title: A Scanner Darkly

text: When performing his work as an undercover agent, Arctor goes by the name "Fred" and wears a "scramble suit" that conceals his identity from other officers. Then he is able to sit in a police facility and observe his housemates through "holo-scanners", audio-visual surveillance devices that are placed throughout the house. Arctor's use of the drug causes the two hemispheres of his brain to function independently or "compete". When Arctor sees himself in the videos saved by the scanners, he does not realize that it is him. Through a series of drug and psychological tests, Arctor's superiors at work discover that his addiction has made him incapable of performing his job as a narcotics agent. They do not know his identity because he wears the scramble suit, but when his police supervisor suggests to him that he might be Bob Arctor, he is confused and thinks it cannot be possible.


title: A Scanner Darkly

text: Donna takes Arctor to "New-Path", a rehabilitation clinic, just as Arctor begins to experience the symptoms of Substance D withdrawal. It is revealed that Donna has been a narcotics agent all along, working as part of a police operation to infiltrate New-Path and determine its funding source. Without his knowledge, Arctor has been selected to penetrate the organization. As part of the rehab program, Arctor is renamed "Bruce" and forced to participate in cruel group-dynamic games, intended to break the will of the patients.


title: A Scanner Darkly

text: The story ends with Bruce working at a New-Path farming commune, where he is experiencing a serious neurocognitive deficit, after withdrawing from Substance D. Although considered by his handlers to be nothing more than a walking shell of a man, "Bruce" manages to spot rows of blue flowers growing hidden among rows of corn and realizes that the blue flowers are "Mors ontologica", the source of Substance D. The book ends with Bruce hiding a flower in his shoe to give to his "friends"—undercover police agents posing as recovering addicts at the Santa Ana New-Path facility—on Thanksgiving.


title: A Scanner Darkly

text: "A Scanner Darkly" is a fictionalized account of real events, based on Dick's experiences in the 1970s drug culture. Dick said in an interview, "Everything in "A Scanner Darkly" I actually saw."


title: A Scanner Darkly

text: Between mid-1970 (when his fourth wife Nancy left him) and mid-1972, Dick lived semi-communally with a rotating group of mostly teenage drug users at his home in Marin County, described in a letter as being located at 707 Hacienda Way, Santa Venetia. Dick explained, "[M]y wife Nancy left me in 1970 ... I got mixed up with a lot of street people, just to have somebody to fill the house. She left me with a four-bedroom, two-bathroom house and nobody living in it but me. So I just filled it with street people and I got mixed up with a lot of people who were into drugs."


title: A Scanner Darkly

text: During this period, the author ceased writing completely and became fully dependent upon amphetamines, which he had been using intermittently for many years. "I did take amphetamines for years in order to be able to—I was able to produce 68 final pages of copy a day," Dick said.


title: A Scanner Darkly

text: The character of Donna was inspired by an older teenager who became associated with Dick sometime in 1970; though they never became lovers, the woman was his principal female companion until early 1972, when Dick left for Canada to deliver a speech to a Vancouver science fiction convention. This speech, "The Android and the Human", served as the basis for many of the recurring themes and motifs in the ensuing novel. Another turning point in this timeframe for Dick is the alleged burglary of his home and theft of his papers.


title: A Scanner Darkly

text: After delivering "The Android and the Human", Dick became a participant in X-Kalay (a Canadian Synanon-type recovery program), effortlessly convincing program caseworkers that he was nursing a heroin addiction to do so. Dick's recovery program participation was portrayed in the posthumously released book "The Dark Haired Girl" (a collection of letters and journals from this period, most of a romantic nature). It was at X-Kalay, while doing publicity for the facility, that he devised the notion of rehab centers being used to secretly harvest drugs (thus inspiring the book's New-Path clinics).


title: A Scanner Darkly

text: In the afterword Dick dedicates the book to those of his friends—he includes himself—who had experienced debilitation or death as a result of their drug use. Mirroring the epilogue are the involuntary goodbyes that occur throughout the story—the constant turnover and burn-out of young people that lived with Dick during those years. In the afterword, he states that the novel is about "some people who were punished entirely too much for what they did", and that "drug misuse is not a disease, it is a decision, like the decision to move out in front of a moving car".


title: A Scanner Darkly

text: "A Scanner Darkly" was one of the few Dick novels to gestate over a long period of time. By February 1973, in an effort to prove that the effects of his amphetamine usage were merely psychosomatic, the newly clean-and-sober author had already prepared a full outline. A first draft was in development by March. This labor was soon supplanted by a new family and the completion of "Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said" (left unfinished in 1970), which was finally released in 1974 and received the prestigious John W. Campbell Award. Additional preoccupations were the mystical experiences of early 1974 that would eventually serve as a basis for "VALIS" and the "Exegesis" journal; a screenplay for an unproduced film adaptation of 1969's "Ubik"; occasional lectures; and the expedited completion of the deferred Roger Zelazny collaboration "Deus Irae" in 1975.


title: A Scanner Darkly

text: Because of its semi-autobiographical nature, some of "A Scanner Darkly" was torturous to write. Tessa Dick, Philip's wife at the time, once stated that she often found her husband weeping as the sun rose after a night-long writing session. Tessa has given interviews stating that "when he was with me, he wrote "A Scanner Darkly" [in] under two weeks. But we spent three years rewriting it" and that she was "pretty involved in his writing process [for "A Scanner Darkly"]". Tessa stated in a later interview that she "participated in the writing of "A Scanner Darkly"" and said that she "consider[s] [her]self the silent co-author". Philip wrote a contract giving Tessa half of all the rights to the novel, which stated that Tessa "participated to a great extent in writing the outline and novel "A Scanner Darkly" with me, and I owe her one half of all income derived from it".


title: A Scanner Darkly

text: There was also the challenge of transmuting the events into "science fiction", as Dick felt that he could not sell a mainstream or literary novel after several previous failures. Providing invaluable aid in this field was Judy-Lynn del Rey, head of Ballantine Books' SF division, which had optioned the book. Del Rey suggested the timeline change to 1994 and emphasized the more futuristic elements of the novel, such as the "scramble suit" employed by Fred (which, incidentally, emerged from one of the mystical experiences). Yet much of the dialogue spoken by the characters used hippie slang, dating the events of the novel to their "true" time-frame of 1970–72.


title: A Scanner Darkly

text: Upon its publication in 1977, "A Scanner Darkly" was hailed by ALA Booklist as "his best yet!" Brian Aldiss lauded it as "the best book of the year", while Robert Silverberg praised the novel as "a masterpiece of sorts, full of demonic intensity", but concluded that "it happens also not to be a very successful novel... a failure, but a stunning failure". Spider Robinson panned the novel as "sometimes fascinating, sometimes hilarious, [but] usually deadly boring". Sales were typical for the SF genre in America, but hardcover editions were issued in Europe, where all of Dick's works were warmly received.


title: A Scanner Darkly

text: It was nominated for neither the Nebula nor the Hugo Award but was awarded the British version (the BSFA) in 1978 and the French equivalent (Graouilly d'Or) upon its publication there in 1979. It also was nominated for the Campbell Award in 1978 and placed sixth in the annual Locus poll.


title: A Scanner Darkly

text: The title of the novel refers to the Biblical phrase "Through a glass, darkly", from the King James Version of 1 Corinthians 13. Passages from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's play "Faust" are also referred to throughout the novel. The same-titled film by Ingmar Bergman has also been cited as a reference for the book, the film depicting the similar descent into madness and schizophrenia of its lead character portrayed by Harriet Andersson.


title: A Scanner Darkly

text: The rotoscoped film "A Scanner Darkly" was authorized by Dick's estate. It was released in July 2006 and stars Keanu Reeves as Fred/Bob Arctor and Winona Ryder as Donna. Rory Cochrane, Robert Downey, Jr., and Woody Harrelson co-star as Arctor's drugged-out housemates and friends. The film was directed by Richard Linklater.


title: A Scanner Darkly

text: An unabridged audiobook version, read by Paul Giamatti, was released in 2006 by Random House Audio to coincide with the release of the film adaptation. It runs approximately 9.5 hours over eight compact discs. This version is a tie-in, using the film's poster as cover art.


title: Public service announcement

text: A public service announcement (PSA) is a message in the public interest disseminated by the media without charge to raise public awareness and change behavior. In the UK, they are generally called a public information film (PIF); in Hong Kong, they are known as an announcement in the public interest (API).


title: Public service announcement

text: The earliest public service announcements (in the form of moving pictures) were made before and during the Second World War years in both the UK and the US.


title: Public service announcement

text: In the UK, amateur actor Richard Massingham set up Public Relationship Films Ltd in 1938 as a specialist agency for producing short educational films for the public. In the films, he typically played a bumbling character who was slightly more stupid than average and often explained the message of the film by demonstrating the risks if it was ignored. The films covered topics such as how to cross the road, how to prevent the spread of diseases, how to swim, and how to drive without causing the road to be unsafe for other users. During the war, he was commissioned by the Ministry of Information to produce films for the war effort. Massingham began to produce longer films, for both private companies and the Government, after the War.


title: Public service announcement

text: In the US, the Ad Council (initially called the War Advertising Council) was set up in 1941, when America entered World War II. It began implementing on a massive scale the idea of using advertising to influence American society on a range of fronts. Its first campaigns focused on the country's needs during World War II, such as encouraging the American public to invest their savings in government bonds.


title: Public service announcement

text: After the war, PSAs were used to educate the public on a broader range of issues. In the UK, they were produced for the Central Office of Information (COI), and again by private contractors, which were usually small film companies, such as Richard Taylor Cartoons. They were supplied to broadcasters free of charge for them to use at any time. Their utility as a cost-free means to fill the gaps in fixed-duration commercial breaks left by unsold advertising airtime led to their regular usage in the 60s, 70s, and much of the 80s, and consequently, within both the COI and broadcasting companies, they were typically known as "fillers". They are still being produced, although the vastly reduced need for broadcasters to turn to third-party filler material to deal with unused airtime during breaks or junctions means they are now only seen rarely.


title: Public service announcement

text: The most common topics of PSAs are health and safety, such as the multimedia "Emergency Preparedness & Safety Tips On Air and Online" (talk radio/blog) campaign. A typical PSA is part of a public awareness campaign to inform or educate the public about an issue such as obesity or compulsive gambling.


title: Public service announcement

text: One of the earliest television public service announcements came in the form of Smokey Bear whose "Only you can prevent forest fires" campaign ran for decades. Other common early themes were traffic safety, especially safe crossing, wearing seat belts and not driving drunk, and the dangers of cigarette smoking.


