that. We're like, Ooh, mud. No, you know, and it's also unique and other things and it's like cyclocross, we have a hot dry cyclocross season versus everyone else has snow and rain and ice and mud. So it's definitely, we have to look at, there is not one size fits all. And I think that's super important in gearing as well. When we look at what the manufacturers are providing for us having all of our options, which the smaller bike builders are allowing you to do it, being able to spec out my bike in advance of purchasing it is super important. I think, and I'll use an example, I bought a cyclocross like from a big manufacturer who happens to be in Morgan Hill and I knew buying this bike that I would have to change the bar with STEM, the seat post, the saddle, the tires, the crank and the cassette and the rear trailer. So what did I buy? I bought a frame basically and I had it basically changed everything else. So that's just, it's a waste of money. It's consumerism is why we are not able to spec out our bikes and I think that's why brands like open and thesis and allied who are allowing you to pre fit, pre spec are following a model that makes a lot more sense. Yeah. Yeah. One of the things you touched on sort of brought me back to the journey I had as a mountain biker and later as a gravel rider, when you're riding off road, the first time you see a Rocky section or the first time you see a Sandy section or the first time you see a muddy section, these are all learning curves that we can't really teach you in advance. How your bike's going to feel, how it's going to move. Right? When you, when you advise people on how to ride sand the first time they do it, they may ignore you and put all their weight on the front handlebar and get stopped immediately. So I think it's important to note, and I'd be curious, since you've coached many athletes and advised many athletes, you know, how do you kind of encourage them that it's okay that we're all scared the first time we do do something. And then once you have it in your, your physical, visible, visible, and physical memory, the next time you see sand you're like, Oh, that's sand. I understand how this works. And, and it may not be the next time. And the same is true on the road. And I'll, I'll share the analogy that I use, which is everything that we do the first time is awkward and oftentimes we're resistant, especially here in Silicon Valley where everyone is so darn intelligent telling someone that they don't know how to ride a bike is a real challenge. And we all rode bikes as kids. So, of course we know, but we don't know in an intellectual sense, we just did. So now we're trying to teach people to know, know how the bike works, the physics of the bike. And so the analogy I typically use in my clinics is but everything is awkward, including things like your first kiss. But somehow you decided or society decided that it was okay that this was worth it. We're going to try again until we perfect it. And usually people just giggle it, that which is great and it breaks the ice and people realize it's okay. I don't have to be perfect. And I think an important point too, and another analogy I used, I was a keynote speaker at the first women's coaching conferences at USA cycling at the Olympic training center. And my topic was how to develop a women's program. And when I started, I really had this idea that I had to have everything perfected before I even started. I built this huge website by myself and I had created all of these resources and routes and made it look like a finished product before we had even begun. And my analogy for that was you don't have to give birth to an 18 year old. You can allow yourself as an organization. Oh good. I got to laugh to go through that process. Right. And, and I think that's super important. Allowing yourself to have, and this is a very yoga philosophy, but have a beginner's mind. I think that's super important to go into something new and be open and know that you don't have to be perfect. I'll share that. I started running five months ago and part of it was I was starting to feel burnt out on writing. And another part of it was I'm involved with an organization called the mermaid series, which is a women series of primarily running events. Although they do one triathlon and duathlon, which is how I've always been involved with them. And I felt like at 54 years old, I felt like I wasn't happy with my fitness. I wasn't happy with my weight, I felt stuck and I felt kind of bored. So I was like, wonder what would happen if I just trained to run? Because every year I do this to ask on, I never trained to run for whatever reason I intend to. And then I don't. And I go out and I have the fastest bike split of the day and pretty much the slowest run, split it a day and it's miserable. And then I can't walk for a week. And so I decided I was going to run and I bought a training plan and I have been following this training plan to the T for the last five months and now I can bust out a half marathon with like no thought. It's crazy to think, Oh, I'm going to go run 10 miles. And what's been really fun for me and stimulating is the fact that it is all new. I'm training with power, which is what we do on the bikes. And so I'm using that expertise to learn a new application of it. I'm learning all about nutrition and fueling and painting and how it's so different than the bike and then just still drawing on this, you know, 20 year aerobic base that I have, which has allowed me to be pretty okay at running just as a beginner. And I think if we could all go into cycling and gravel in particular that way and say, yeah, I've been riding a road bike for 10 years, but I'm a beginner at this and it's okay. I don't have to be perfect. I don't have to win. I don't have to even be really good at it yet. I have the, the ability to learn and to go through this process. And I think there's a lot of growth that happens when we allow ourselves to be a beginner. Yeah, there's lot, there's a lot to be said for that. And I think gravel slash adventure riding, whether it's your own route or an event that someone's put on, there's always going to be new things thrown at you. And you could, it could be the same ride, the same course, but the nature of the earth, the nature of dirt, it's going to change the nature of weather. Everything is going to be thrown at you. And I think the more you try to control it and, and sort of manage it, the less fun you're going to have because you have to accept that it's ever changing. And I love that sort of approaching it with the beginner's mind. Right. And I think that, and it's interesting, I'll use the example of Allie Tetricks since everyone knows her and I've known her since she started road racing and one year she came out and she raised cyclocross. Now she was a pro at the time racing internationally and came out and raised the seas at Kennedy point. I remember that. And I was like, why should she be