All right, hope everybody can see me. Hello, everyone, happy pride and welcome to the new Alternatives Play Reading Festival brought to you by the podcast, A Star's Board. I'm Keith Weiss, I created A Star's Board. And remember though, we are on Facebook and HowlRound and our new partner over in the UK, Scenesaver. You can follow the podcast on Instagram at starsboard.pod. And while tickets are free, we are asking viewers for a suggested donation of $10 and we will donate 100% of the proceeds towards new alternatives NYC. New alternatives increases the self-sufficiency of LGBTQ plus homeless youth by enabling them to transition out of this shelter system to stable adult lives. And you can go on the website, www.newalternativesnyc.org. And our donation link is included in the post below in this live stream as well as in the description of the Facebook event. And the festival will consist of three one-act plays in the following order. Round by Johnny Lloyd, directed by Kenan Tyler Aliphont. The Wind-Crisemary by A.A. Brenner, directed by Colm Summers. And the Darker Side of Paradise by Franco D'Alessandro, directed by Catherine Antailer. And with that, I'll give you the synopsis of our first play, Round. Brandon is in his 20s, black queer, and can host face pics only though.  It's a match made on an app, but there are red flags. Seth might have brought a friend and they might be trying to colonize Brandon's apartment. And maybe Brandon can't bring himself to care.  And tonight we have Brendan George playing Seth. We have Malik Reed playing Brandon. And Jason Alexander will explain Kenneth and Torian Brackett on stage directions. And we wanna thank you all for being with us and supporting Live Theater and Quarantine.  And without a further ado, we will begin. Round, a queer scene cycle by Johnny G. Lloyd. Setting, Brandon's apartment present day. It's probably after a parade or an afternoon in Central Park or a day at Reese or something like that. All of these guys are kind of sadomasochists, huh? I guess most people are. Most people who can afford to be at least. And they all can afford to be to varying extents. Seth relaxes at the foot of the bed. He idly pulls his phone out. Brandon sits on the bed, body taut. He breathes heavily. So, what did you think? It was... Surprising. Yeah? That's good, I try. I try for it to be, it's a special kind of like secret talent, special skill, whatever. I'm still... It's normal, totally normal. People have really strong reactions. One guy cried. That was hilarious, like actual tears. And then there was another guy who said it was the most disturbing thing they've ever seen, which I guess I should have expected that, given that you can take a moment if you need to. Incommon. Yeah, you do seem like you're doing better. Yeah, like a lot better. I get you some water, but I don't wanna use your kitchen. Didn't mean to scare you. Sorry. I mean, I'm not really sorry. It's just a thing to say. Like, you have to have friends in common. I can't believe you. I did. Same year, same major. And we never ran into each other. That's crazy, really. So crazy, right? We're basically the same person. Maybe we are the same person, and that's why we never ran into each other. I'm kidding. Did you know, did you know Sarah? Which? Sorry, Sarah Bernard. She lived with me junior year. She was an Africana studies major. I took an Africana studies class with her my sophomore year. I think it was about colonization, something like that. We're basically best friends. Did you play sport? You look familiar, and I feel like I saw you baseball. I have really bad death perception, so. Oh, yeah, no, totally. Sorry, I just knew all the baseball boys, so I was like, maybe that's why. I actually dated one for like two seconds. I guess not dating, dating's a little. We slept together twice. I was actually super close with this girlfriend, so awkward. Which was crazy, right? Were you in like, maybe not Capella group? Dance team? Spoken word? I can't believe we don't have a single. Amir Woods. Amir, he was on student council. He was literally everywhere. Who else? Jasmine Brown. Anise Jackson. Hakim? No, you'd be immediately like Hakim, if you knew Hakim, yeah. Who else? Duran. Corinda. Tom. It's a nice apartment. Thanks. I want an apartment like this. The bathroom is perfect. We should get an apartment like this, babe. Oh my God, I wanna see the bathroom. It couldn't cost that much. What do you do? Banking. Oh, cool. I worked as a, well, right after high school, I worked as a teller for a little bit and the pay was worth. Maybe he'd let us move in. Do you wanna let us move in? We've been paying too much for our place. It's not that nice, honestly. It's, I mean, the location is great, whatever, but I'd be super down for a place like this. Maybe we could sublet the whole place. You could find another apartment, right? Or you can stay here and we get the rest of the apartment with that work. I just want the bathroom. Well, get rid of some of the art, maybe move the table. The pictures can stay, I think. We could make it work. Analyst. I'm an analyst. Second year at large, multicultural sort of. We invest a lot of money into India. The bank does. That's my job. India sounds cool. I'm ready, if you guys... Ready sounds so formal. No, I mean, like, okay, I was just saying, I don't feel like, like I don't want to wait if we're just waiting to wait. I'm joking. Seth takes off his shirt and kisses Kenneth. Brandon looks on. Are we going to join? Sorry. I totally forgot your name. That's super embarrassing. Breeden? Bradford, it's Bradford, right? Benny? Do you feel uncomfortable? If you did, it'd be okay. I'd get it. I'm uncomfortable often. Okay. I want you to feel entirely free to be like, this works, this doesn't work, or that sounds weird. I don't know. I just want you to feel like you have some kind of agency, I guess. Like, feel like this is your... You're not racist. Like I know there are a lot of guys who probably say that, but we totally mean it, like totally not racist. And everyone in my family is racist, like literally everyone. My mom is super racist. She's a total... Well, I think she gets it from my grandmother.  