title: Public service announcement

text: From time to time a charitable organization enlists the support of a celebrity for a PSA; examples include actress Kathryn Erbe telling people to be green and Crips gang leader Stanley Williams speaking from prison to urge youths not to join gangs or commit crimes.


title: Public service announcement

text: Some television shows featuring very special episodes made PSAs after the episodes. For example, "" talked about child abduction in one episode, with a PSA about child abduction airing after the episode. After "My Sister Sam" was canceled in 1988, surviving cast members: Pam Dawber, Joel Brooks, Jenny O'Hara and David Naughton were reunited to film a PSA for the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence on gun control after the murder of their co-star, Rebecca Schaeffer, who was gunned down by Robert John Bardo on July 18, 1989, at Schaeffer's apartment in Los Angeles.


title: Public service announcement

text: During the 1980s, many American cartoon shows contained PSAs at the end of their shows. Examples include the closing moral segments at the end of "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe", the "Knowing is Half the Battle" epilogues in "", "Jem", "M.A.S.K.", "Inspector Gadget", and the "Sonic Says" segments from "Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog".


title: Public service announcement

text: PSAs in South Korea are produced by the Public Service Advertisement Council, an organization under the Korea Broadcasting Advertisement Corporation (KOBACO), launched on January 22, 1981. According to the law, PSAs above a certain level are being organized through broadcasting.


title: Public service announcement

text: The Public Service Advertising Council, an organization within the KOBACO, is in charge of advisory roles such as selecting the topic of PSAs broadcast in Korea for one year, establishing public relations measures, and seeking strategies. This meeting originated from the 'Broadcasting Advertising Improvement Advisory Committee' formed on August 18, 1981, and after going through the 'Public Service Advertising Improvement Advisory Committee' on February 7, 1983, the name was changed to the current name on July 1, 1988. The names of external advertisements have been “Broadcasting Advertisement Improvement Council” and “Public Service Advertisement Council”. The Public Service Advertising Council is an organization made up of about 15 persons nominated by advertising academia, broadcasting, advertising, and civic groups.


title: Public service announcement

text: China's first PSAs in 1986 were about saving water and were broadcast on Guiyang television. In Hong Kong, terrestrial television networks have been required since National Day 2004 to preface their main evening news broadcasts with a minute-long announcement in the public interest which plays the Chinese National Anthem in Mandarin over various patriotic montages.


title: Public service announcement

text: Filem Negara Malaysia (FNM) became the early pioneers of PSAs from its establishment in 1946. PSAs produced by FNM have particular topics such as dengue fever, drug addiction, environmental pollution, road safety and electricity usage. Governmental agencies such as Ministry of Health have produced PSAs to promote their Healthy Lifestyle Campaign which held annually since 1991, with the "Utamakan Kesihatan" ("Choose Health") logo appearing at the end of their ads, most notably PSAs about AIDS.


title: Public service announcement

text: PSAs on road safety were produced by Ministry of Transport, particularly on accidents amongst motorcyclists and alcohol consumption amongst drivers. Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment also produces PSAs focusing on environmental pollution. PSAs on corruption and bribery were produced by Malaysian Anti-Corruption Agency (now Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission). Most of these PSA adverts were aired on Radio Televisyen Malaysia (RTM) and TV Pendidikan between the 1990s and 2000s. Private TV networks like TV3 have also produced in-house PSA ads, covering topics such as not downloading pirated content, which features actress and infotainer, Janna Nick; and domestic violence which features actress, Eyra Hazali.


title: Public service announcement

text: IAA Responsibility Awards is an annual international festival of public service announcements, held by the "International Advertising Association" since 2008.


title: Ginevra King

text: Ginevra King Pirie (November 30, 1898 – December 13, 1980) was an American socialite and heiress. As one of Chicago's "Big Four" debutantes during World, she inspired many characters in the novels and stories of writer F. Scott Fitzgerald; in particular, the character of Daisy Buchanan in "The Great Gatsby". A 16-year-old King met an 18-year-old Fitzgerald at a sledding party in St. Paul, Minnesota, and they shared a passionate romance from 1915 to 1917.


title: Ginevra King

text: Although King was "madly in love" with Fitzgerald, their relationship stagnated when King's family intervened. Her father Charles Garfield King purportedly warned the young writer that "poor boys shouldn't think of marrying rich girls", and he forbade any further courtship of his daughter by Fitzgerald. When their relationship ended, a heartbroken Fitzgerald dropped out of Princeton University and enlisted in the United States Army amid World . While courting his future wife Zelda Sayre and other young women while garrisoned near Montgomery, Alabama, Fitzgerald continued to write King in the hope of rekindling their relationship.


title: Ginevra King

text: While Fitzgerald served in the army, King's father arranged her marriage to William "Bill" Mitchell, the son of his wealthy business associate John J. Mitchell. An avid polo player and sportsman, Bill Mitchell would become the director of Texaco, one of the largest and most successful oil companies of the era, and he partly served as the model for Thomas "Tom" Buchanan in "The Great Gatsby". Despite King marrying Bill Mitchell and Fitzgerald marrying Zelda Sayre, Fitzgerald remained obsessed with King until his death, and the author "could not think of her without tears coming to his eyes". Fitzgerald scholar Maureen Corrigan notes that Ginevra King, far more so than author's wife Zelda Sayre, became "the love who lodged like an irritant in Fitzgerald's imagination, producing the literary pearl that is Daisy Buchanan". In the mind of Fitzgerald, King became the prototype of the unobtainable, upper-class woman who embodies the elusive American dream.


title: Ginevra King

text: During her relationship with Fitzgerald, Ginevra wrote a Gatsby-like story which she sent to the young author. In her story, she is trapped in a loveless marriage with a wealthy man yet still pines for Fitzgerald. The lovers are reunited only after Fitzgerald has attained enough money to take her away from her adulterous husband. Fitzgerald kept Ginevra's story with him until his death, and scholars have noted the plot similarities between Ginevra's story and Fitzgerald's novel.


title: Ginevra King

text: King separated from Mitchell in 1937 after an unhappy marriage. One year later, Fitzgerald attempted to reunite with King when she visited Hollywood in 1938. The reunion proved a disaster due to Fitzgerald's alcoholism, and a disappointed King returned to Chicago. She later married John T. Pirie Jr., a business tycoon and owner of the Chicago department retailer Carson Pirie Scott & Company. She died in 1980 at the age of 82 at her estate in Charleston, South Carolina.


title: Ginevra King

text: Born in Chicago in 1898, King was the eldest daughter of socialite Ginevra Fuller (1877–1964) and Chicago stockbroker Charles Garfield King (1874–1945). She had two younger sisters, Marjorie and Barbara. Like her mother and her grandmother, her name derived from Ginevra de' Benci, a 15th-century Florentine aristocratic woman whom Leonardo da Vinci's painted in an eponymous work. Both sides of Ginevra's family were extravagantly wealthy, and they exclusively socialized with the other "old money" families in Chicago such as the Mitchells, Armours, Cudahys, Swifts, McCormicks, Palmers, and Chatfield-Taylors. The privileged children of these prominent Chicago families played together, attended the same private schools, and were expected to endogamously marry within this small social circle.


title: Ginevra King

text: Raised in luxury at her family's sprawling estate in the racially segregated White Anglo-Saxon Protestant township of Lake Forest, Ginevra enjoyed a carefree "life of tennis, polo ponies, private-school intrigues, and country-club flirtations". Due to her family's immense wealth, the Chicago press obsessively chronicled Ginevra's mundane social activities, and newspaper columnists feted the young Ginevra as one of the city's most socially desirable debutantes. Accordingly, King developed "a clear sense of her family's wealth and position and, from an early age, a highly developed understanding of how social status worked". She only socialized in an elite circle of other wealthy debutantes—self-proclaimed as the "Big Four"—which included her friends Edith Cummings, Courtney Letts, and Margaret Carry:


title: Ginevra King

text: As a privileged teenager cocooned in a small circle of wealthy Protestant families, King developed a notorious self-centeredness, and she purportedly lacked self-introspection. Intensely competitive, King disliked to lose to anyone at anything—tennis, golf or basketball. This intense competitiveness did not extend to her academic studies. Although she diligently completed her schoolwork, she disliked learning and instead preferred parties where she could sit up late chatting with her Big Four friends. Her closest friend and confidant in the Big Four quartet, Edith Cummings, later became one of the premier amateur golfers during the Jazz Age and served as the model for the character of Jordan Baker in Fitzgerald's 1925 novel "The Great Gatsby".


title: Ginevra King

text: In 1914, King's father sent Ginevra to Middlebury, Connecticut, to attend the Westover School, an exclusive finishing school for the daughters of America's wealthiest families. Her Westover schoolmates included such notable persons as Isabel Stillman Rockefeller of the Rockefeller dynasty, as well as Margaret Livingston Bush and Mary Eleanor Bush, the aunts of President George H. W. Bush. The school overtly prided itself on inculcating a sense of duty and "noblesse oblige" in its pupils. Most of Westover's attendees later became the wives of wealthy men who sought "fulfillment in social activities, in child-rearing, and, if they wished to, in helping the needy."


title: Ginevra King

text: While visiting her Westover roommate Marie Hersey in St. Paul, Minnesota, a 16-year-old Ginevra King met an 18-year-old F. Scott Fitzgerald at a sledding party on Summit Avenue on January 4, 1915. At the time, Fitzgerald was a sophomore at Princeton University. According to letters and diary entries, the two teenagers immediately fell in love. Fitzgerald later described this encounter: "It was the sleigh ride he remembered most and kissing her cool cheeks in the straw in one corner while she laughed up at the cold white stars. The couple next to them had their backs turned and he kissed her little neck and her ears and never her lips."


title: Ginevra King

text: After this encounter in Minnesota, Ginevra returned to Westover in Connecticut, and Fitzgerald returned to Princeton in New Jersey. He deluged Ginevra with correspondence which pleased her as she measured her popularity "in part by which boys wrote to her and how many letters she received". Against his wishes, Ginevra read Fitzgerald's intimate letters aloud to her Westover classmates for their amusement. At one point, Ginevra asked for a photograph of him as she coyly professed to recall only that he had "yellow hair" and "blue eyes".


