Seth is well known among the Coil community – you only have to look at his stats to understand how revered he is. **And rightly so.
**

An old hat by Coil standards – certainly when compared to my time on it, this blogger introduced me to the platform. After months of prodding and cajoling, I eventually plucked up the courage and dived in.

You see, we’ve been friends for some time now (almost 25 years sounds like we’re ancient – I don’t feel it). If you checked our Twitter location you’d have noticed we are from the same place. Unfortunately, one of us is a ‘Blue’, but I won’t hold that against him.

We’ve been through many ups and downs to let the colour of our football shirts put a wedge in our friendship. Instead, we admire each other’s support for the teams we grew up watching.

https://media.giphy.com/media/TLO3uEaFDbd58RUpIl/giphy.gif

Remember this, Seth? A terrific day for our city I'm sure you'll agree.

Seth has helped me a great deal, as have many of you, get to grips with the platform and offered support through your reads of my posts. I hope I have been equally supportive of you – I do try to get round to reading everyone’s work, as I understand too well the time it takes to create a post.

My journey on Coil and on Twitter has been a steep learning curve and when Seth asked if I wanted to do a dual interview post I jumped at it – what a great idea!

So, first off, Seth – how have you found supporting your children's school learning during lockdown?

Haha! It's a touchy subject, John! It's veering towards non-existent at the moment! My two are a little bit older, so in one respect, it's fine – my wife and I can work without having to shadow toddlers around. I sympathise with your situation, I really do – it's not easy with small, very active kids in the house. My stress levels would be through the roof!

I don't have to follow mine around to make sure they don't hurt themselves, but it's the sass I'm struggling to cope with. New levels of sass every day – every possible dis and put down to avoid doing work. And they hold all the cards cos they're thinking – do you really want to stand here and argue with me about school work? You have another Zoom call in 3 minutes...

So – not much learning going on right now, unless you count learning how to scam legendary pets from unsuspecting newbies in Roblox. It's like another language isn't it? Did that mean anything to you? Me neither.

You've acquired quite a following on Coil! What are your top 3 tips for newcomers like me to help get acquainted and build up an expansive supportive network as you have?

Wow – that's a tough one. I can talk all day dispensing advice to anyone who'll listen – whether it's valuable or not is a different story! Specifically about building up a network eh?....

1. Don't feel pressured to read everything the moment it comes out. I find myself sometimes struggling under the sheer volume of posts sometimes. When are you supposed to write your own stuff?

I like and retweet people's Coil posts to help them get as much reach as possible, even though I may not have read their post at that point. But whenever I have down time I go back and read on Coil and upvote, or not!

2. Be sociable – there are people out there who may be on the verge of packing in, or having a crisis of confidence. It could be your supportive comment on their tweet that makes them keep writing. If you like something you've read, be sure to tell the author! Or if people ask questions, respond!

Help to foster a sense of community – there's a healthy supportive Coil collective growing on Twitter that's really fun to be a part of. If you want to join a club with like-minded people ready to critique and add value to each other's work – reach out to Ken Melendez on Twitter and ask about joining the Content Builders Club – I found that extremely worthwhile. There's a lot of good people out there. I feel like we're really standing on each other's shoulders at the moment.

3. There's so much going on on Coil, on Twitter, in the CBC – this blogging lark can feel like a full-time job! It's important not to feel overwhelmed. The effects of social media on mental health are well-documented, and that's just a fraction of what's going on here, so do what you can do, go at your own pace. Write when you want, engage when you're comfortable and read when you can. This is a marathon, not a sprint. Don't burn out – you're here for the long-term. Make sure you're in good shape to go the distance!

Wow – this is fun! I like these questions, John!

My finding out about XRP was through you. How did you first come across it and what are your predictions for the price and use case of the asset by 2025. And what is your exit plan?

Well – as you know, a mutual friend pointed us towards Bitcoin in November 2017 – there was a huge amount of interest in crypto at that point, I can't for the life of me remember why?....

I DMOR, stumbled on XRP and it was a bit of a red pill moment – the veil was lifted on this whole subculture of crypto people and bulls and bears and inverse heads and shoulders! The potential for life-changing wealth to strike at any time- and then add in the delights of crypto Twitter on top of that!

It was an intoxicating mix of Bitcoin maxis and the XRP army, dancing threateningly towards each other like the Sharks and the Jets in West Side Story, while the riddlers were... well I don't know what they were doing! Stirring the pot I guess, but to what end? Throwing people off the scent? Getting people to FOMO in? It feels like a digital treasure hunt at the moment.