racing in the siege? She, you know, and I remember the same thing when Lance came out to golden gate park Chris corner corner came out to golden gate park. You know, I'm here they are with these huge engines, pro racers and falling all over themselves. And I was like, okay, I guess it is okay. They really are a beginner. But then if you start winning everything, you can't be a beginner anymore. And I think I've watched Aly also make that transition and to get gravel the same way with this idea. This was fun and I'm going to find my niche and I may not be perfect. I may not win everything. And once in a while I'm going to win. And that's awesome. And she's built this great community around herself and build some longevity in the sport, which I think is super important. She's been a really great ambassador for a lot of women. She's very personable, she's very humble and I think a lot of women are drawn to that Definitely. And I think we're, we're sort of in a heyday of great women to model the gravel lifestyle after which is, which is awesome. I think to your point, many of the top, top female athletes, they just have this sense of irreverence, irreverence and humility in their public personas. Where they show themselves falling down. They, you know, they're just showing what we all experience when we choose a challenge like riding off road. Right. And I think the sad reality of it is women have to work harder in the sport to gain sponsorship to encourage each other. They have to, in addition to their day job and their sporting job, they have to do social media. They have, and the men don't have to do that. I mean, some of them do, some of them hustle, but women have to hustle more. And I think the smart promoters and the smart companies have learned that you know, this specific female athlete can be the sweetheart of America in this sport and we need to support her. And that's a good thing. So whether they're doing it for philanthropic reasons or for smart marketing reasons, they're doing it. And I think that's important. Yeah. I personally find it more enjoyable to kind of watch that part of the sport because the male side of the sport, you're going to start to get a faster flood of former pro road athletes jumping into the sport. And I kind of worry about what that means. But every great woman athlete that I've seen, the join the sport has been really super additive to the sort of fun elements of the community that I love so much. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, I would absolutely agree. And granted there are some men who are doing the same thing. I mean, URI and Ted King, and I mean even so Gaiman with all of his social media stuff and the cookie challenge and you know, going through the KLM. Yeah. We're learning how to use social media to endure for a longer period of time. I mean, in the past road, raters would retire and they were done and they maybe would go on to be a DS or a coach or maybe they'd leave the sport altogether. But we're transitioning. And I think that's important. It's one of the things I've always loved about the bicycle is I can ride the bike in a lot of different ways. And I have, I've toured all over the world. I piloted a tandem for the Paralympics, for the blind writer. I've raced every discipline except BMX and downhill. I have commuted. I've done all these different things and they're already on a bicycle and they're all beautiful to me. And sometimes I have one bike that hangs in the garage and collect stuff for awhile and then I come back to it and come back to that part of the sport. So it will always be there. And when folks stress about where they are with their fitness or, wow, my life is so busy right now, my kids go going to college and I can't get a manage my time. I always tell them the bike will still be there for you. Whenever you're ready, you can come back. It's an easy sport to come back to and try not to stress. It shouldn't be stress inducing. I mean racing can be stress-inducing but the rest of the sport shouldn't. Yeah, absolutely. So as we're winding down our time, if there's some women out there listening who are thinking about getting into gravel, what would you say to them? Well, I would say don't hesitate and I would find a mentor or a group mentor. You don't even have to start with a fancy expensive bike. And I'll throw some wider tires on your road bike if you can. Or hop on your mountain bike if you have it or your cross bike. And just when you see that dirt road turn down it and see where it goes, you're not going to get lost. We all have the ability to not get lost these days with smartphones and navigation and don't feel that you have to be perfect right away. I think that's super important. Like keep it fun and go exploring because I think there's nothing more like being a child and hopping on your bike and riding down the road that you don't know where it goes. Absolutely. And are there any, keeps us young and healthy for sure. And are there any resources that you'd point people to, any of your web properties that women can get information about the sport or how to approach it? Okay, that's a really good question. We have offered a number of gravel clinics in the past who've done some lectures. We've and one of the things that I'm putting together for this year is dirt skills for the roadie. Because I think what we're finding is a lot of people who are road riders, they look at the bike and they're like, Oh, it looks just like road bike. It should bride like a road bike. And what they don't realize is differences the terrain. And so if we can pick out those key skills to help a roadie like jumpstart into hopping on the dirt and not falling down and breaking things whether it's bikes or body parts. So I would say definitely look to your local bike shops. Many of them are offering group rides, especially at gravel roads right now because it's so popular and this new segment of bikes has been introduced to the market. They're trying to sell them. So they're out there, they're doing demo rides, they're offering group rides on a weekly basis, on a monthly basis. Don't feel that you don't belong. I think that's really important. We, the bike industry wants women to ride bikes and it may not feel that way, but insert yourself into this segment of the market and look for groups that are offering rides. And there's a couple of really good podcasts, including one by my friend Craig Dalton, where you can get all kinds of gravel information. Thanks for that Laurie. Well, I enjoyed the conversation it gave me, it gave me some good perspective on the women's market and kudos to you for kind of back in 2002 starting Velo girls and, and sort of given women that permission and the space to enjoy cycling, highlighting the things that make them excited to go do sports. So it's awesome. I appreciate all the work that you've done over the years and it was great talking to you and learning a bit more. Well, thank you for having me on.