title: Ginevra King

text: The lovers corresponded for months, and they exchanged numerous photographs. Over time, their letters became increasingly passionate. Ginevra began having erotic dreams about Scott and "slept with his letters" in the hope "that dreams about him would come in the night". Fitzgerald visited Westover several times, and Ginevra wrote in her diary that she was "madly in love with him". In March 1915, Fitzgerald asked Ginevra to be his date for Princeton's sophomore prom, the most anticipated social event of the year for the young writer, but Ginevra's mother forbade Ginevra to attend as the consort of the middle-class Fitzgerald. Undaunted by this refusal, Fitzgerald secretly visited Ginevra's Lake Forest estate in June 1915 when her parents were not home, and the unchaperoned lovers enjoyed a "midnight frolic".


title: Ginevra King

text: As the months passed, King and Fitzgerald rendezvoused in different locations, and they discussed—perhaps lightheartedly—eloping. In February-March 1916, Fitzgerald wrote a short story entitled "The Perfect Hour" in which he imagined Ginevra and himself blissfully together at last, and he mailed the love story to her by post as a token of his affection. Ginevra read the story aloud to a rival suitor who generously praised Fitzgerald's writing as excellent.


title: Ginevra King

text: In response to Fitzgerald's "The Perfect Hour" tale, Ginevra herself wrote a Gatsby-like short story which she sent to Fitzgerald on March 6. In her story, she is trapped in a loveless marriage with a wealthy man yet still pines for Fitzgerald, a former lover from her past. The two lovers are reunited only after Fitzgerald attains enough money to take her away from her adulterous husband. Fitzgerald would keep Ginevra's short story with him until his death, and literary scholars have noted the plot similarities between Ginevra's story and Fitzgerald's work "The Great Gatsby".


title: Ginevra King

text: Despite Fitzgerald's frequent visits and love letters, Ginevra nonetheless continued entertaining other suitors and, on May 22, 1916, Westover School expelled Ginevra for flirting with a crowd of young men from her dormitory window. Mary Robbins Hillard, the stern headmistress of Westover school, declared King to be a "bold, bad hussy" and an "adventuress", a term referring to a woman who ensnares wealthy men in order to increase her social position. After legal threats by Ginevra's imperious and influential father, a cowed Hillard readmitted King to the school, but her father—irate at Westover's treatment of his beloved daughter—decided that she instead would complete her education at a New York finishing school. Ginevra recounted these events in her diary:


title: Ginevra King

text: Following her expulsion from Westover, Fitzgerald visited Ginevra in June 1916 at her family's Lake Forest villa, and the two lovers enjoyed a "petting party". Two months later, Fitzgerald again visited the King estate, but his reception by her family proved less hospitable. At the time, Lake Forest "was off-limits to Black and Jewish people," and the recurrent appearance of a middle-class Irish Catholic parvenu such as Fitzgerald in the exclusively White Anglo-Saxon Protestant township likely caused a stir.


title: Ginevra King

text: During this final visit in August 1916, stockbroker Charles Garfield King became irritated by the impoverished Fitzgerald's continued pursuit of his eldest daughter. He allegedly interrogated the 19-year-old Fitzgerald regarding his financial prospects. Disappointed by Fitzgerald's answers, her father forbade any further courtship of his daughter by Fitzgerald, and he instructed Ginevra to drive Fitzgerald to the nearest train station. He purportedly remarked, in a voice loud enough to be overheard by the young Fitzgerald, that "poor boys shouldn't think of marrying rich girls". This line later appeared in both the 1974 and 2013 film adaptations of "The Great Gatsby".


title: Ginevra King

text: Due to her family's intervention, the relationship between Fitzgerald and King stagnated. Their final encounter as a romantic couple occurred in November 1916 at Penn Station when Ginevra visited the Princeton campus for a Princeton-Yale football game. In an interview decades after Fitzgerald's death, King recalled that she was secretly dating a Yale student in New York by this time, and this complicated her meeting with Fitzgerald who was unaware of the rival suitor awaiting her attentions:


title: Ginevra King

text: By January 1917, echoing her father's earlier opinion of Fitzgerald, Ginevra had discounted the young writer as a suitable match because of his middle-class status and lack of financial prospects. According to scholar James L. W. West, Ginevra scrutinized Fitzgerald "against the backdrop of Lake Forest by that time, as opposed to seeing him at her school," and she realized he "didn't fit in" with the elite social milieu of the wealthy upper-class. A heartbroken Fitzgerald claimed that King rejected his love with "supreme boredom and indifference", and he retroactively viewed Ginevra as a rich socialite who had merely toyed with his sincere affections before casting him aside. In his mind, Ginevra became—much like Daisy Buchanan—one of the "careless" people of privilege who "smashed up things … then retreated back into their money." In the wake of Ginevra's rejection, a distraught Fitzgerald dropped out of Princeton and enlisted in the United States Army amid World .


title: Ginevra King

text: While stationed as a military officer near Montgomery, Alabama, Fitzgerald continued writing Ginevra and begged in vain to resume their relationship. During this interlude, Ginevra's father arranged her marriage to the son of a business associate as a merger between two elite Chicago families. On July 15, 1918, King wrote to Fitzgerald and informed him of her engagement to polo player William "Bill" Mitchell, the son of banker John J. Mitchell, president of the Illinois Trust & Savings Bank and a personal friend of Charles Garfield King with whom he shared offices in downtown Chicago. "To say I am the happiest girl on earth would be expressing it mildly", King wrote perfunctorily in her letter to Fitzgerald, "I wish you knew Bill so that you could know how very lucky I am".


title: Ginevra King

text: According to scholar James L. W. West, "Ginevra's marriage to Bill Mitchell was a dynastic affair very much approved by both sets of parents. In fact Bill's younger brother, Clarence, would marry Ginevra's younger sister Marjorie a few years later." By consenting to marry the son of her father's business associate, Ginevra "made the same choice Daisy Buchanan did, accepting the safe haven of money rather than waiting for a truer love to come along."


title: Ginevra King

text: Ginevra King married Bill Mitchell at St. Chrysostom's Episcopal Church in Chicago, Illinois, on September 4, 1918. Newspapers described the event as one of the most attended weddings of the season, and Mitchell's parents hosted a lavish wedding reception at the Blackstone Hotel. Fitzgerald kept the wedding invitation and a piece of Ginevra's handkerchief in his scrapbook with the note: "The end of a once poignant story." Three days after Ginevra's marriage, on September 7, 1918, a lonely Fitzgerald professed his affections for Zelda Sayre, a Southern belle whom he had met in Montgomery. A year and a half later, on April 3, 1920, Fitzgerald married Sayre in a simple ceremony at St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York. At the time of their wedding, Fitzgerald claimed neither he nor Zelda loved each other, and the early years of their marriage in New York City proved to be a disappointment.


title: Ginevra King

text: Despite King marrying Bill Mitchell and Fitzgerald marrying Zelda Sayre, Fitzgerald remained obsessed with King until his death, and the author "could not think of her without tears coming to his eyes". Following his failed relationship with Ginevra due to his insufficient wealth, Fitzgerald's attitude towards the upper-class became very embittered, and he later wrote in 1926: "Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are." For the remainder of his life, Fitzgerald harbored a smoldering resentment towards the wealthy.


title: Ginevra King

text: King and Mitchell had three children, William, Charles, and Ginevra. Her second son Charles suffered from Down syndrome and required constant care. Ultimately, the arranged marriage between King and Mitchell proved to be unhappy, and the couple ultimately had difficulty residing in the same house together. Despite marital discord, Bill Mitchell rose to become the director of the Continental Illinois National Bank and Texaco, and he partly inspired the character of Tom Buchanan in "The Great Gatsby". His brother, banker Jack Mitchell, co-founded United Airlines and married the only daughter of magnate J. Ogden Armour, the second-richest man in the United States after John D. Rockefeller. By 1926, the extended Mitchell family had amassed in excess of $120 million ().


title: Ginevra King

text: By Summer 1937, the arranged marriage between King and Mitchell had effectively dissolved, and the couple were estranged. During this year, King began an extramarital affair with paramour John T. Pirie, Jr., whom she met during an exclusive North Shore fox hunt. Pirie was the heir presumptive to the Chicago department retailer Carson Pirie Scott & Company. During the posh fox hunt, Pirie's horse balked at jumping a fence and hurtled him to the ground in an unconscious heap. Trailing closely behind Pirie on her horse, Ginevra saw him lying motionless on the grass and leapt to the ground. She hovered over Pirie until an ambulance arrived, clambered into the ambulance after him, and stayed with the retail magnate for the remainder of her life.


title: Ginevra King

text: One year later, in October 1938, Ginevra rendezvoused with a physically ailing Fitzgerald for the last time at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Hollywood, California. "She was the first girl I ever loved, and I have faithfully avoided seeing her up to this moment to keep the illusion perfect", an ill Fitzgerald informed his daughter Scottie, shortly before the planned meeting. The reunion between King and Fitzgerald proved a disaster due to the author's uncontrollable alcoholism. Although Fitzgerald had been successfully "on the wagon" for several months, the mere sight of Ginevra ostensibly broke his resolve. After reminiscing over lunch and paying the check, Fitzgerald lingered with Ginevra at the hotel bar. Shortly before Ginevra's departure, the forlorn author began quickly downing double shots of gin. When Ginevra asked if she had inspired any characters in Fitzgerald's second novel "The Beautiful and Damned", an inebriated Fitzgerald quipped: "—Which bitch do you think you are?" On this unpleasant note, they parted forever. Fitzgerald used this final meeting as the basis for his 1941 short story (posthumously published), "Three Hours Between Planes". Two years later, the 44-year-old author died of occlusive coronary arteriosclerosis on December 21, 1940.


title: Ginevra King

text: In 1939, following the death of her 16-year-old disabled son Charles from pneumonia, Ginevra—who already had been living with businessman John T. Pirie—formally divorced Bill Mitchell. After their divorce, Bill Mitchell married heiress Sara Anne Wood, the daughter of General Robert E. Wood who spent three decades as chairman of Sears, Roebuck & Company. In April 1942, King married John T. Pirie, Jr. in a quiet ceremony. Three years later, in September 1945, Ginevra's father Charles Garfield King died at Passavant Hospital in Chicago at the age of 77. By the time of Charles Garfield King's death, the deceased Fitzgerald had experienced a posthumous revival, and the author whom the stockbroker once publicly scorned had become one of the most famous names in America.


title: Ginevra King

text: In January 1951, Fitzgerald's daughter Scottie sent Ginevra a copy of her letters which the author had kept with him until his death. Reviewing her teenage letters to Fitzgerald, Ginevra commented: "I managed to gag through them, although I was staggering with boredom at myself by the time I was through. Goodness, what a self-centered little ass I was!"


title: Ginevra King

text: King later founded the Ladies Guild of the American Cancer Society. She died in 1980 at the age of 82 at her family's estate in Charleston, South Carolina.