I don't really do price predictions... but by 2025 I'll have been invested in crypto for 8 years. I think that's a big enough window to see some progress. I would hope XRP's in double figures by then.

In terms of use case? I hope remittances are nailed and most (if not all) cross-border payments are going through XRP. I hope I can pay as I go on Netflix/Spotify and other subscription platforms. I hope XRP is powering all manner of in-video game stores like in @Macropolo's excellent recent article. I hope there's a dozen more things I can't even wrap my head around – but I think generally that crypto is a bit of a dirty word with a lot of people still and if we want mass adoption, we need a crypto agnostic killer app that makes it simple as pie for people to pick up and want to use that has an advantage over and above an online banking app.

My exit plan? Make a shedload of money – either through crypto or my artwork! Pay mortgage, travel, be in control of my own time. Spend more of it helping others.

You have a good ear for music and film. What is your go to movie soundtrack that you would say defines you as a person?

I don't know if it defines me as such – but I'll be forever entwined with the Lost Boys soundtrack. It's unmistakably '80s vibe – Echo and the Bunnymen's wonderful cover of The Doors' People Are Strange to INXS and Jimmy Barnes 'Good Times' and Tim Cappello's I Still Believe. The older I get, the more I retreat into '80's music and movies. It's very much 'the content I'm here for' – that's what all the kids are saying right now, isn't it?

https://giphy.com/gifs/the-lost-boys-i-still-believe-tim-cappello-IzemcZRcwzXJ6

“They're only noodles, Michael!”

Seeing as we've been friends for such a long time, what's your favourite film that involves a friendship group?

Oooh – there's a lot of films swirling round my head right now! I'm thinking Breakfast Club, Goonies, Stand By Me.... IT (the Tim Curry tv-film version which is FAR superior to the remake, more's the pity)..... but I think I'm going to go with The Hangover! It's clever, incredibly funny and it's set in Vegas! What's not to love? Another time, another place – that could have been us and the rest of the boys! Ah well, we'll always have Madrid, John!

https://giphy.com/gifs/filmeditor--the-hangover-movie-l3fZEeSwVQP6bz1Ti

Films from the eighties hold many nostalgic moments for you as a child growing up in the era. Which ONE film do you think defines the period the best and what significance does it hold for you?

Oh God! So many – it's such a struggle to pin it down to one! I guess when I think about films from the '80s, the nostalgia is strongest when I visualise inserting an old AGFA VHS cassette into our old top-loader VCR, sitting back and watching Daniel LaRusso struggle to settle into life after moving to Reseda, California in The Karate Kid. A DIY approach to learning martial arts – I thought I could learn karate by helping my dad wallpaper the front-room. So surprised to find it didn't work!

“Pain does not exist in this dojo, does it? No, sensei!”

If you had to pick one article you've posted on Coil that you feel is your strongest work, which one is it and why?

I'm really proud of the illustration work I've done – both the partially completed Movie Deaths A-Z (I will finish it one day!) and my 2019 Movie Deaths Advent Calendar – but I'd have to pick Kicking the S**t out of your inner critic – I felt good when I was writing it – it was a really personal piece for me – and the feedback has been great, a lot of people have told me it helped them – and that makes me really happy!

You're washed up on a desert island with a working TV and DVD player – you can only save 5 films to watch for all eternity. What are they?

Back to the future – (I bet this is on your list too!)

Robocop

Raiders Of The Lost Ark

Groundhog Day

Beetlejuice

If you could travel back in time like Marty McFly, which 5 films would you happily erase from existence?

**Dirty Dancing
**

**Monster
**

The whole Harry Potter franchise (but if you make me pick one – Deathly Hallows Pt 1 – its shockingly bad)

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood – (I had such high expectations of this, but I just can't believe Tarantino wrote and directed this film. I saw no tell-tale signs that he was anywhere near this – disappointed is an understatement.)

The Ring ( don't get me wrong, I love this film! I just find it incredibly difficult to watch and would happily have never laid eyes on it!)

For the dual post from Seth of me, click this link!

Thank you for reading – if you're not already, then I highly recommend you follow Seth across which ever platform you cross paths.

For those of you with a subscription, there's some bonus content you won't want to miss out on.

All GIFs can be accessed by clicking this link.

You can follow me on Twitter @BurntEnds88

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My wife remembers all the dates. I mean all of them.

The day we fell pregnant. The day we found out we had a miscarriage. The next miscarriage after that. All the dates that caused us lots of heartache, as well as those that bring joy.