Career Change & Uprooting to Poland ft. Shammy Benjamin

REDONKULOUS

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 19, 2020 46:54

Check Shammy out: https://www.instagram.com/heyshammyshammy/?hl=en https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sw0b_yUeU8E Also check out: AMSA.org Poznan University of Medical Sciences (PUMS) Help us feed hungry kids: https://www.gofundme.com/f/g883x7-no-kid-hungry?utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=customer&utm_campaign=p_lico+share-sheet 100% profits going toward this cause:https://teespring.com/stores/redonkulouspodcast

Evil Bikes - Chamois Hagar Gravel Bike with Jason Moeschler

home garden show home and garden shammy

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 17, 2020 40:06

Evil Bikes, best known as an MTB company, bursts onto the gravel scene at the end of 2019 with the Chamois Hager model. With an aggressive geometry and dropper post, the bike immediately turned heads. We talk with Evil Bikes COO, Jason Moeschler about the design philosophy and intention Evil Bikes Website Evil Bikes Instagram Automated transcription (please excuse the typos). Good day everyone and welcome to the gravel ride podcast. I'm your host, Craig Dalton. I needed to take a minute this week and talk to you about the podcast. I've been doing it for two years now, having produced over 50 episodes. I very much appreciated the time you dedicate to listening every month and how you've shared the podcast with friends. The community has really grown, which has been super exciting and I'm super privileged to be part of that journey. As you guys explore and continue to be passionate about gravel cycling, one of the things I've been grappling with is the cost structure of producing the podcast. You may recognize that this isn't a full time job for me, but I am incurring costs on a monthly basis. Every time I put out episodes from hosting to editing to transcription and my time in general and I've been grappling with what to do about those expenses as we sort of pass into our second year. I thought about putting some of the content behind a pay wall or putting some episodes behind a pay wall, but that really just didn't make sense. At the end of the day, I want to provide information and audio content to those of you who are interested in finding out about events, race organizers, and hearing from athletes that are participating in the sport. So I came back to the idea that I'm going to need to start offering some advertising slots into the podcast and I'll try to keep them short and I'll try to keep them up front and not interrupt the content too much, but I wanted to just get out in front of it and let you guys know that I'm just doing this really to offset the costs and to be able to invest a little bit more into the podcast, into distribution, and into all the great things that I hope we're providing to the world. So as with everything I do, I definitely want your feedback, so feel free to shoot me a note of, Hey, that you're doing the right thing or BU this is really disappointing me. I'm always open to feedback and looking forward to hearing from you guys. So with all that said, I did want to tell you about our first sponsor cycle Oregon. I've spoken about the state of Oregon a couple of times on the podcast and we've certainly had guests from that area. I love the state for riding. I've spent time on the Oregon timber trail, mountain biking at fat tire Fest and bend riding in hood river. And I think my very first gravel event was actually up in Oregon, so I was super stoked in connecting with the team up at cycle Oregon. They're a nonprofit organization that has been transforming individuals and communities through cycling. So why are they here on the gravel ride podcast? Well, it's not too big a leap to understand that cycle Oregon who's been putting on events for I think a couple of decades, they are going to be highlighting some of the amazing gravel roads around the Thai Valley. Yeah, it's Ty like titanium, but not spelled that way. They've got a great two day event, which I think is kind of a cool format. They're camping overnight. So you'll be camping with all the, all the different riders and they're organizing two back to back gravel adventure days out of that Valley. So for those of you looking for ways of spending an entire weekend doing an event rather than kind of just a one day hit at a race, this cycle, Oregon gravel events, which is coming up here in may is a great alternative. I can't tell you how cool that area looks. It's kind of nestled below a hood river and above bend in the state of Oregon. So check that out on the map and definitely go to cycle oregon.com because they've got some video about the event that they're producing. You can register right there for the event and if you put the promo code T G R in your registration, the team up there as promised, a little special treat for our listeners. So go check them out. They're investing in gravel, they're investing in adventure for our community. So it's another great way to spend a weekend. This may again, that's cycle oregon.com for more information. So speaking of sweet adventures, I've got a rad episode for you coming up. We were fortunate to sit down with Jason Moseler from evil bikes talking about the Shammy Hagar. This bike burst onto the scene in November last year and really sent shockwaves through a lot of the gravel press as they were taking what was seen as a radical approach to gravel frame construction and geometry. I'm not going to say too much more because I want Jason to explain the concept to you in his own words, but suffice it to say what I thought going into the conversation is not what came out of it. Jason and the team up there at eval have a real clear vision on why this approach is great for gravel cyclists and believe they've created a really amazing platform for people to go out there and explore. So with that said, let's dive right in. Jason, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. Right on. Jason, could you start by telling the listener a little bit about your background and a little bit about the company history? Yeah. personally I race mountain bikes professionally for 22 years. The whole time I race, I worked also so 11 years at a bike shop 10 years with wilderness trail bikes, a little bit of home-building sprinkled in between there and and now I've been at eval for two and a half years. Evil was founded in 2008 and really didn't start selling bikes until 2014 with the launch of the following, the 120 millimeter full suspension, 20 Niner. And at that point the whole mountain bike industry was the, the, the whole industry. The ship had turned to 27.5 inch wheels and then all of the sudden eval lands this super aggressive, super playful, long, low and flack 29 or bike in it. It just like stopped the industry in its tracks. And from that point forward, evil has, has been looked at as this, this kind of game changer of a design and geometry company. Yeah. I encourage the listener to go out and check out the website and check out some of the history of evil. Cause I do remember that time period and it was like boom, here is a bad ass mountain bike coming to market. That's kind of a little bit different and a bit different in all the right ways. So it's an exciting time For sure. And you know, the, the fact that it was a 20 Niner and the fact that it had a really never before themed geometry was one thing. But then you had evils design language in the frame, the actual industrial design and it looked like nothing anyone had ever seen before. And that that same design language has plopped forward to the bike we're going to talk about today, the Shammy Hagar gravel bike. Yeah, I think it's interesting and you know, some people may be scratching their heads, why are we talking about full suspension mountain bikes for the first few minutes of this podcast. But as we've often talked about, you know, the gravel bike market, there's a, there's a spectrum. There's, there's starting with a road bike and adding a little bit of tire clearance and we've kind of talked about that as being called the road plus category. And then there's the other end of the spectrum. And I think we, one of the things that comes up time and time again is depending on what terrain is out in your backyard, your idea of a gravel bike can be radically different. So in December, you know, just a, just a couple of months back when you guys introduced the Shammy Hagar, it was like boom. It was another one of those moments where someone was saying to the industry and to the consumers, Hey, here's a different perspective. We're thinking about a rider that's maybe coming from a different geography and has a different idea about what writing