It’s a trying time for scarlet scholars. We simply can’t keep up with all the new levels of mort being discovered every day. The last few weeks have been an especially difficult. Between The Script trying to stop terrorism, Ed Sheeran’s appearance in Game of Thrones and R Kelly running a sex cult, we’ve been basically navigating a scarlet tsunami out there.
We’ve officially declared everything canceled. It’s over. Say yer goodbyes. We don’t have long left.
Here is your scarlet recap:
The Script
Ah, The Script are back. The subtle art of being scarlet isn’t lost on these lads. They have moved on from declaring a war on music to declaring a war on terrorism. In an interview with Newsweek to promote their new album “Freedom Child,”, the band formerly known as ‘The 3 Bryan McFaddens’ went on a rampage against Beyonce and U2 for not fighting terrorism. I mean, fair point, is it even a crisis if Bono’s not shiting on about it?
“Musicians aren’t standing up enough,” The Script guitarist Mark Sheehan tells me. “They did stand up together at the Ariana Grande concert…” he continues, but he’s cut off by his bandmate Danny O’Donoghue, the Irish pop-rock group’s frontman and lead vocalist. O’Donoghue finishes his thought: “That’s the first show of support that musicians got behind. Where the hell is Bono? Where’s Jay-Z? Where’s Beyoncé?”
Yeah, Beyonce. What the fuck have you been doing while you’ve been pregnant with twins and providing scholarships for women? Why haven’t you Lemonaded ISIS yet? Lazy bitch.
The interview is best read in full to get a full grasp of all the mini morts that are happening at any given second. I’ve a feeling the reporter is a scarlet scholar himself.
“I sit with the band around a large boardroom-like table in a private room at a West London restaurant. Our conversation opens with a dick joke, on O’Donoghue’s part, that didn’t quite land—but half an hour later, we’re onto much more serious matters.”
The dick joke that didn’t quite land. Nevermind, more important matters at hand for the lads. They’ve the CIA on hold to explain to them how they can stop terrorism with just three chords and a catchy melody. Their first weapon in the war against terrorism is their new song “Freedom Child,” an ‘Imagine’ for the times, if you will. If ‘Imagine’ was a nursery rhyme.
“Put a flower in the top of a gun / Put confetti in an atomic bomb / It’s time for change / We’ve seen enough / Instead of war we’re declaring love.”
The lads have seen enough. Put down yizzer weapons. Cease fire. Someone tape a flower to that gun. Make it look like Coachella.
The lads undercover for the CIA as bouncers.
The boyz are only getting started though as they guide us all on this new political path.
O’Donoghue and Sheehan are soapboxing now—this is a subject, though uncomfortable, that they want to talk about. “Now more than ever, musicians need to stand up, they need to be the megaphones for people who have no voice. You have a microphone—what are you going to talk about? What you’re wearing?” says O’Donoghue, 37. Sheehan adds: “Up to [the Ariana Grande concert] music wasn’t politically charged.”
“Really?” I ask. O’Donoghue counters, “I don’t think it’s been reflected in pop culture at all. I think we’re too busy, as a whole entertainment [industry], we’re too busy trying to entertain people instead of going, ‘You know what, there’s something we need to talk about right now.’
“Up to [the Ariana Grande concert] music wasn’t politically charged.” – Bathe in that scarlet for a second. Soak it in, before you come to the alarming realization that the lads have likely only been listening to their own music for the past few years.
Off you fuck with your lullabies, Kendrick Lamar. Danny and the boys are here now to awaken our souls to this thing called terrorism.
Nothing will stop ISIS in their tracks more than a new album from The Script. I’ll get the confetti out.
R Kelly’s Sex Cult
I’ll just say that again. R KELLY HAS A SEX CULT.
Sorry if I’m the first person to break it to you that the man who believes he can fly, married Aaliyah when she was 15 and was up on child pornography charges 16 years ago now runs a sex cult. But it’s true. Sometimes people aren’t who we think they are. Or sometimes they are. They do exactly what they are capable of doing because they can. Because they have power. Because, as Jim Rogatis (who has been investigating R Kelly for 17 years) puts it: This IS rape culture.
R Kelly or as he so subtly likes to call himself, ‘Pied Piper,’ is holding up to 6 women captive for many years, where, according to Jim Rogatis investigation,“women who live with Kelly, who he calls his “babies,” are required to call him “Daddy” and must ask his permission to leave the Chicago recording studio or their assigned rooms in the “guest house” Kelly rents near his own rented mansion in suburban Atlanta. A black SUV with a burly driver behind the wheel is almost always parked outside both locations. Kelly confiscates the women’s cell phones, they said, so they cannot contact their friends and family; he gives them new phones that they are only allowed to use to contact him or others with his permission. Kelly films his sexual activities, McGee and Jones said, and shows the videos to men in his circle.
Mack, the star’s former personal assistant, said Kelly almost always tells the women to dress in jogging suits because “he doesn’t want their figures to be exposed; he doesn’t want them to look appealing.” She said when other men are in the same room, Kelly “would make the girls turn around and face the wall in their jogging suits because he doesn’t want them to be looked at by anyone else.”
If the women break any of Kelly’s “rules,” Mack and Jones said, he punishes them physically and verbally.”
Sorry, is R Kelly auditioning for the lead role in the sequel to The Keepers? GRIM. GRIM. FUCKING. GRIM.
Going down an R Kelly Google vortex is a bumpy ride, where you realize the sublimely stupid levels of scarlet we’re dealing with. During an interview in 2008, when asked if the rumours about him and teenage girls were true, here was the Pied Pipers response:
“Do you like teenage girls?” Of course, he was going to say ‘no’ and in the follow up I would elicit something more honest but he tripped and face-planted right out of the gate.
“When you say teenage, how old are we talking?” he asked me.
I was dumbfounded. I thought of that as pretty much an admission. He was so unable to just say no that he truly did not know what to say and responded by asking me a dumb question. I thought, ‘Don’t let him see on your face how dumb that was.’ I failed. I basically did like a spit-take.
Not long till the apocalypse now lads. Buckle up.
Ed Sheeran Ruins Everything
I don’t watch Game Of Thrones because I can’t watch things that aren’t scarlet. It’s too good for me. But then Ed Sheeran turned up on GOT last week proving that NOWHERE is safe from scarlet. But at least it’s now safe for me to consume. Thanks, Ed. I hope you find your Westeros Girl soon so you can finally put Galway Girls out of their misery.
Mariah Carey
In these scarlet times, it can sometimes feel that the hope is gone. But then a hero comes along, with the strength to carry on. Or in this case, absolutely no fucking strength. Zero. I’ve seen mannequins that move more.
Mariah Carey’s sole reason for existence is to be lifted. Every time she gets lifted, we too are lifted. Her spirit is here to guide us to a new world. A world where no fucks are given and everyone is a butterfly. Where no one sings about terrorism because it doesn’t exist. In Mimi’s world she’s just worried about how to get from A to B without moving a single muscle. Where scarlet is not only embraced but is encouraged.
I’m moving there.