We've always wanted children. It was tough to see her in so much emotional pain. I was hurting too, but I wasn't the one who had work through the process. My job is easy. Hers, and any woman who's gone through it will tell you it's a horrendous feeling.

But for her, it was amplified because she's a midwife. And having to go into work and see all these women come through and pop 'em out after not even trying hard to fall pregnant made my wife feel all that more sad inside.

It was very much bittersweet for her – she absolutely loves her work and is always thrilled for the parent irrespective of her own trauma. She wants nothing else than to see mothers and fathers have children and to raise them with a good heart in mind.

There's nothing you can say or do in that moment when the tears start up on the thought of missing out again though.

I remember a specific day – I held off from telling my wife the news of my sister-in-law falling pregnant with their first child after only being with my brother for about six weeks. It was Christmas Eve morning and my wife was working a long shift. I couldn't tell her over the phone, but I HAD to tell her. So I waited until she came home.

We were sat on the sofa when I softly let the news out. There was a moment of silence – I was thinking, 'OK, that wasn't too bad', and then the shoulders began to judder. The tears were uncontrollable. She was genuinely happy for them, but there was a cry of 'it's just not fair'.

It wasn't really. We'd been trying for three years by this point. Took them 6 weeks.

I know I said I don't remember dates, but this is ingrained in me because I could see her hurting and there was nothing I could do. I felt as though I was part responsible for her sadness because it was my brother. It was happening on my side of the family.

To compound it further, this actually happened to my wife a few months before, only it was her sister. This one weighed on my wife just as much because her sister would always say how she never wanted children. My wife had an estranged relationship with her sister – it's all good now though. They've patched things up. But there was a sense that her sister went out of her way to deliberately cause my wife emotional pain like it was a game to her when she posted an image of the sonogram to my wife.

This really isn't a bitter post – I promise. We do have our own happy ending and we wouldn't have it any other way.

So we went through the process of IVF to eventual success. There were genuine moments of worry throughout our first successful pregnancy – my wife would suffer from uncontrollable palpitations that were deemed dangerous to her and to the unborn baby. Her heart rate would speed up and on occasions slow to a crawl where she'd be on the brink of passing out. My wife would walk through fire to have her child and by god did she persevere.

As we drew closer to the due date, we'd find out that the growth of the baby was slowing down – this is not good news! We had to make a decision to have an elective surgery three weeks premature. My wife did all she could to get to this stage of the pregnancy to give the baby every fighting chance of surviving on her own two lungs.

Every day a baby nears full term, the better chance of survival and building up a better immune system, narrowing the odds of any deficiencies. So my wife was adamant she was going to 37 weeks (40 weeks is full term).

It was a girl by the way – I wanted to know and my wife can read a sonogram so it wouldn't be fair for me to be kept in the dark.

Katerina was born on 24th April 2017 weighing in at 2.450kg. She was a dainty little thing.

This post is gratitude to all the midwives who work tirelessly to help bring joy into the world. And a massive thank you for helping to deliver Katerina safely into the arms of her mother.

The header banner is a 12 week scan of our miracle baby.

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Check out some of Katerina's and Styliano's adventures on my Cinnamon page – they grow up fast!

For those of you with a subscription, check out some more photos of the family below.

News outlets are fascinated by death. It spurs them on to no end. Slap it on the front page. Air it on prime time. Spread it like a virus.

We live in fear of each other. Of our neighbour. Of the world.

Just to give you a prime example, in the UK throughout the noughties, front page spreads would feature teenage gangs terrorising the neighbourhoods. They would wear black hoodies and congregate, spoiling for a fight.

It would spark a moral panic about the disease of our youth today. We would fear them if we saw a group out on the streets.

I live about a 7 minute walk from my local pub – and low and behold, there they were. A big group of them. I had to make a choice – do I carry on down the path towards them, or take a longer route to avoid them? I can see them looking at me, drawing in closer. I decided to avoid them – I don't like confrontation, and I wasn't taking any chances. Was I discriminating? Probably.

I was thinking they might have knives and were ready to stick me with it. I was living in fear. Because it's what the news was telling me. Every. Day.

Another time, I'd actually walk through them – it was fine. Nothing to worry about. What are the news outlets banging on about I thought?

I teach at a secondary school and I'd look at my class – all teenagers. All the same groups being talked about in the news. If you were to believe the news then 99% of teenagers are bad because that's about the percentage of negative news stories about our youth. Basically, you only ever hear of bad news about teenagers.