is, looks like it's not, you know, simple, pleasant gravel roads that people were riding on 28 see tires. This is a different kind of animal. So can you just talk a little bit about the Shammy Hagar at a high level and then we'll get into some of those details that make it a different performing bike. For sure. Yeah. So when the Hagar was designed, we really didn't want to exclude people from the road side. We, we didn't want to make this a mountain bike and there's some key features in the bike that every rider that likes to peddle will appreciate. The first thing is that the seat angle on, on the Shami it's at the forward edge of the UCI C2 bangle position. What that means is that your pedal position is there in relation to the bottom bracket. It's not some, you know, crazy steep mountain bike seat tube angle that, you know, the full suspensions are using to, you know, take advantage of all the kinematics and everything. It's really a, a road huddling position. When you look at the bike from the side, it looks really long and it is really long. But what we've done to accommodate for that length in the peddling position is that we've flapped a really short handlebar STEM on there. We're, we're shipping the bikes out with a 40 millimeter to 60 millimeter STEM. And so what that short STEM has done is put the rider essentially in the same pedaling position that they're used to on their road bike. So we have essentially given a road rider, if you will, the optimal peddling position, a handlebar and handlebar position that they would really appreciate so that they're not excluded. But then on the extreme side, we link them the wheel base. We dropped the top two way down. We don't sell this bike without a drop or post. So all of the sudden you have a bike that can get your center of gravity really low, allow you to get your weight back and descend really comfortably. Yeah, I think that, you know, those are some of the things, if, if you're not driving or listening to this while you're riding, check out an image of the bike because it is striking some of these things. But as you're describing it, Jason, I know you've guys have put a lot of effort into making it feel as if you're in a sort of traditional gravel bike position. Ultimately, however, the angles are going to play out quite differently in terms of how the bike's gonna perform. Particularly descending, I imagine. Exactly, exactly. When you look at the overall schematic of a Shammy Hagar versus when we look at when Eagle looks at other gravel bikes there, to us, they're all very similar. And in general, the Shammy, Hagar, the wheelbase is about a hundred millimeters longer maybe even a little bit more. And what has happened to the rider position in relation to the front rear axle? Is that in relation to the axle? The rider, sorry, the wheel axles, the rider has moved back and down a little bit, but again, like I said, that pedal position is is maintained. Now a lot of people look at the Shami and they're like, Oh man, there's no way that thing is gonna turn. It's, it's gonna feel floppy. What they don't realize is that the bike has a very custom fork, very custom actual, the crown measurement, custom offset which was developed by Dave Weigle. Day wiggle comes from the mountain bike side. People probably know about him, but if there's one person that knows how to make a bike handle good, it is Dave Weigle. And so he's got his paintbrush all over this bike. And so what you'll discover is that he's, he's adjusted this thing to where it doesn't have any steering disadvantages. It doesn't have any cornering disadvantages. In fact, you end up, you know, the faster you go cornering the, the more you realize, wow, this thing, it's, you just keep finding more potential with it. Yeah. If I'm understanding you correctly, if you're sort of shifting your body weight back a little bit because they've got the shorter STEM, how does that translate to cornering performance off road? Well so when you look at the Shami, the top tube is dropped way down and it also has the dropper posts. So if you drop that seat posts, all of the sudden that seat isn't in your way. And so you can get your weight down way down. Like nothing you've ever felt before on a regular gravel bike. And what that does is it allows you to get your center of gravity down which allows you to keep the wheels more planted on the ground. It just, it like being down and low. Is, is what allows you to get your weight low and get more traction to the tire and also not feel like you're top heavy. And like, you know, if you hit an obstacle, you're gonna buck yourself over the bars or something. So that, that sloping top tube really along with the dropper post really lets the rider get their weight down and low. And then the other part of that equation, and you've probably seen this with a lot of, with a lot of your listeners, is that most gravel writers these days, and I, and I hear this from a lot of my colleagues, they say, you know, I don't use the drops anymore. I just use the top of the hood. And that's my comfortable position. But in our opinion, the top of the hoods is a very scary place to hold on to. When you're trying to negotiate something technical, when you're going really fast, we also feel that the drops are very uncomfortable. For the same reason you get your front, your front end weight is just disproportionate when you're in your drops on a standard gravel or road set up. If your front wheel hits an obstacle, your your way wants to be thrown forward with the Shammy, you drop your seat post and all of a sudden because your body is lower, your angle of attack going into the drop bars is much better. So all of the sudden you've got this amazing position to use your drops. They actually feel good to be in the drops. Not only that, but your angle of attack towards your brake levers and your shift gears in the drops is like nothing you've ever felt on a, on a standard gravel bike. Typically it's very hard to, to strike a good balance of good hood position when you're holding to the top and good hood position. When you're in the drops and reaching for the brake lever, how's your, you can get your, your weight low on the rear of the Shammy. With the feet dropped, all of the sudden there's this whole new world of accessibility using the drop bars. Yeah, I have to say those are some really important takeaways and as listeners know, I'm a big fan of the dropper post and I can see in the design of the Shammy Hagar how you really get down low. And it's interesting that you mentioned kind of that the hoods versus drops because I was, it was riding yesterday and descending here in mill Valley and, and just thinking about how better the position was with my saddle really dropped with the dropper post, kind of my hands felt very comfortable and planted and my weight was was low. So when it got steep I didn't feel like I was getting flipped over the bars. And I think your point about, you know, a lot of riders descending on the hoods is absolutely spot on. It's crazy. And I, I see people, mostly people in my rear view mirror that I'm passing who are descending on the hoods because there's just no way you can keep the control with just really effectively your, your thumb part of your hand being the only thing that's effectively gripping and holding you onto the bike. Exactly. Exactly. And now the other thing to consider with the Shammy Hagar versus a typical gravel bike. Sure you can throw a dropper post on a typical gravel bike, but the typical gravel bikes, the triangles are bigger. A lot of the bikes out there, they're their road bikes that are trying to be gravel bikes or they're gravel bikes that are trying to be cyclocross bikes. But the common theme is that the triangle's pretty big, so you can't fit a very long dropper on there. And so the cause of that, you just can't get as low as you could get on the Shami because the frame is organically, way lower. So you can just get yourself way, way lower. And that gets you way more wheel traction. It gets you the ability to lean way further back when you are going really fast. But that dropper posts and not compact frame, that's only part of the equation. When you take a typical gravel bike and you put a dropper post on, you're still dealing with the, the how do you, how do you say it? The, the road bike style front end. What I mean by that is you typically have tow overlap. You typically have a very short amount of trail. You typically have very steep head two bangles. And so those three things combined, they still make for a really sketchy descending experience. Compare that to the Shami where you essentially have a following MB mountain bike front end on this thing to scare with. It wants to attack aggressive stuff and that's