title: Ginevra King

text: Ginevra King exerted a tremendous influence on Fitzgerald's writing, far more so than his wife Zelda Sayre. Decades after their passionate romance, Fitzgerald described Ginevra as "my first girl 18-20 whom I've used over and over [in my writing] and never forgotten". Scholar Maureen Corrigan notes that "because she's the one who got away, Ginevra—even more than Zelda—is the love who lodged like an irritant in Fitzgerald's imagination, producing the literary pearl that is Daisy Buchanan".


title: Ginevra King

text: In the mind of the author, King became the prototype of the unobtainable, upper-class woman who embodies the elusive American dream. In contrast to earlier American authors who viewed the American dream with considerable optimism, Fitzgerald's literary works such as "The Great Gatsby" depict the American dream as an illusion since the pursuit of the dream—much like Fitzgerald's pursuit of Ginevra—only results in dissatisfaction for those who chase it, owing to its unattainability.


title: Ginevra King

text: In addition to Daisy Buchanan in "The Great Gatsby" (1925), Fitzgerald's literary oeuvre abounds with characters modeled after and inspired by King, including:


title: Ginevra King

text: King is featured in the books " The Perfect Hour: The Romance of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ginevra King" by James L. W. West III and in a fictionalized form in "Gatsby's Girl" by Caroline Preston. The musical "The Pursuit of Persephone" tells the story of King's romance with Fitzgerald. She also appears in "West of Sunset" by Stewart O'Nan, a fictionalized account of Fitzgerald's final years.


title: John Hiatt

text: John Robert Hiatt (born August 20, 1952) is an American singer-songwriter. He has played a variety of musical styles on his albums, including new wave, blues, and country. Hiatt has been nominated for nine Grammy Awards and has been awarded a variety of other distinctions in the music industry.


title: John Hiatt

text: Hiatt was working as a songwriter for Tree International, a record label in Nashville, Tennessee, when his song "Sure As I'm Sittin' Here" was covered by Three Dog Night. The song became a Top 40 hit, earning Hiatt a recording contract with Epic Records. Since then he has released 22 studio albums, two compilation albums and one live album.


title: John Hiatt

text: A variety of artists in multiple genres have covered his songs, including Rosanne Cash, Aaron Neville, B.B. King, Bob Dylan, Bonnie Raitt, Buddy Guy, Chaka Khan, Albert Lee, Dave Edmunds, Delbert McClinton, Desert Rose Band, Emmylou Harris, Eric Clapton, Iggy Pop, I'm with Her, Jeff Healey, Jewel, Jimmy Buffett, Joan Baez, Joe Bonamassa, Joe Cocker, Keith Urban, Linda Ronstadt, Mandy Moore, Maria Muldaur, Marti Jones, Nick Lowe, Paula Abdul, Paulini, Rodney Crowell, Marshall Crenshaw, Ry Cooder, Suzy Bogguss, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, The Searchers, Three Dog Night, Willie Nelson, Asleep at the Wheel, and Willy DeVille. The Dutch singer-songwriter Ilse DeLange recorded the album "Dear John" with nine of his songs.


title: John Hiatt

text: Hiatt was born in 1952 to Robert and Ruth Hiatt, the sixth of seven children in a Roman Catholic family from Indianapolis, Indiana. When he was 9 years old, Hiatt's 21-year-old brother Michael died by suicide. Two years later, his father died after a long illness. To escape the stress of his early life, Hiatt watched IndyCar racing and listened to Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, and the blues. In his youth, Hiatt reports that he and several others stole a Ford Thunderbird, a crime for which he was caught by the owners but got away with, posing as a hitchhiker. He learned to play the guitar when he was 11 and began his musical career in Indianapolis as a teenager. He played in a various local clubs such as Hummingbird and also with bands, including The Four-Fifths and John Lynch & the Hangmen.


title: John Hiatt

text: Hiatt moved to Nashville, Tennessee, when he was 18 years old and got a job as a songwriter for the Tree-Music Publishing Company for $25 a week. Hiatt, who was unable to read or write scores, had to record all 250 songs he wrote for the company. He also began playing with the band White Duck, as one of three singer-songwriters within the group. White Duck had already recorded one album before Hiatt joined. He wrote and performed two songs on their second album "In Season". Hiatt performed live in many clubs around Nashville with White Duck and as a solo act.


title: John Hiatt

text: Hiatt met Don Ellis of Epic Records in 1973, and received a record deal, releasing his first single, "We Make Spirit", later that year. That same year, Hiatt wrote the song "Sure as I'm Sitting Here," recorded by Three Dog Night, which went to number 16 on the "Billboard" chart in 1974.


title: John Hiatt

text: In 1974, Hiatt released "Hangin' Around the Observatory", which was a critical success but a commercial failure. A year later, "Overcoats" was released, and when it also failed to sell, Epic Records released Hiatt from his contract. For the next four years he was without a recording contract. During this time, his style evolved from country-rock to new wave of Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe and Graham Parker, among others.


title: John Hiatt

text: Hiatt was picked up by the MCA label in 1979. He released two albums for the label – "Slug Line" (1979) and "Two Bit Monsters" (1980) – neither of which met with commercial success. He received a few good reviews for these albums by critics in the Netherlands. He performed at Paradiso in Amsterdam for the first time in 1979 (opening for Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes) and came back often and built a solid fan base. In 1982, "Across the Borderline", written by Hiatt with Ry Cooder and Jim Dickinson, appeared on the soundtrack to the motion picture "The Border", sung by country star Freddy Fender. The song was later covered on albums by Willie Nelson, Paul Young, Rubén Blades and Willy DeVille, among others, as well as by Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan in concert. Hiatt was signed in 1982 to Geffen (which later absorbed MCA), where he recorded three diverse albums from 1982 to 1985. The first, "All of a Sudden", was produced by Tony Visconti, and featured use of keyboards and synthesizers; his future albums combined country and soul influences. "Riding with the King" appeared in 1983, produced by Scott Mathews, Ron Nagle and Nick Lowe. Hiatt began making "critics choice" lists and building a large European following. The title track of "Riding with the King" (taken from an odd dream Scott Mathews had) was re-recorded two decades later by Eric Clapton and B. B. King and went double platinum.


title: John Hiatt

text: During this period, Rosanne Cash covered several Hiatt compositions, taking "It Hasn't Happened Yet" to the Top 20 on the country charts. In 1983, Cash did a duet with Hiatt on his "The Way We Make a Broken Heart" produced by Nick Lowe. When Geffen failed to release the single, Cash re-recorded it in 1987 and it went to No. 1 on the US country charts. It was during this time that Asleep at the Wheel covered the song. Ricky Nelson covered "It Hasn't Happened Yet" on his 1981 album "Playing to Win".


title: John Hiatt

text: Hiatt recorded a duet with Elvis Costello, a cover version of the Spinners' song "Living a Little, Laughing a Little", which appeared on "Warming Up to the Ice Age". Shortly after its release, Bob Dylan covered Hiatt's song "The Usual", which had appeared on the soundtrack to "Hearts of Fire". However, Geffen dropped Hiatt from the label after "Ice Age" failed to chart.


title: John Hiatt

text: Hiatt finally came into success in 1987, when he released "Bring the Family". For the album, Hiatt had a backing band consisting of Ry Cooder, Nick Lowe, and Jim Keltner. Two of the songs on the album have been extensively covered: "Have a Little Faith in Me," which has been interpreted by a number of artists, including Joe Cocker, Delbert McClinton, Jewel, Bill Frisell, Mandy Moore and Bon Jovi; and "Memphis in the Meantime", which has been covered by Carl Perkins, Chris Smither, Spafford, and Gregg Allman. "Thank You Girl" was a moderate radio hit, and the B-side of the single featured a non-album duet with Loudon Wainwright III on a cover of the Temptations’ hit "My Girl" (Hiatt returned the favor on the B-side of Wainwright's single "Your Mother and I"). Most notably, Bonnie Raitt brought "Thing Called Love" to No. 11 on the US charts with her 1989 release "Nick of Time".


title: John Hiatt

text: Following "Bring the Family", Hiatt had a string of nine straight studio albums which hit the "Billboard" 200.


title: John Hiatt

text: In 1988, he returned to the studio with Glyn Johns producing to record "Slow Turning", which was his first album to hit the upper half of the Billboard 200. It featured his only top 10 chart single, the title track, which hit No. 8 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, and "Tennessee Plates", which was used in the soundtrack of the Ridley Scott directed and Academy Award-winning film "Thelma and Louise" in 1991e Jeff Healey Band covered the Hiatt-penned song "Angel Eyes" and took it to the top five of the "Billboard" Hot 100.


title: John Hiatt

text: In 1992, Cooder, Keltner, and Lowe again backed up Hiatt, but this time they gave themselves the band name Little Village, a reference to a Sonny Boy Williamson II song. Expectations for the "Little Village" album were high, but the album failed to even chart as high as Hiatt's last solo album, and the group disbanded after an only moderately successful tour.


title: John Hiatt

text: Hiatt recorded "Perfectly Good Guitar" with members of alternative rock groups School of Fish and Wire Train in 1993. Hiatt recorded the album with producer Matt Wallace, who had worked most prominently with Faith No More, a band that Hiatt's 15-year-old son Rob had recommended for him. It was Hiatt's highest peaking album at No. 47, but again was still not the true commercial breakthrough A&M expected.


title: John Hiatt

text: Also in 1993, "Love Gets Strange: The Songs of John Hiatt," a compilation album of covers of Hiatt's songs was released. This was followed by an album of original covers "Rollin' into Memphis: Songs of John Hiatt" in 2000, and a second compilation album with a few originals, titled "It'll Come To You...The Songs of John Hiatt," in 2003.


title: John Hiatt

text: In 1994, Hiatt released "Hiatt Comes Alive at Budokan?", his first official live album and his last album wi Records. A CD and DVD of his performance on "Austin City Limits" was released in 2005. Hiatt previously released two promotional live promotional "official bootlegs", "Riot with Hiatt" in 1985, and "Live at the Hiatt" in 1993, as well as the EP "Live at the Palace" in 1991.


title: John Hiatt

text: Hiatt received his first Grammy nomination in 1995 for his album "Walk On". Hiatt's next few albums never gained any momentum on the charts, and he saw little change in his fan base in the late 1990s, indicating a dedicated following. In 2000, Hiatt released his first independent album on Vanguard Records, "Crossing Muddy Waters", which saw a heavy influence of bluegrass in his music. Later that year, he was named songwriter/artist of the year at the Nashville Music Awards. In 2001, "Crossing Muddy Waters" was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album, with Davey Faragher and David Immerglück as his only accompanists.