But seriously, 99% of my class are bad? That can't be right. I'd open the topic up for discussion and it's really interesting to hear what they have to say. You see, nobody listens to teenagers. They're not bad. Nobody has bothered to talk to them. Where are all the amazing stories about teenagers in the news – are you telling me there aren't any?

The plight of youth has been so for generations – you just have to look at the research conducted by Stan Cohen, featured in Folk Devils and Moral Panics.

Point is, we are painted a doom and gloom portrait, which makes us live in fear.

George Gerbner is a theorist who suggested that watching more than 4hrs of television a day would make you perceive the world as a dangerous place compared to those that viewed 2hrs or less. He researched and found that 80% of content during prime time featured some sort of violence. This was a while back.

We now have computer screens and even more ways to access content at all times of the day. It would make sense to me to think it's worse now.

Gerbner's Cultivation Theory expanded to suggest that we become desensitized to violence and so we seek more of it in order to feel that sense of shock once more. Sequels to action films tend to feature a heavier dose of violence as evidenced in his video compilation of clips below (please spend the time watching this video – there is some graphic violence though so you are warned – there is also a first part titled Media as Storytellers to provide more perspective) .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msfu8YCCc8Q

So where does that leave us now? It's not just about teenagers running riot. 2020 has been a tumultuous year thus far and what's so frustrating is seeing the same news story repeat over and over again, as if we've learned our lesson now.

We thought we learned our lesson with Rodney King (1991)

We thought we learned our lesson with Oscar Grant (2009)

We thought we learned our lesson with Eric Garner (2014)

And now, we've definitely learned our lesson with George Floyd (2020). Right?

I'm not so sure we've learned anything just yet. I hope I'm wrong. But the marches have left further wounds. Rioters. Looters. Demonstrators. They all have a story beyond the surface.

The news media in general have a responsibility beyond lining the back pockets of their shareholders. My tinfoil hat seems to think so anyway!

So, my question is this, why are we not embracing each other instead? Yes, we've seen marginal stuff on Twitter. I've not seen any of it in news broadcasts though.

I thought I wasn't going to engage with the happenings around us through a blog post, but it's difficult not to. If what Gerbner says is true, that our learning is cultivated by violence from the media, then it surely makes sense to suggest we can cultivate our learning in the other direction.

Let's see all races together working as one. Let's see that on all the news outlets. Let's see that in every single newspaper. Let's see that on all social media forums. Every. Single. Day.

Let's spread love like a disease. Only this time, there is no vaccine for it. We don't want a vaccine for this type of disease. We want herd immunity from death and aggression because we have something more powerful. Love for one another.

The world is not bad. I can't believe that. It's just that we're made to think it is.

-————————————

Banner header image from Wen Chen on Unsplash

You can follow me on Twitter too @BurntEnds88

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This edition of Movie Quotes is brought to you by 'A GONE IN 60 SECONDS PRODUCTION'

Be sure to check out the short blurbs below about the films featured in this edition of Movie Quotes.

https://www.cinnamon.video/watch?v=335856425676834800

All footage was captured using a Galaxy S8 phone and stitched together on Sony Vegas.

ARGO

I went to the cinema to watch this based on two things – my appreciation for Ben Affleck – Yes, I'm a fan and I think he get's far too much flack from the public about his acting. The guy can direct for sure. And secondly, the pulse pounding trailer.

Despite me knowing how the story ends for the characters in the film, I genuinely found myself on the edge of my seat such was the ferocity of the tension in the final third of the film. Best Editing for the Oscars was a shoe-in!

On a night out with a few friends on the eve of the Oscars I decided to take a detour into a bookmakers to place a bet on three of the nominations Argo was up for – Best Film, Best Editing and Best Screenplay. I was so sure it would win all three, and it did. But the bookmakers wouldn't give me any odds on the Oscars so I lost out there.

My only gripe about the Oscars that year was why Affleck wasn't even nominated for Best Director.

Anyway, check out the trailer and tell me that doesn't make you want to see it if you're a fan of tension infused films – even if you've seen it before, it should spark your synapses into gear once more!

This is the best bad idea we have, sir, by far.

CON AIR

What a ridiculous premise! What a blast! Seriously, it's just so much good fun – the ensemble cast is a joy to watch and there are so many wonderful lines in the film.

I'm a huge Nic Cage fan and I've grown up watching John Cusack through the eighties from Better Off Dead to Grosse Pointe Blank into the nineties. So to see him in a departure from his 'normal' roles was something I was looking forward to. And the film did not disappoint.