what you get with the riding position of the Shami is you, you've essentially been given, we've, we sprinkled in all the benefits of mountain bike geometry to help descending feel more comfortable and safe on, on our gravel bike. And then have you designed it around a specific wheel size? Yeah. We, so this bike holds a 700 by 50 tire. So effectively a 29 by 2.0 and that's what we spec it with. And we've had a lot of questions of, well, Hey, why, why don't you, you know, promote like a, a road plus like a six 50 by 47. And our answer is well, cause you can use a 700 by 47. It to us it's just like a mountain bike. The bigger wheel is better. And so that's kind of where we're trying to scare people. I actually worked at WTB when the road plus tires were created and what we were doing there was working with consumers and bike brands that had road bikes that had some extra width and the chains days where they could take this road plus wheelset throw it on their road bike and you know, have a bike that goes off road much better and still does on road pretty good. The height of that six 50 by 47, the tire is essentially the same as a 700 by 30 road tire. So, you know, tired of feet tube, your clearance is good. You just need that chain stay with. But again, that's, that's taking a road bike and trying to make it you know, go off road better the evil Shammy Hagar, we, we're not trying to be a road bike. We're not trying to be a cyclocross bike. We're, we're trying to be the best gravel bike possible. So do you, we talk a lot and we've talked a lot about sort of descending and cornering. How, how do things play out when we're climbing? So again the climbing position, the peddling position is exactly what a rider would want. It's, it's exactly comparable to their road bike or their current gravel bike. So feed angle saddle for AFT, all that adjustability is, is just like what the rider is used to. Same as a bar position. So measuring center of the seat posts to center, the handlebar handlebar height below the saddle height. All of, all of those measurements that riders appreciate are achievable. Say you're a very traditional road rider who when measuring from the ground you'd like your handlebars to be about seven centimeters below your saddle height when also measured from the ground, you know, like a very aggressive kind of pro road position. You can actually do that with a Shammy Hagar. You can achieve that position. But here's the awesome thing. When you start going downhill, you're not stuck in that position. You can get the seat way down and all of the sudden you've turned yourself into a rider who had like, you know, a pro road position and now all of a sudden you can go downhill with the seat post down and you're in like the most Aero position you could ever, you could ever obtain because you're so low. And you know what you see with the pro road riders as they you know, their seats are up and they, they get their weight or they get their body in front of the saddle and then they drop themselves down on the top tube. Like this super dangerous riding position. Well, imagine just slamming the seat all the way down to the seat color and you can actually keep your weight back a little bit into a safe zone. I'm pretty much positive that this bike will out descend any road bike. I have all these dreams of Peter Saigon riding this thing and you know, he already smokes people, but I can't even imagine what that guy could do on this bike. No, I hear you. I, it was funny, as you're starting your description, I was imagining like the, the Chris Froome sitting on the top tube dissent position and how that just doesn't work for gravel, but you can effectively get there if you've got a long dropper, you can just be sitting comfortably on the saddle. Totally in control and totally low. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm, I'm curious, you know, if we will, we will see these dropper posts on the, in the pro Peloton for exactly the reasons you're talking about. Now that I've been hooked on our dropper post, if I go back to Europe and I'm descending off of Alpe d'Huez or some classic climb, I would definitely want to drop her post on my bike. Totally. There are some technology that has taken time to break into the let's say those of us and I'm, and I'm one of us that appreciate lightweight. We appreciate efficiency. We appreciate you know, the ability to go from point a to point B quickly go uphill quickly. You know, disc brakes is one of those things. For cross country, mountain biking, dropper posts. I mean, they're, they're just starting to break in there. And for gravel, I think you know, bellow news just did a podcast not too long ago where they were, they were saying dropper post isn't appropriate for gravel. It's just not needed. We really hope that this bike shows people that it actually, it's not just a needed, it's, it's incredibly beneficial. Yeah. I think that's what's really exciting about people taking bold stabs at what gravel bikes should look like. Whether it's what you guys are doing or some of the forays into suspending mountain bikes. I think it's opening people's eyes that the things we're trying to do on these bikes are different and fresh perspective, whether it's coming from the mountain bike world or outside. The industry is very much warranted in this moment in time. And it's giving people a lot to think about and shaking up the establishment in a big way. For sure. And there's other, there's other stabs the devil took as well. For instance, the short STEM mountain bikers is known now for 10 years, that long STEM are not beneficial. So we didn't go halfway. We went all the way down to mountain bikes STEM. And we did that because day wiggle knows how to correct the geometry to make the bike steer correctly. So there's, there's no reason to leave STEM length on there. It's, it's silly. The other thing is we, we just, we used 160 millimeter rotors on this bike. The, the main reason being is while you've effectively got a a mountain bike geometry for going downhill, so you're going to catch yourself going faster. So you need better stopper. So one 60 rotor standard across the board. And then another thing that some people scratch their head over is that we used a 30.9 feet post diameter. The reason we did that because you use 30.9, you can get any option of feet post that the entire world of dropper posts is your oyster. If you use 27.2, your, your weight loss is minimal. And all of the sudden you're heavily, heavily restricted over, you know, your seat post choices. Another big question we've gotten is front derailer compatibility and we left that on there. We left it on the Shammy. We want the customer to have all the options. For some people this bike might need almost mountain bike Gehring. And at the same time they might want, you know, a really high gear similar to a road to a road bike. So, you know, this bike could effectively be both of those bikes in the same ride. And so we wanted to really keep things open for the rider. Yeah. I think one of the things that struck me when I first saw the design of the bike was, you know, people often were in the early days of gravel biking, we're saying, Oh, we're just going back to a 1990s hard tail mountain bike geometry. And obviously over the decades the mountain bike geometry has shifted and all the ways that you've discussed the slacker head angles, the shorter stems, and my, my first gut reaction was, Hey, maybe these guys are just cut through that journey because of the mountain bike experience and put us at our ultimate end goal. And all gravel bikes are gonna look like this in 10 years. I don't know the answer to that, but it's certainly interesting to kind of think about it in that, that framework. Yeah. You're, yeah, you really bring up a good point. This bike is not compatible with a front a front suspension fork. And there's some thought behind that. Had we made it compatible with the suspension fork, you would essentially have a hard tail mountain bike with drop bars and a suspension fork. But we weren't trying to go there. We wanted to make the lightest, most felt best ascending gravel bike we could. We're, we're not trying to make a mountain bike here. We're, we're really trying to make like a tried and true gravel bike. That, you know, is just, just that it's, it's great for riding these dirt roads. It, of course, that'll handle, you know, it'll handle single track good too. But make no mistake, it's not a mountain bike on a single track, on smooth single track. You're good. But you know, if you're riding rough stuff like ride your mountain bike for sure. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's definitely one of those those lines that I'm sure you guys were super conscious of. It seems like you've, you've built the bike also to be ready for adventure. I noticed a lot of islets to, to Mount bags and whatnot to add. Can you talk a little bit about that angle? Yeah. We we didn't want any limitations on this thing. As far as being bike packable. So we gave it every amount that it could have. Fender mounts. Without heavy modification to the fender, you can fit 700 by 40 a tire with a fender on the bike with heavy modification of offenders in the rear. If you actually cut the fenders around the chain, stay a little bit. You can actually run the fenders with the full size 700 by 50 tire. We have employees that are using this bike as a commuter bike. Their daily driver, they've got a bike rack mounted to the back. You can, you buy an optional fee caller that allows the top brackets of the bike rack to Mount to the seat color. The bike has one, two, three, four, five, six water bottle cage mounts on a medium through extra large and five on small. And then it has, it has the ability to hold pretty much any bag that you want. So one of our ambassadors free ride legend led Brown sheet just returned from a bike packing trip in Thailand. And she's kind of our, our first test. We all have like, how heavy can you load this thing down? And as it turns out, I mean, it, it, it's as good of a bike packing bike as it is a gravel bike, you know, the, the roads really crossed there. And there was no disadvantage for us to add all of those mounts. You know, there's, there's not a huge weight penalty or anything, so it's just great. It, it makes the bike a lot more universal I think for, for the end consumer. Interesting. And I had heard on some earlier interviews you did that there was some resistance internally to bring a gravel bike from such a strong mountain bike company. Can you talk a little bit about that journey and where the rest of the team is that with the Shammy Hagar at this point? Yeah. so you know, evil really is focused on making really awesome mountain bikes. That's, that is everyone that works here, that is their passion. And so, you know, some, so much so that it doesn't seem like there's room to enter another category, but there is, there is a whole other section of our that is focused on making just the coolest bikes possible and it's not, it's not relegated to mountain bikes. And there was definitely some fear within the staff that evil might shoot ourselves in the foot for launching a gravel bike when launching a gravel bike instead of a mountain bike because, you know, people are always looking for what is the next mountain bike coming from evil. Our, our primary owner, Kevin Walsh, he's our design director. He's our branding director. You know, he was very stable footed through this whole thing and you know, never wavered. He was very confident that this was really going to be a category changing, maybe category creating bike that it, that it truly had benefits that really needed to get out there. The, the market needed this, the end user, we believe needs this bike. So now that it's launched, now that the staff has gotten to ride a lot of the tests and wheels and everything you know, the, everybody gets it and everybody is universally excited about this bike and, and excited to ride it. And a lot of what was there was the, the, the negativity was the thought of, Oh, we don't want to make a gravel bike. Those things stink. Like I, we've written those and they're, they're not good. They, they didn't get the full concept of what the evil gravel bike was going to be. And so we've really, we've changed our employees thinking of what a gravel bike is. Yeah. I'm optimistic that this is a category expanding bike. You know, I've long held the belief that, you know, a lot of the gravel market growth has been from road riders who are discovering the value of being off road, which is something as mountain bikers we've known for decades, right. That there's just joy of being away from the cars and having this sense of adventure. So you're getting a lot of road athletes who are just dipping their toe in gravel. I feel like this bike may be one of those bikes that a mountain biker could look at and say, Hey, I've been hearing about gravel. I like the idea of maybe going a little farther or doing a different style of riding. Maybe I'll dip my toe in the water and grab this new Shammy Hagar bike. And ultimately, you know, you're going to draw athletes from both sides. I've seen plenty of my road friends who ended up starting with a sort of very gentle road plus bike and now are up to, you know, 47 millimeter tires on their, on their next generation gravel bikes. So it's really fascinating to me. And, and, and I, I love the idea of bringing more people into the market and getting some mountain bikers to join us in the gravel parade. For sure. For sure. And that's what we really wanted to try to pay attention to with this bike is we weren't making it for just Mount biker and we weren't making it for just road rider. We gave road riders all of the, the handling that maybe they don't know they need. But this bike is, it's just so much safer to ride when you're off road with no negativity related to pedaling position. It's also light. So there's, it also, it also holds, you know, 700 by 40 tires, just fine. Heck, we even, we ride this bike with road tires. You can actually slap 700 by 30 like the WTB exposure tire 700 by 30 road tires on this thing. And man, it is, it is so fast it, and you've never felt a bike, so good going downhill on road corner. It's incredible. So yeah, like for me personally, I keep a second wheel set on hand with, with road tires for if I am going to go out on a road ride. And again, you've got that road position. And then for the mountain bikers they've got this super lightweight rig. You know, it's, it's, it's way lighter than, than what you can get with a mountain bike. And they've got that, that familiarity that, that feeling of home with the geometry of the bike. So yeah, basically they can get they can just go faster. You know, on the open road. They've got the benefit of the multiple hand positions on the drop bar. And then they've got their drop receipt posts, which you know, 10 years ago mountain bikers didn't think they wanted. But you know, now it's like it's uncommon to see a mountain bike without it. Yeah, exactly. Well, I appreciate the deep overview. I feel like this is one of those bikes that you want to hear from the designer. You want to hear from the company, you want to hear other riders perceptions of it. And I know you guys have done a good job of getting it out there underneath some people who can document what they're feeling and validate what you're talking about because a, it's a really interesting model. Definitely everybody's listening. Go check it out on the web, check out some of the videos to get a sense for all the things that Jason's has been describing because they've really put together a, an interesting model. So Jason, thanks again for the time. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. It was my pleasure. Okay. What a fun conversation with Jason. I love talking about the Shammy Hagar. It's such an interesting design. As someone who comes from a mountain bike background. I was kind of really drawn to a lot of the things he was talking about and I can't wait to spend a little time on the Shammy Hagar here in mill Valley dropping off Mount Tam. I think it's going to be an exceptionally fast bike for me in this neighborhood this week on can't let it go. I want to talk about my experience with the post carry company travel bag. It's one of those bags where you pull the fork off the bike in addition to the handlebars and you can get it in a really compact portable setup and here's the thing, you can travel with it on the airlines and likely avoid any airline travel fees. I used the bag maybe three times last year and not once did I get dinged for it. It kind of looks like an oversized massage table and that's my company line should anybody ask. But this post carry bag has just been a joy to avoid those $150 fees. You get on a lot of airlines, so check out their websites. I know there's some other competing bags in that genre as well. I definitely recommend it. If you're going to travel more than two to three times a year, it really makes sense financially to grab one of these bags. So that's it for this week. If you have any feedback, please shoot me a note@craigatthegravelride.bike or hit me up on social media channels. Happy to hear from you. As always, ratings and reviews are appreciated. You'd be surprised how the algorithms out there on the podcasting web will share the pod and get us in front of new listeners with that. Until next time, here's to finding some dirt under your wheels.