title: John Hiatt

text: In 2002, Hiatt performed several songs for the soundtrack of the Disney's "The Country Bears" movie, again with Johns producing, representing the voice of the lead singer. The movie featured covers of Hiatt songs by Bonnie Raitt and Don Henley.


title: John Hiatt

text: Hiatt's next album, "Master of Disaster", was released on June 21, 2005. The album was produced by Jim Dickinson, and Hiatt was backed up by the bassist David Hood and several members of the North Mississippi Allstars. The album achieved modest sales, becoming a top 10 independent album, but failed to achieve significant commercial success.


title: John Hiatt

text: On February 12, 2008, during a concert with Lyle Lovett at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, Ontario, Hiatt said that his new album would be titled "Same Old Man". It was released on May 27, 2008.


title: John Hiatt

text: On July 18, 2008 Hiatt performed at Ravinia Park in Highland Park, Illinois, with his daughter Lilly.


title: John Hiatt

text: On September 17, 2008, he appeared in Levon Helm's Ramble at the Ryman singing "The Weight" at the historic Ryman Auditorium, in Nashville.


title: John Hiatt

text: Hiatt appeared as a performer in "The House of Blues" in the sixth episode of the second season of "Treme", with the episode title taken from his song "Feels Like Rain". The episode aired May 29, 2011. The same year, Hiatt released the album "Dirty Jeans And Mudslide Hymns".


title: John Hiatt

text: Hiatt presented an Americana Lifetime Achievement Award to Bonnie Raitt on September 12, 2012. The two performed "Thing Called Love" together at the ceremony.


title: John Hiatt

text: Also on September 25, 2012, Joe Bonamassa released in the U.S. "Beacon Theatre: Live from New York", which included Hiatt playing "Down Around My Place" and "I Know a Place".


title: John Hiatt

text: On July 15, 2014, Hiatt released "Terms of My Surrender", his 22nd studio album. It earned him two Grammy nominations.


title: John Hiatt

text: On October 12, 2018, Hiatt released "The Eclipse Sessions", an LP via New West Records. The album, his first in four years, was recorded over four days in the summer of 2017, a period that included the August 21 solar eclipse. Hiatt recorded the album as part of a trio of guitar, bass (Patrick O’Hearn), and drums (Kenneth Blevins).


title: John Hiatt

text: Hiatt has a stepson, Robert, and two daughters, singer-songwriter Lilly Hiatt, and Georgia Rae Hiatt.


title: John Hiatt

text: On June 25, 2019, "The New York Times Magazine" listed John Hiatt among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.


title: Reilly Opelka

text: Reilly Opelka (born August 28, 1997) is an American professional tennis player. At 6 feet 11 inches tall, he is tied (with Ivo Karlović) for the tallest-ever ATP-ranked player, and can produce serves that measure over 140 mph. He has been ranked as high as World No. 17 in singles by the ATP, which he achieved on February 28, 2022, and in doubles as world No. 89 on August 2, 2021. He has won four ATP singles titles and one doubles title. He is a junior Wimbledon champion.


title: Reilly Opelka

text: Opelka was born in St. Joseph, Michigan and moved to Palm Coast, Florida at age 4. He didn't start playing tennis regularly until he began training through USTA in Boca Raton at 12 years old. He credits Tom Gullikson, whom his father knew from playing golf, for much of his early development as a tennis player. Opelka is close friends with Taylor Fritz and was the best man at Fritz's wedding. His uncle is radio talk show host Mike Opelka.


title: Reilly Opelka

text: Opelka won the 2015 Junior Wimbledon tournament, defeating Junior world No. 1 Taylor Fritz en route to beating Mikael Ymer in the final and reached the finals of the Boys' Doubles event (with Akira Santillan) at the 2015 Wimbledon Championships.


title: Reilly Opelka

text: Opelka made his ATP debut at the 2016 U.S. Men's Clay Court Championships, where he lost in the first round to fifth seed Sam Querrey. In August, Opelka won his first three career ATP matches at the Atlanta Open to reach the semifinals at just his third career ATP event. This included a victory over 203 cm player No. 27 Kevin Anderson in which he saved two match points on Anderson's serve. He lost in the semi-finals to top seed John Isner. He continued his momentum with first round wins at the Los Cabos Open and the Cincinnati Masters where he defeated Sergiy Stakhovsky and Jérémy Chardy respectively to move into the top 300 of the ATP rankings. After struggling with a foot injury towards the end of the summer, Opelka returned to the USTA Pro Circuit for the indoor season and won his first ATP Challenger title in Charlottesville to finish the year just outside the top 200.


title: Reilly Opelka

text: In 2017, Opelka got off to a good start to the season by qualifying for the Australian Open. He played No. 11 seed David Goffin in the first round and pushed him to five sets before taking the loss. At the Memphis Open, he recorded his only ATP Tour level win of the year over fellow Next Gen American Jared Donaldson.


title: Reilly Opelka

text: 2018 proved to be a breakthrough year for Opelka. He won three ATP Challenger titles in the season, the first American to do so since Bradley Klahn in 2014. He won his first title of the season at the Bordeaux Challenger in May. In November, he won back to back titles at the Knoxville Challenger and the JSM Challenger. He also finished as a runner-up at Cary Challenger and Oracle Challenger.


title: Reilly Opelka

text: On the ATP World Tour, he reached the quarterfinals at the Delray Beach Open, picking up his first top 10 win of his burgeoning career, defeating world No. 8, Jack Sock, in the second round.


title: Reilly Opelka

text: His solid performance on the ATP Challenger Tour earned him his first top-100 year-end finish in singles, ending the season at world No. 99.


title: Reilly Opelka

text: At the Australian Open, Opelka upset compatriot John Isner in the first round. This was the second top 10 win of his career. In February, Opelka again defeated Isner en route to his first ATP title, the New York Open. At Wimbledon in July, he achieved his best Grand Slam result to date, making it to the tournament's third round and defeating Stan Wawrinka in the process. Over the summer and fall, he reached the semifinals of tournaments in Atlanta, Tokyo, and Basel. In November, he participated in the Davis Cup Finals for the United States, ultimately losing both his rubbers. He finished the season ranked 36th in the world.


title: Reilly Opelka

text: In February, Opelka lifted his second career trophy, at the Delray Beach Open. After an extended break due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, play resumed and Opelka reached his first ATP Tour Masters level quarterfinal at the Cincinnati Masters. En route he earned his fifth career top 10 win, defeating Matteo Berrettini.


title: Reilly Opelka

text: Opelka chose not to defend his Delray Beach title. He instead began the season at the Great Ocean Road Open as the sixth seed, but lost to Botic van de Zandschulp in the second round. At the Australian Open, he beat Lu Yen-hsun before losing to 27th seed Taylor Fritz, despite holding match points in the fourth set.


title: Reilly Opelka

text: In Rome, Opelka beat Richard Gasquet, Lorenzo Musetti, Aslan Karatsev and Federico Delbonis to reach his first Masters semifinal, where he lost to Rafael Nadal.


title: Reilly Opelka

text: Seeded 32nd at the French Open, Opelka beat clay-court specialists Andrej Martin and Jaume Munar to reach the third round, his best showing at this Grand Slam event, where he lost to Daniil Medvedev.


title: Reilly Opelka

text: Partnering Jannik Sinner, he won his first doubles title at the Atlanta Open defeating Steve Johnson and Jordan Thompson. As a result he entered the top 100 in doubles at No. 89 on August 2, 2021. At the same tournament in singles he fell in the quarterfinals to Taylor Fritz.


title: Reilly Opelka

text: At the Canada Masters in Toronto, he reached his second Masters 1000 semifinal by defeating Nick Kyrgios, 14th seed Grigor Dimitrov, Lloyd Harris and 10th seed Roberto Bautista Agut. He then upset 3rd seed and world No. 3, Stefanos Tsitsipas, to reach his first ATP Masters 1000 final. It was also his first win over a top 5 player. Opelka would lose to 1st seed and world No. 2 Daniil Medvedev in the final. With this successful run, he entered the top 25 in the ATP singles rankings for the first time at world No. 23 on August 16, 2021.


title: Reilly Opelka

text: At the US Open, Opelka reached the fourth round of a Major for the first time in his career. There, he lost to Lloyd Harris in four sets. From this run, he cracked the top 20 in the ATP singles rankings for the first time at world No. 19 on September 13, 2021.


title: Reilly Opelka

text: At the inaugural edition of the Dallas Open, Opelka won his third singles title after defeating Jenson Brooksby. In the semifinals, he defeated fellow American John Isner 7–6, 7–6. The 46-point tiebreak in the second set was the longest-ever at the ATP Tour level. At the 2022 Delray Beach Open, Opelka reached his second final in as many weeks, losing to Cameron Norrie. As a result he reached a new career-high ranking of world No. 18 on February 21, 2022 and world No. 17 a week later.


title: Reilly Opelka

text: At the 2022 BNP Paribas Open he reached the fourth round for the first time in his career at this Masters where he lost to fourth seed Rafael Nadal.


title: Reilly Opelka

text: At the 2022 U.S. Men's Clay Court Championships, Opelka won his second title of the year and fourth of his career, defeating compatriot John Isner in what was the tallest ATP Tour final in the Open Era.


title: Reilly Opelka

text: At the 2022 Mutua Madrid Open, Opelka lost to Sebastian Korda and at the 2022 Italian Open he lost to Stan Wawrinka, with both losses being in the first round.


title: Reilly Opelka

text: Opelka's match record against players who have been ranked in the top 10. Only ATP Tour main-draw and Davis Cup matches are considered. Players who have been No. 1 are in boldface.


title: Trollhunter

text: Trollhunter (; UK: Troll Hunter; Canada: The Troll Hunter) is a 2010 Norwegian dark fantasy film, made as a "found footage" mockumentary. Written and directed by André Øvredal and featuring a mixed cast of relatively unknown actors and well-known Norwegian comedians, including Otto Jespersen, "Trollhunter" received positive reviews from Norwegian critics. It opened on 10 June 2011 in the US to a mostly positive critical reception.