One of a trilogy of Cage's action films, Con Air is a must see film for action junkies!

One more time now...

Put... the bunny... back in the box.

SHUTTER ISLAND

I'm one of those cinema goers that doesn't mind going alone. This was one of those occasions. I've never bought a coffee before at a cinema, but for some reason decided to – it felt like a grown up thing to do going in to watch a grown up film.

I found myself so engrossed in the narrative I remember the moment I leaned forward with the last of my coffee in my hand thinking how cool this film is. It was at the point where Teddy was interviewing the hospital patients, so we weren't too far into the narrative at all.

I think what intrigued me the most about this film initially was seeing Scorsese attached as director – the trailer came across like a horror / thriller and this isn't necessarily the kind of genre he's known for.

And Ruffalo plays his part expertly well to!

Why are you all wet, baby?

The header banner is my own.

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While you're still here, check out my Cinnamon page and follow so you don't miss out on more videos,and watch more Gone in 60 Seconds productions with me and my children!

Movie Quotes #1

Parenting for One Day

Parenting for One Day: Extended Edition

https://giphy.com/gifs/ifc-season-3-episode-8-stan-against-evil-Qf7FYUVpcEkB4kiKcI

https://giphy.com/gifs/tell-me-NoCbUpxL1qzCw

https://giphy.com/gifs/cbc-schitts-creek-QvwCVnX9DWdlHCnix5

I hope you had fun with these – all images are my own (except for the GIFs of course, which can be found here).

Check out more of my Wordless Wednesday fun quizzes by clicking on the links:

Name the Movie

Child's Play Toy

Find Me In The Kitchen

Subscribe for just $5 a month for exclusive content and never see advertisements blight your experience ever again! So go ahead, just head to the Coil platform and get started today – click on the Coil link here.

For those of you with a subscription, check out the bonus images and play on!

Selena – my wife – works as a midwife and she loves her job.

Prior to lockdown, I would work through the week while Selena, on her days off, would stay at home and look after our children. Just prior to having our first child - Katerina - she dropped her hours to work part-time.

Now we have a second child – Stylianos - who is the total opposite to his sister. He is fearless and keeps us all on our toes! We feel incredibly fortunate to have been blessed with the two most amazing children – it wasn't all plain sailing though when trying for one, but that's for another time.

The point of this post is to try and shed some light on what it is like for my wife while I'm at work.

In order to do so I've documented my time with my children during the course of a day while Selena was doing her duty at the hospital – she would leave for about 6am and not return home until after 9pm. Her shifts are long and she has roughly a 50 minute each way commute.

I was left on my own with a three year-old and an 18 month old (this was the first of two back-to-back days with them).

To my wife, and to all the parents out there looking after the children while your partner works, I absolutely love you all for what you do!

I genuinely don't know how Selena manages to keep the household in order as she does, and for what it's worth, she is the person in my life that makes my children and me tick.

https://www.cinnamon.video/watch?v=331553170931057881

All footage was captured using a Galaxy S8 phone and stitched together on Sony Vegas.

If you didn't catch it earlier, there's a video of my daughter quoting movie lines with me – check it out and see how many you can get:

Movie Quotes with Katerina

Thank you Coil and Cinnamon subscribers for supporting content creators. If you would like to subscribe and join the platform, earning money from your posts by creating and sharing your own content then please sign up to Coil here for $5 a month.

If you do, you'll get to see the extended cut of the video that tends to shed more light on the day-to-day timings, contextualising just how much work Selena would do on a regular basis compared to me.

As I come to a close on my first month on Coil, I thought I'd try my hand at compiling a video on Cinnamon

The intention is to have these GONE IN 60 SECONDS videos come in at 60 seconds or less.

The footage was taken over a period of about 3 days – it was pretty much driven by my daughter's own schedule. Her name is Katerina and she's only just turned 3.

I'm sure you'll guess the titles of all the movies, but thought it might be fun to share anyway.

Apologies for my dodgy performance, but you'll just have to get over it like I have.

https://www.cinnamon.video/watch?v=329253770733028520

Alternatively, if you can't play the video from the blog post, the video on Cinnamon can be found by clicking the link here.

All footage was captured using a Galaxy S8 phone and stitched together on Sony Vegas.

Thank you Coil and Cinnamon subscribers for supporting content creators. If you would like to subscribe and join the platform, earning money from your posts by creating and sharing your own content then please sign up to Coil here for $5 a month.