Buying a shammy from the Home and Garden Show.

Whole 'nother Story

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 9, 2020 2:13

Today, Kevin goes to the Home and Garden Show and buys a super shammy

In My Bag Ep. 1 - You'll Learn Something

PCpodcast/VOGpodcast

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 9, 2019 34:56

Well Hello There, Salute to uncle Shammy for that one. I'm just doing this little podcast journey of mine, and in this episode, I was just talking shit and in my feelings a little bit. I touch on the fact that I enjoy being a father and tell other scumbags out there to be a father to their children if they have them. For some reason, I'm always giving some type of relationship advice, even though I don't believe in traditional relationships at all. I appreciate you all for listening, especially to this episode. Sometimes I get tired of the doom and gloom, I needed a break. Tell a friend to tell a friend people . --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/pcpodcast-vogpodcast/support

salute learn something shammy

Mother, Fetch Me A Sperm Shammy

Distorted View Daily

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 25, 2019 42:31

ON TODAY’S EPISODE: Trying To Buy A Cheese Danish With Counterfeit $100 Bills Mom Is Casually Cool With Her Son Playing With His Dick In Front Of Her My Mother Is The Anti Dr. Phil Crystal Meth Fueled Gay Marathon Sex, After We Check In With Sports. Windblown Cocaine Defense Suicide Tips In Youtube Kid Videos […]

mother sperm fetch shammy

Shammy

Responsible Adult

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 18, 2019 55:31

Episode 6 of Responsible Adult in which I talk to Shammy about growing up as an artist.

shammy

DND, Shammy's Original DND stories, How to have a job in IT, and TROLLS Ft. Shammyren

Unconventional Geek

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 22, 2019 57:35

Unconventional Geek is with Shammyren who started out on twitch with DND and grinding WOW. TLDR; Shammy was a WOW grinder When we both started playing wow Shammy’s stream was based around the stream he watch Shammy is the Dungeon master and a player but a master on his channel Shammy’s process of being a dungeon master takes us back to highschool Shammy had an interesting relationship with his teacher Shammy has wonderful ms paint skills Took to DND as a creative passion Dm’s who don’t like new people Talk about chiropractors and how weird it looks and sounds Cracking knuckles is actually good for you, maybe? What to call your online friends after knowing their real name Healers are just as bad as vegan Discuss what an IRC Trolls better be funny Talking by yourself while no one is in chat to respond Shammy grunts on stream How to have a job in IT Shammy: Twitter: https://twitter.com/shammyren TwitchTv: https://www.twitch.tv/shammyren Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shammyren/ Find the Unconventional Geek: Website: https://unconventionalgeek.am Discord: https://discord.gg/X73su4S Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UnconventionalGeek/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/UnconventionalGeek/ Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/karrbs Items used: Microphone- amzn.to/2TfDWSV Second Microphone - amzn.to/2TeGd0x Mic Interface - amzn.to/2Fnoe5l XLR Cables - amzn.to/2DKITyy Keyboard - amzn.to/2TdGkK1 Mouse - amzn.to/2FmqdGP Backup Mouse - amzn.to/2PvM5Va Chair - amzn.to/2zaknmI Headphones - www.massdrop.com/buy/massdrop-sennheiser-hd6xx Wireless Headphones - amzn.to/2Do0dbE Mousepad - amzn.to/2OMg9GD --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/unconventional-geek/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/unconventional-geek/support

stories talk dm original discord dungeons and dragons healers trolls cracking dungeon microphones tldr wireless headphones shammy

Friday Night HATE Fever!

LIVE! From The Bird's Nest

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 20, 2017 112:00

Drew and Shammy are TILTING bigly and decide to throw some hate around the league. They've got something mean to say about everyone in the league! This is an episode you don't want to miss!

fever tilting shammy

Bonus Ep: Shammy Tilts

LIVE! From The Bird's Nest

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 18, 2017 27:00

Shammy tilts after losing to the superior bird, The Falcon

falcon tilts shammy

Hangin' with the Sloth #2 - Shammy

Hangin' with the Sloth Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 9, 2017 96:50

Shmolty and Shammy joke about why people consider Shmolty a clone, the creative process behind Shammy's reviews, and of course, bimeojames. Check out Shammy: www.youtube.com/c/shammytv -----------------------LINKS----------------------------- iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/hangin-with-the-sloth-podcast/id1265368474?mt=2 YouTube: www.youtube.com/c/shmolty Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-291832807 Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheRealShmolty Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/shmolty -----------------------MUSIC----------------------------- Silent Partner - Camaguey https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPm0Cq4FUbU Jason Farnham - World Map https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Onqdg_6QE1U

sloths hangin shammy shmolty

Fun With Fogees!