title: Trollhunter

text: A group of students from Volda University College, Thomas (Glenn Erland Tosterud), Johanna (Johanna Mørck) and their cameraman Kalle (Tomas Alf Larsen), set out to make a documentary about a suspected bear poacher, Hans (Otto Jespersen). At the site of an illegally slain bear they interview local hunters, who comment that the bear tracks look odd, as well as Finn Haugen (Hans Morten Hansen), head of the Norwegian Wildlife Board. Finn dismisses the idea that the bear tracks could have been faked. The students follow Hans in an attempt to secure an interview but he continually rebuffs them. After following him into a forest at night time, they see mysterious flashing lights and hear roars. Hans comes running back, screaming "Troll!" Thomas is attacked and reveals that he was bitten by something. They escape in Hans's Land Rover and discover their own vehicle turned over with the tyres ripped off. Hans admits that it is not bears he is hunting, but trolls. Though sceptical, the students ask if they can join Hans and film his hunt, to which he consents on the condition that they do exactly as he instructs.


title: Trollhunter

text: The next day Hans makes them disguise themselves with "troll stench" (a slimy concentrate made from "everything you can squeeze out of a troll") and asks if any of them believe in God or Jesus, because a troll can smell a Christian man's blood. Hans wields a "flash gun", a weapon that emits powerful UV-rays to simulate sunlight and turn trolls to stone, though he comments that sometimes the trolls "just explode" depending on how old they are. The students are stunned when Hans flushes out a giant three-headed troll (called a Tusseladd). Hans manages to turn the troll to stone and explains to the students that he only allowed them to come along because he's tired of working for little compensation and wants them to divulge the truth. Finn, who actually works for the Troll Security Service (TSS), arrives with a team to deposit a bear carcass and plant fake tracks, and tells the students that they will not be allowed to keep their tapes. In a series of interviews, Hans reveals that Finn's work is to keep trolls a secret, while his is to kill any that come near populated areas. He also explains that the trolls have been acting aggressively lately and have begun to leave their territories more often than usual, and that he must get a troll blood sample to determine why.


title: Trollhunter

text: The students accompany Hans on another hunt using live goats on a bridge as bait. Hans successfully obtains a blood sample from a bridge troll (Raglefant) and takes it to a veterinarian who works for the TSS, but finds that it will take several days before any results can be found. Investigating a farm where a number of trees have been uprooted, Hans and the film crew find troll tracks leading into an abandoned mine, the lair of a pack of cave trolls (Dovregubbens). The trolls return unexpectedly and the group is trapped inside. The situation becomes more tense when Kalle confesses that he is, in fact, a Christian. The trolls pick up Kalle's scent and discover the group. In a panic, the group runs for the safety of daylight at the cave entrance, but Kalle is caught and killed before he can escape.


title: Trollhunter

text: The replacement camerawoman is Malica, a Muslim; Hans is uncertain about how trolls will react to that. Finn demands that Hans head north to troll territory to get the problem under control. The group finds signs of a Jotnar, a giant mountain troll 50–100 metres tall. Thomas falls ill, and they learn that the troll blood sample came back positive for rabies, meaning Thomas has been infected by the bite he received several days earlier.


title: Trollhunter

text: After several attempts, Hans manages to kill the Jotnar by launching a rocket-like projectile that transforms the troll into stone. Before doing so, he directs the others to find the highway. Finn and his TSS agents arrive to confiscate the students' tapes. Thomas flees with the camera and collapses at the side of a road when the tape cuts out. Just before the cut to black, a truck is seen coming down the road towards the camera. An epilogue tells the audience that none of the students were heard from again. The film ends with a news clip of the Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg appearing to admit to the existence of trolls, though the press fails to take notice.


title: Trollhunter

text: Filming took place in the forests and mountains of Western Norway, and actress Johanna Mørck called it an exhausting experience. According to director André Øvredal, the team tried to maintain maximum secrecy around the project. They kept both the title and cast secret until shortly before the première, dropping cryptic teasers to create a viral effect.


title: Trollhunter

text: For the film's final scene, a clip of former Norwegian Prime minister Jens Stoltenberg speaking about an oil field outside Norway called the Troll Field was edited to create the appearance of him admitting to the existence of trolls.


title: Trollhunter

text: In a review for NRK, the Norwegian Broadcasting Company; Birger Vestmo gave the film six out of six points and wrote that "a new Norwegian classic is born". He also applauded the film for combining Norwegian cultural elements with Hollywood cinematic flair. "Dagbladet"s Inger Merete Hobbelstad gave the film four points out of six and compared it to "The Blair Witch Project". She complained that the dramaturgy could have been better at times. The special effects she found to be of variable quality, though certain scenes were "amazing". She also highlighted Jespersen's performance as essential to the film's success. The film received four points out of six in the newspapers "Klassekampen" and "Verdens Gang" as well. "Verdens Gang" critic Morten Ståle Nilsen summed it up as "Better than we feared. Weaker than we could hope." Nilsen also made the comparison to "The Blair Witch Project" and predicted great commercial success for the film. Like Hobbelstad he appreciated Jespersen's effort.


title: Trollhunter

text: Mode Steinkjer in "Dagsavisen", gave the film five out of six points. He commended Øvredal's ability to combine "subtle humour with physical tension" and also commented on the "striking naturalness" displayed by Tosterud, Larsen and Mørck as the three students. Kjersti Nipen, on the other hand, reviewing the film for "Aftenposten", gave the movie only three points out of six. She called it "flat, predictable and rather devoid of content". Although she regarded it as funny at times, Nipen found the use of the mockumentary format exhausted and overused. The review in "Morgenbladet" was not favourable.


title: Trollhunter

text: Outside Norway, "Trollhunter" received a positive reception from critics with the aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes currently holding an 82% 'Certified Fresh' rating for it. The site's consensus reads, ""Trollhunter" is a mockumentary with an appropriate level of creeping dread, but one that also benefits from generous helpings of dry wit."


title: Trollhunter

text: Mike Hale of "The New York Times" called it a "clever and engaging mock documentary" with "ultradry Nordic humor", though "about 20 percent too long" with "more traveling shots through car windows of the fjord-land scenery than are absolutely necessary". The special effects, while "created with a computer-graphics budget that we can assume was far short of the Hollywood standard, are surprisingly lifelike and frightening". Frank Lovece of "Film Journal International" praised star Jespersen for "what ought to be a star-making dramatic performance", and found the film "both a remarkably suspenseful voyage ... and a dry-witted commentary on the nature of expedient bureaucracy ... Part horror movie, part social satire, and bursting with Norway’s savage beauty ... it is destined to be a classic of its kind." V. A. Musetto of the "New York Post" gave it three stars out of four and cautioned, "You'll want to catch this clever movie before Hollywood ruins everything with a dumb remake." British writer Ross Miller of "Blog Critics" gave it 4.5 stars out of 5 and said, ""Troll Hunter" takes what is now a conventional style of found footage filmmaking and puts a unique stamp on it ... one of the best examples of this type of film so far."


title: Trollhunter

text: The song "Mjød" by Kvelertak is featured over the ending credits sequence, followed by "In the Hall of the Mountain King" from Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg's music for the play "Peer Gynt". The latter song's quiet, downbeat ending is abruptly followed by a VFX clip, showing the family of "Mountain King" trolls (the third of four troll types depicted in the movie) clawing and shrieking at the camera. While otherwise in Norwegian, the credits end with the English phrase "No trolls were harmed during the making of this movie."


title: Trollhunter

text: "Trollhunter" contains many references to Norwegian culture and Norwegian folktales in particular. Among those are the belief that there are different species of trolls, such as the woodland and mountain trolls, which can be further categorised into subspecies as in the film. The most well-known is probably the Mountain King, which is mentioned in the play "Peer Gynt" and its music by Edvard Grieg. The Norwegian name for Mountain King, "Dovregubbe", is a compound word whose first part is used in the name for the mountain range Dovrefjell where the characters meet the final troll.


title: Trollhunter

text: Other common troll descriptions from Norwegian folklore which are used in the film include trolls having a tail, multiple heads, the ability to smell a Christian's blood, eating rocks, but loving meat and sometimes being man-eaters. The trolls are also described as big, old, strong, but slow and dim-witted, turning to stone when exposed to sunlight. The latter is a point emphasised in the film, as Hans uses UV light to kill the trolls. However, he also states that not everything from the tales is true.


title: Trollhunter

text: The film also has several specific references to fairy tales. For example The Boy Who Had an Eating Match with a Troll when the camera man asks about an eating contest, and the Three Billy Goats Gruff when Hans attempts to lure a troll from under a bridge using three goats. The fairy tale Soria Moria Castle is one of the tales that tells about trolls being able to smell a Christian man's blood. A painting by Theodor Kittelsen based on the same fairy tale is also used as a backdrop on one of the trips they do in the film (Thomas stands in the same pose and asks his friends "Do I look like that famous painting?"). The look of the trolls in the film is also influenced by painters like Theodor Kittelsen and John Bauer.


title: Trollhunter

text: As reflected by how the students answer Hans, only a fraction of Norwegians consider themselves religious or visit the church regularly, even though the majority of Norwegians are members of the state church.


title: Trollhunter

text: The film also makes references to the often heated conflict between farmers and predators eating their livestock and the farmers' limited ability to react without breaking Norwegian wild life regulations. Similarly there are conflicts that arise when new power lines need to be passed through the landscape.


title: Trollhunter

text: With several of the cast being comedians that are fairly well-known to the Norwegian audience, including Otto Jespersen playing Hans, it also sets the tone of the film for many. Robert Stoltenberg playing the Polish bear hunter makes that scene less serious, and plays on xenophobic stereotypes that most Norwegian immigrants are from Poland, often speak mediocre Norwegian or English, do what they are told without asking questions and often do the work Norwegians won't do themselves.


title: Trollhunter

text: Prior to the theatrical release of "Trollhunter", producers John M. Jacobsen and Sveinung Golimo had been given requests for the film to be remade. As a result, both had travelled to the United States to meet with stakeholders. When the film opened in the United States the following year, "Deadline Hollywood" announced that director Chris Columbus' company, 1492 Pictures, along with CJ Entertainment & Media, had acquired rights to remake the film. Neil Marshall was to direct the remake. As of November 2016, however, the remake has been cancelled.


title: Lineal championship

text: In combat sports where champions are decided by a challenge, the lineal championship of a weight class is a world championship title held initially by an undisputed champion and subsequently by a fighter who defeats the reigning champion in a match at that weight class. In professional boxing, the lineal champion is informally called "the man who beat the man".


title: Lineal championship

text: A break in the direct continuity of a lineal championship can occur when a reigning champion retires or moves to another weight class. Opinions conflict as to what to do when such a breach of continuity occurs. Some require that top "contenders for the title" must fight to become the next lineal champion, while others require a new undisputed champion before the lineage can continue. However, there is no single canonical list of lineal champions at any weight class, because there is no agreed-upon method of determining the starting point for each lineage. There is agreement to discount the sanctioning bodies (such as the WBA, WBC or IBF) stripping a title.


title: Lineal championship

text: The concept of a lineal champion was developed by boxing fans dissatisfied by the tendency of each of the various sanctioning bodies (WBC, WBA, IBF, etc.) to recognize different champions, and in particular to strip a champion of his title for refusing to fight its top-ranked contender. Prior to the 1970s, this rarely happened; the National Boxing Association (NBA) and the New York State Athletic Commission (NYSAC) sometimes recognized different champions, but there was usually only a short interval before one champion defeated the other. In that era, a title vacancy was generally filled by having a single-elimination tournament box-off between two or more top-ranked contenders. The lineal championship is intended as a return to that era. Several top boxers have specified holding the lineal championship as a personal accomplishment (e.g. Lennox Lewis) or goal (e.g., Nate Campbell). Many boxing experts view the lineal championship as a prestigious status which trumps the world titles being issued by the sanctioning bodies (e.g. Steve Farhood).


title: Lineal championship

text: In mixed martial arts (MMA), the lineal championship is of particular relevance because until the mid-2000s, the top-ranked fighters were spread out among a number of mixed martial arts promotions across the globe. This included Japanese promotions such as Pride Fighting Championships, Pancrase, and Dream, as well as US-based promotions such as the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), World Extreme Cage Fighting (WEC), and Strikeforce. The UFC eventually purchased most of the major promotions and, as a result, all of the lineal champions are currently signed with the promotion. Former UFC champion Jon Jones was suspended and stripped of the title for reasons resulting from an alleged hit-and-run felony charge. Daniel Cormier, whom Jones had just defeated, subsequently won the vacant UFC title.


title: Lineal championship

text: An issue in the implementation of a lineal championship is what to do if the lineal champion retires, dies, or moves to a different weight class. Different ways of resolving this vacancy mean the lineal championship may be subject to dispute. Since the modern lineal championship is a notional title tracked by fans, there is no money or organization to arrange a box-off to fill a vacant title, and there may not be consensus on who the top contenders are – this is true both for boxing and MMA. One example given by Cliff Rold, writing for Cyber Boxing Zone, is the light heavyweight title, considered vacant from the time Michael Spinks moved up to heavyweight in 1985 until 1996. While Rold considers Virgil Hill's defeat of Henry Maske as the beginning of the next line of succession, others trace the title through Roy Jones Jr.


title: Lineal championship

text: Another criticism of the lineal championship is that a fighter may defend it against inferior opponents. For example, George Foreman was considered lineal champion from 1994 until 1997, when Shannon Briggs beat him. After the WBA and IBF stripped him of their titles in 1995, Foreman fought only two, low-ranked opponents before Briggs. The lineal champion is not necessarily the boxer viewed as the best. Cyber Boxing Zone and BoxingScene considered Zsolt Erdei the lineal light-heavyweight champion from his 2004 defeat of Julio César González until 2009, when he vacated his title and moved up to cruiserweight; as he had not fought the highest-ranked opponents in the interim, Cliff Rold conceded, "while the concept of a champion needing to lose a title in the ring is solid, the practice is sometimes highly flawed".


title: Lineal championship

text: In mixed martial arts, most controversy centers on the proper method for determining the first lineal MMA champion within each weight class. Early fights did not follow the currently agreed upon weight classes determined by the Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts, a rule set that was not finalized until the year 2000. For example: Some consider Mark Coleman's victory in 1997, when he became the first UFC Heavyweight champion, to be the beginning of the Heavyweight lineage. Others argue that Royce Gracie's victory at UFC 1 in 1993 is the true heavyweight starting point due to the Open-weight nature of the tournament. In this case, however, the lineal titles converge and unify with the current UFC Heavyweight title, so the champion remains the same regardless of which lineage one chooses to follow.


title: Lineal championship

text: The boxing magazine "The Ring" has its own lineal championship. The original sequence was from its first publication in the 1920s until its hiatus in 1989, continuing as late as 1992 in some divisions. When it started awarding titles again in 2001, it did not calculate retrospective lineages to fill in the gap years, instead nominating a new champion. CBZ commented in 2004, "The Ring has forfeited its credibility by pulling names out of its ass to name fighters as champions". In 2007, "The Ring" was acquired by the owners of fight promoter Golden Boy Promotions, which has publicized "The Ring"'s world championship when this is at stake in fights it promotes (such as Joe Calzaghe vs. Roy Jones, Jr. in 2008). Since 2012, to reduce the number of vacant titles, "The Ring" allows fights between a #1 or #2 contender and a #3, #4, or #5 contender to fill a vacant title. This has prompted further doubts about its credibility. "Sports Illustrated" used "The Ring" lineages for galleries of lineal heavyweight and middleweight champions.


title: Lineal championship

text: The "Cyber Boxing Zone" (CBZ) website maintains lists of lineal champions, with input from boxing historian Tracy Callis of the International Boxing Research Organization. These were first published in 1994, and are retrospective to the introduction of Marquess of Queensberry Rules in 1885. The historical lists have sometimes been updated when new information about old fights comes to light. If its lineal champion at one weight class moves to another class, CBZ does not automatically vacate his title.


title: Lineal championship

text: BoxingScene.com disagrees with the lineages given by "The Ring" and by CBZ, especially in lower weight divisions with a higher rate of champions changing division. BoxingScene has traced its own most recent lineages, generally back to the 1990s.


title: Lineal championship

text: The Transnational Boxing Rankings Board (TBRB) was formed in October 2012 as a volunteer initiative to provide boxing with authoritative top-ten rankings, identify the singular world champion of every division by strict reasoning and common sense, and to insist on the sport's reform. Board membership includes fifty respected boxing journalists and record keepers from around the world who are uncompromised by sanctioning bodies and promoters. The board was formed to continue where "The Ring" "left off" in the aftermath of its purchase by Golden Boy Promotions in 2007 and the following dismissal of the editorial board headed by Nigel Collins.


title: Lineal championship

text: After the new editors of "The Ring" announced a controversial new championship policy in May 2012, three prominent members of the Ring Advisory Panel resigned. These three members (Springs Toledo, Cliff Rold and Tim Starks) became the founding members of the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board, which was formed over the summer of 2012 with the assistance of Stewart Howe of England. The board only awards vacant championships when the two top-ranked fighters in any division meet, and currently recognizes legitimate world champions or "true champions" each weight classes.


title: Lineal championship

text: Since April 6, 2019, LinealBoxingChampion.com (LBC) has been producing monthly, non-computerized divisional rankings for women's professional boxing. Prior to this, no such impartial, independent rankings existed. The rankings are compiled by an international team of ten boxing experts, which includes site editor and member of the International Boxing Research Organization, Adam McMeeking (from the UK), International Women's Boxing Hall of Fame 2019 inductee, David Avila (from the US), Max Boxing journalist and former Boxing Monthly contributor, Anthony Cocks (from Australia) and Ring Magazine contributor, Yuriko Miyata (from Japan). In keeping with the tradition, the lineal champion status is awarded to the winner of a fight between the number one and number two ranked contenders. Currently LBC recognizes seven lineal champions in women's boxing: Franchon Crews Dezurn (super middleweight), Claressa Shields (middleweight and junior middleweight), Jessica McCaskill (welterweight), Chantelle Cameron (junior welterweight), Katie Taylor (lightweight), and Marlen Esparza (flyweight). Due to its limited number of competitors LBC does not recognize the light heavyweight division. LBC also recognizes lineal champions in men's boxing, however those championships are not generally recognized.


title: Lineal championship

text: These are the current lineal boxing champions recognized by the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board, and the "Cyber Boxing Zone.


title: The Aquabats

text: The Aquabats are an American rock band formed in Huntington Beach, California, in 1994. Throughout many fluctuations in the group's line-up, singer the MC Bat Commander and bassist Crash McLarson have remained the band's two constant fixtures. Since 2006, the Aquabats' members also include keyboardist Jimmy the Robot, drummer Ricky Fitness and guitarist Eaglebones Falconhawk.


title: The Aquabats

text: Easily identified by their masks and matching costumes, the Aquabats are perhaps most recognized for their comedic persona in which they claim to be crime-fighting superheroes. This theme serves as subject for much of the band's music and as part of their theatrical stage shows, which typically feature various stunts and fight scenes with costumed villains and monsters. Musically, the Aquabats have continuously evolved over the course of their career, starting as an eight-member ska band before reinventing themselves in the early 2000s as a new wave–influenced rock quintet. The band's current musical style mixes rock and punk with elements of new wave, ska and synth-pop.


title: The Aquabats

text: The Aquabats have released six studio albums, two extended plays, one compilation and one soundtrack album, among other recordings. To date, three of the Aquabats' albums have charted on the "Billboard" 200: 1997's "The Fury of The Aquabats!", 2011's "Hi-Five Soup!" and 2019's "". The Aquabats' sixth studio album, "Kooky Spooky...In Stereo", was released on August 21, 2020.


title: The Aquabats

text: From 2012 to 2014, the Aquabats also created and starred in "The Aquabats! Super Show!", a live-action musical action-comedy television series which aired on American cable channel The Hub. The series ran for three seasons, earning a total of eight Daytime Emmy Award nominations and ultimately winning one. Following a successful Kickstarter campaign, the series was independently revived as a biweekly YouTube series in late 2019.


title: The Aquabats

text: In the early 1990s, musicians Christian Jacobs, Chad Larson and Boyd Terry met and befriended each other while living in Brea, California. Having all been active in various local punk and alternative rock bands, the three eventually conceived the idea of forming a joke band satirizing the Orange County punk scene, which Jacobs described at the time as being overwhelmed with "testosterone, beer and people fighting". The concept was to start an unabashedly silly punk band as a complete antithesis to the genre's more aggressive and humorless bands, with the intention of performing at punk shows to poke fun at the scene. While later attending a ska show in Orange County, Jacobs was exposed to the area's burgeoning ska scene and was impressed by its ethos: as he recalled, "No one was fighting or pushing each other but having a good time". It was then decided that they would start a ska band instead, "to be part of the fun".


title: The Aquabats

text: With Jacobs assuming vocal duties, Larson on bass guitar and Terry on trumpet, the trio recruited several more musician friends from other local bands to piece together a full ensemble. Each member of the original line-up had musical backgrounds in various genres, including ska, punk, surf and new wave, all elements which were incorporated into the band's music and aesthetic: for example, the name "The Aquabats" was created to sound like a classic surf band, while a shared admiration of Devo inspired the idea of matching costumes. Jacobs simply recalled in a 2013 interview, "We wanted to combine Devo with surf music and ska". Rehearsing only once in a house Jacobs and Larson shared at the time, The Aquabats played their first show a mere week after forming at a house party in August 1994. Larson remembered this show as merely "a joke...we weren't trying to be a band. We were trying to have fun". Nevertheless, encouraged by a positive audience reception, The Aquabats started performing more local shows, soon becoming familiar faces within the Orange County underground.