Trips And Monstar Show

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 13, 2017 1:03

donald trump movies marvel washington dc horror robots burn nerds television geeks bacon magicians trips valhalla shammy shymalan

Episode 15 The First Annual Shammy Awards

Clicquot Vision Radio

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 5, 2017 61:16

In this episode, Don Notz and Bumps Hollywood rent out Radio City Music Hall in NYC, and welcome back some of their favorite co-hosts to help host the first annual Shammy Awards. The show will take a look back at all that occurred in 2016, and hand out some of the music industry’s most prestigious awards. Careers will be honored, memories will be made, and hopes and dreams will be crushed as the show celebrates the best and worst of 2016. Tracklist 1. Intro 2. This Fuxkin Guy of the Year 3. Flashback of This Fuxkin Guy of the Year Winner 4. New Wave of the Year 5. R&B Album of the Year 6. Hip-Hop Album of the Year 7. Cheesecake Public Service Announcement 8. Meme of the Year 9. Donny Knockboots impromptu Segment 10. Tramp of the Year 11. Fuxkboi of the Year 12. Walt Fuxkboi of the Year Public Service Announcement 13. Female MC of the Year 14. Lifetime Achievement Award 15. In Memoriam Segment

new york city awards memes careers flashback new wave tramp first annual radio city music hall hip hop albums female mcs b album shammy

#2 Shammy Dee - DJ & Producer

Getting Started with Chad Lee Thymes

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 12, 2016 75:49

October 12, 2016

shammy dee dj

Episode 147: Raiders of the lost Muñeco , Lena Dunham's Shammy Pussy

Pepe Billete Uncensored

Play Episode Listen Later May 9, 2016 61:59

Fights break out, feelings get hurt and truths are revealed as Lily and Tony take over the show.

lost raiders fights pussy shammy

Episode 147: Raiders of the lost Muñeco , Lena Dunham's Shammy Pussy

Pepe Billete Uncensored

Play Episode Listen Later May 9, 2016 61:59

Fights break out, feelings get hurt and truths are revealed as Lily and Tony take over the show.

lost raiders fights pussy shammy

#36 - Convert to Raid: Shammy the Vampire Slayer

Convert to Raid Presents: The podcast for World of Warcraft and other Blizzard Games!

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 12, 2012 122:25

This week the guys have a LOT to discuss. Not only were there two big interviews with WoW Devs, but the Mists beta might be coming pretty darn soon along with a whole new breakdown for buffs and debuffs. We talk enhancement shamans with Ceindra, starting a guild with Zaikai, and talk a lot more about our Level 60 Raiding Challenge. This show is packed full of gaming goodness, so get your ears ready!

vampires alliance raid convert shaman warcraft enhancements vampire slayer horde raiding mists shammy ghostcrawler converttoraid

Needs a Hug Podcast episode 4

Needs a Hug

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 20, 2011

Once a week Kaziah and Belthal take you through the trials and tribulations of the Needs a Hug guild on Ravenholdt US. Weekly guild news, World of Warcraft news ,commentary and special guests bring the unique flavor and insanity of the Needs a Hug guildies to the airwaves.WEEK IN WARCRAFTOur week in World of WarcraftWOW NEWSPatch 4.1 stuffGuild chat on the iPhoneCall to arms in the dungeon finderwailing caverns shortenedhttp://wow.joystiq.com/2011/04/07/patch-4-1-new-wailing-caverns-layout-unveiled/New WoW Jerseys and Hawaiian shirtshttp://www.swagdog.com/armoryinterface.aspxFrom WOW Insiderhttp://wow.joystiq.com/2011/04/07/patch-4-1-ptr-new-pve-to-pvp-currency-conversion/Patch 4.1 PTR: New PvE-to-PvP currency conversionby Matthew Rossi If you've seen the patch 4.1 PTR patch notes recently, one thing will probably jump out at you immediately. Namely, you can now buy honor points for justice points and vice versa, and you can also buy conquest points for valor points.Updated 4.1 patch notes for April 7, 2011GeneralHonor is now purchasable from the Justice Commodities Vendor at 250 Honor per 375 Justice.Justice is now purchasable from the Honor Commodities Vendor at 250 Justice per 375 Honor.Conquest is now purchasable from the Valor vendor at 250 Conquest per 250 Valor.This is huge for people who have found themselves capped on one or another of these currencies for a while now. I know for myself, I've ended up stockpiling heirlooms for characters I may or may not ever level just to keep below the JP cap. Now I can get serious about those last few PvP items I've been holding off picking up. I am surprised to see a valor-to-conquest conversion but not a conquest-to-valor one -- seems somewhat unfair, as it gives PvE players with access to a lot of valor points a way to jump into PvP but gives no such return for PvP players who want to get a leg up in PvE.Keeping in mind it's the PTR and is always subject to change, of course, this should be a more interesting solution to point capping than we've seen before with trade goods and suchlike.GUILD NEWSAchivements:That’s a lot of Bait - Seafood Magnofique! Kill Squad! - 100K killsThunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker - AeromoniSulfuras, Hand of Ragnoros - DarvinaLevel 20Newest Level 85RakzarSpecial GuestGutterballQUESTIONSSeraphima Writes:As a young tank I’m wondering if you have any hints for bear tanking or druid leveling so I can finish up my last 15 levels?DrWhat writes:With the new Call to Arms coming out what do you think the effect will be on random dungeons?Say It, Don't Spray ItKaziah: Ok, finish this sentence. Fe Fi Fo Fum, I...Mooktar: ... instead of Magmaw, lets fight his mumWieland: ...want to kick some alliance bum?Seraphimia: sell the blood of a Shammy, monMP3RSSiTunes

world apple iphone arms valor hawaiian jp guild patch world of warcraft warcraft conquest hug pvp say it pve ptr wieland 96b8 shammy wow news gutterball matthew rossi achivements

Take Me Home, Shammy! - Watcha Lookin' At?

home attention direction eyes lookin take me home watcha shammy

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 3, 2010 40:26

In our final week of the series we explore how our attention impacts our direction and thus our destination.

Take Me Home, Shammy! - Informed Descisions?

home informed take me home shammy

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 27, 2010 40:01

This week we observed that our decisions impact our future, but our decisions are made with limited information. So does that make good information the key to finding and staying on the right paths? Is there something more valuable, more important, than good information?

Take Me Home, Shammy! - Prudent or Simple?

home simple proverbs wise direction take me home prudent shammy

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 20, 2010 40:17

This week we looked at Proverbs 27.12 and the insight it offers as we asked the question, "How do I know which path to be on?"

Take Me Home, Shammy! - Path