title: The Aquabats

text: With professionalism far from foremost concern, The Aquabats' earliest band line-ups changed with almost every concert, occasionally featuring as many as twelve to fourteen musicians at a time onstage, with the majority typically playing brass instruments. As they gradually developed a steady following and began playing shows with more regularity, the band settled into a tighter and more manageable unit consisting of around eight to nine musicians, filled out by a horn section, two guitarists and a keyboardist. It was with this type of line-up that The Aquabats began recording, independently producing the demo tapes "The Revenge of the Midget Punchers" in 1994 and "Bat Boy" in 1995.


title: The Aquabats

text: Initially, The Aquabats intended to make each of their performances unique by wearing a different set of matching costumes for every concert, ranging from chef's uniforms to grass skirts and fezzes, all with an individual persona — during one show wearing chef outfits, for instance, the band hosted an actual onstage barbecue. When the group's props and get-ups soon became more cumbersome to transport than their musical equipment, it was ultimately decided a singular costume was required. Terry, a future apparel designer who was employed by the wetsuit manufacturing company Aleeda at the time, acquired a large amount of spare rubber and neoprene and fashioned together a set of helmets and rashguards for the band members. The addition of customized vinyl belts, donated to the band by then-unknown artist Paul Frank, effectively completed the style The Aquabats would maintain for the rest of their career.


title: The Aquabats

text: To accompany their distinct new uniforms, The Aquabats constructed a backstory which alleged they were actually superheroes hailing from the distant island of "Aquabania", though Larson admits the entire mythology was simply made up piece by piece as they went along from one interviewer to the next. As their mythology grew, the members soon adopted superhero stage names and identities, and began tailoring their live shows around a comic book aesthetic by incorporating onstage stunts and mock battles with costumed villains, antics which were originally ploys to get the band's friends into shows for free. Jacobs' brothers Parker and Tyler, a cartoonist and graphic artist, respectively, were brought in to help develop the band's cartoon-influenced visual style, designing their logos and promotional material as well as playing characters in The Aquabats' stage shows and mythology.


title: The Aquabats

text: In 1995, The Aquabats independently produced and recorded their debut album, "The Return of The Aquabats", pressing the CDs themselves. Having already amassed a sizable cult following for their increasingly eccentric live shows, the band managed to sell a respectable 20,000 copies of their album without any marketing or distribution. With the growing mainstream popularity of ska music, The Aquabats quickly rose to prominence within Orange County's booming ska scene, regularly touring alongside the likes of such commercially successful bands as No Doubt, Sublime and Reel Big Fish and bringing them to the brink of achieving mainstream recognition.


title: The Aquabats

text: By late 1996, propelled by the multi-platinum success of No Doubt and Sublime, ska had broken through into the American mainstream to become one of the most popular forms of alternative music. With record labels now turning their attention towards ska bands, The Aquabats were promptly signed to Goldenvoice Records and released their second album, "The Fury of The Aquabats!", in October 1997 through Time Bomb Recordings. While still predominantly a ska album, "The Fury" showcased a more ambitious musical streak than "The Return", incorporating stronger elements of punk and surf, as well as featuring instrumentals, parodies of ragtime and tango music, and a variety of unconventional instruments including sousaphones and banjos. Released at the commercial height of the American ska revival, "The Fury" earned The Aquabats minor mainstream success, peaking at number 172 on the "Billboard" 200 and number 12 on its Top Heatseekers, while lead single "Super Rad!" found regular airplay on MTV and Los Angeles' influential KROQ-FM. On July 25, 1998, they fought the alien rock band Gwar during The Ska Parade.


title: The Aquabats

text: The Aquabats spent 1997 and 1998 touring extensively behind "The Fury", carrying out both supporting and headlining tours of the United States and traveling internationally as part of the 1998 Warped Tour. By this time, the band had settled into a stable touring line-up of Jacobs (The Bat Commander), Larson (Crash McLarson), Terry (Catboy), drummer Travis Barker (The Baron Von Tito), guitarists Charles Gray (Ultra Kyu) and Courtney Pollock (Chainsaw, the Prince of Karate), trumpeter Adam Deibert (Prince Adam) and keyboardist/saxophonist James Briggs (Jaime the Robot, later Jimmy the Robot). This line-up would last The Aquabats up until 1998, when, in the middle of a tour with pop punk trio Blink-182, Blink unexpectedly fired their drummer Scott Raynor and recruited Barker as a last-minute replacement to sit in for the rest of the tour. By the tour's close, the band was so impressed with Barker's performance that they invited him to join Blink-182 as a full-time member, an offer which Barker accepted, amicably parting ways with The Aquabats. Barker was succeeded by Gabe Palmer (Doctor Rock), solidifying a line-up which would last the remainder of the decade.


title: The Aquabats

text: With the band now finding enough success to generate both an adequate income and media visibility, Jacobs — a former child actor with ties in the entertainment industry — began to conceive the idea of adapting The Aquabats' superhero mythology into a television series. After pitching the concept to several networks, Buena Vista Television eventually agreed to help produce a short live-action pilot in 1998, directed by comedian Bobcat Goldthwait. Titled simply "The Aquabats!", the pilot followed the fictional misadventures of the eight band members in an intentionally campy style similar to Saturday morning cartoon shows. The pilot, which has yet to be made available for public viewing, failed to attract any network interest and was later openly disowned by the band themselves.


title: The Aquabats

text: By the time The Aquabats began writing new material for their next studio album in 1998, the group had begun to feel pigeonholed by their public status as a "cheesy ska band" and consciously decided to start exploring more diverse musical styles rather than merely returning to a ska-based sound. As such, the band's third album, "The Aquabats vs. the Floating Eye of Death!", marked an abrupt stylistic shift, completely abandoning the ska rhythms which dominated their previous albums in favor of more punk and new wave-influenced textures, emphasizing guitar and synthesizer-driven melodies over brass and woodwinds. With the total absence of The Aquabats' formerly marketable ska sound, Goldenvoice expressed mixed feelings over "Floating Eye", reportedly telling the band that the album had no potential single material and would be difficult to promote. In a 2005 interview, Larson retrospectively lamented upon "Floating Eye"s lack of a commercial sound, noting that while he and the band felt the material was strong, it "probably wasn't the record we should have put out at that time".


title: The Aquabats

text: True to their predictions, "Floating Eye" failed to match the commercial success of its predecessor, charting only at a mere 35 on "Billboard"s Top Heatseekers. Despite the album's underwhelming performance, Goldenvoice nevertheless granted The Aquabats a small budget for a music video, which the band instead used to film a five-minute promotional video as another prospective television pilot, "The Aquabats! In Color!", an action-oriented series styled similarly to Japanese tokusatsu shows. Despite potential interest from the Fox Family Channel prior to their acquisition by Disney which cancelled all development deals, the pilot again failed to generate any interest, bringing The Aquabats' career to a standstill.


title: The Aquabats

text: Following the huge financial losses Goldenvoice suffered from the inaugural Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in 1999, the company was eventually forced to cease operations, leaving the Aquabats without a record label. After an unsuccessful search for a new label, the band eventually turned to the Internet to independently manage and promote themselves while the members resumed their day jobs to continue funding the band. Jacobs likened the experience to a superhero's alter ego, working by day and fighting crime [read: being an Aquabat] by night. While The Aquabats could not secure a proper recording contract, the band did negotiate a distribution deal with Fearless Records, releasing a collection of outtakes and demos from the "Floating Eye" sessions entitled "Myths, Legends, and Other Amazing Adventures, Vol. 2" before slipping back into a period of relative inactivity.


title: The Aquabats

text: With a lack of label support leaving the band to finance themselves entirely out of pocket, The Aquabats indefinitely postponed all plans for future recording or extensive touring, limiting their activity primarily to sporadic shows in the southwest United States. The loss of touring income, coupled with the band members' return to their jobs and families, eventually contributed to the departure of several key members: in 2000, guitarist Gray left the band, followed by Palmer and co-founder Terry in 2002. To avoid the financial constraints of hiring two new members, Adam Deibert assumed a dual role as trumpeter and guitarist for the band's live shows, while Palmer was replaced by former Assorted Jelly Beans drummer Ricky Falomir (Ricky Fitness). With this more stable and compact line-up, The Aquabats returned to the studio to record original music for Evan Dorkins "Welcome to Eltingville", a 2002 animated television pilot which aired on Adult Swim but was ultimately not picked up as a series. The following year, the band would release their first DVD, "Serious Awesomeness!", featuring a full live performance filmed in Pomona, California and numerous clips spanning their entire career.


title: The Aquabats

text: In 2004, with almost five years passed since having released any official studio material, The Aquabats independently recorded and released the five-track EP "Yo! Check Out This Ride!" as an attempt to both satisfy the band's fanbase and serve as a potential demo to attract interest from record labels. As their first recording with only six members and no use of a horn section, "Yo! Check Out This Ride!" marked the most drastic shift yet in The Aquabats' sound, taking the band even further into keyboard-driven rock and new wave-influenced songwriting. This would also mark Deibert's final recording with the band, as he would officially retire from the group later in the year, reducing The Aquabats to a quintet.


title: The Aquabats

text: In the summer of 2004, The Aquabats were signed to independent label Nitro Records and began work on a new studio album in the fall. Despite this fortuitous turn of events, the group were still uncertain of their future following their semi-hiatus and radical shift in line-up; Jacobs later admitted that the band spent the recording sessions under the belief that it could possibly be their last album. After several months of production and much online hype, The Aquabats released their fourth album, "Charge!!", on July 7, 2005. Continuing with the direction set by "Yo! Check Out This Ride!", "Charge!!" was a bold introduction to The Aquabats' new musical style of guitar-driven, new wave-influenced rock.


title: The Aquabats

text: Released to a largely positive critical reception with many critics praising the band's shift in genre, "Charge!!" effectively revitalized The Aquabats' career as the band recommitted themselves to regular touring. Days after the album's release, The Aquabats headlined a successful 34-city tour of the United States with similarly theatrical bands The Epoxies and The Phenomenauts, followed by tours of the United Kingdom and Japan, the latter supporting Nitro Records founders The Offspring. On September 23, 2005, The Aquabats made their national television debut on the G4 program "Attack of the Show", performing "Charge!!"s lead single, "Fashion Zombies!".