And my dad's also kind of racist, but he's more genuinely just hateful. I think it's because he's super closeted. Can't prove it, but that's my theory. But I don't know. Like I think being around that many racists, I don't want to say they're bad people, but like knowing they're super close minded and then knowing us. And actually, when I went to college, my roommate was black and he was great. And you remind me of him, actually. It's the way you say words. It's really smart.  You said that I felt uncomfortable. I'm serious though. This is one of his things. Okay. A good contractor, a contractor with an actual engineering background who like actually went to college would have a field day with this place. He likes looking for the problems. Okay. I mean, I don't know that much, but just from a glance alone, I mean, there's that part of the ceiling which looks terrible and the floorboard and that is just waiting to give. And I'm not even a professional, but I'm a pessimist. And you're not? I'm an optimist. I'm a realist. That just means pessimist, but in different words. It means that I'm honest. You don't think I'm honest. Like, no, I didn't say that. I don't think you're honest with yourself sometimes. Like I think I'm the kind of person who just says what he wants and he sees and like that's kind of it. Like I see that this place is kind of falling apart. We could fix it though. I mean, it wouldn't set us back that much, only a few thousand, but then we could add a dishwasher and I... Things always kind of falling apart. Well, it depends on the foundation, but oh my God, sorry. Look at this molding. I wanna know. You don't. I do. That's why I do. I hated it. Did you really like it? Oh my God. Okay, so in my defense, I think a normal person watches horror movies and just gets scared, but I maybe watch horror movies and I think about like the damage I do to myself on a daily basis, which is... And to other people? What? Oh, yeah, I should probably think about that more right. But I did have fun with you, watching it with you because I think I like... Brandon kisses Seth. They kiss as Seth slowly pushes Brandon towards the bed. You can't get me out of your head, can you? Is this what you want? Is this what you want?  Seth, Seth, how are you? It's what you want. What up, bro? What up, Seth? What do you want? What's up? Hey, you know what I heard? Hey, you got pics? Is this what you want? Seth, bro, what do you like? What do you want? Know what I want?  I want that. I always wanted to try big. Is this what you want? I want to try big. When will I get a chance to speak? I want to speak.  When will I get a chance to speak? I want to speak words. I want to say what I said and not think about it. To feel like my words matter to someone else. To see them resonate. To see them activated or pondered or I want to destroy men. Rip holes through them when I want with no consequences. I don't want consequences.    I want to be stared at, but not like that.  Like you see the way it's that I'm special. Maybe I'm not that special. Maybe I'm actually really boring. I wish people would look at me and think about nothing actually. Just like a blank hole in thought, empty air. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I'm not used to having all this time to go on like this. It's, it's distracting. I'm used to having to choose the moments when I try to even take a second of time. Not used to having options. I don't think I'm very smart. If I was smart, I would be more enlightened. Not saying I want to be enlightened, but I just wish sometimes that I could speak and say something that is totally my own and actually maybe actually heard. Brandon puts on his undershirt and his shirt. He puts on his socks and hat. He puts on his pants. Seth sits on the side of the bed, not facing Brandon, fully clothed. A reset. He'll be back in a second. Do you do this often? This often? I'm being weird. Sorry. I should stop being, I'm just, I don't know. That's not a full thought. I'm just anxious. That's fine. I have an idea to break the ice. Want to see something? See what? It's kind of like a party trick, but it's a little more visceral. I learned it a couple of years ago. I was, my family has this boat house and it's super boring. So I kind of taught myself to, I shouldn't spoil it. It's a surprise. Yeah. Kind of. Just give me an object, whatever, honestly. As long as you don't think you need it anymore. Brandon reaches into his pockets. You don't need it. It's for just in case something goes. And I think I'll be fine. Seth stands. Brandon is exactly where he started the play. I can swallow literally anything. I swear, I'm not lying.  Consume like digest it. Don't close your eyes, it's not gonna be, it's not super graphic, unless that's what you want it to be. Brandon leans in. Seth places the blade above his mouth. He opens wide. End of play. Thank you for that. That was round by Johnny Lloyd. And now on to our next piece. And that reminder, tickets are free and we're asking viewers for suggested donation of $10. And we're gonna donate that to New Alternatives NYC. And now I'm gonna pass the evening over to my friends and the playwright of the Wing Cries Mary, A.A. Brenner. Take it away. All right. Hey, everyone. Thank you so much for tuning in tonight. We're so excited to be here with you. I am beyond honored to present my one act, the Wind Cries Mary, directed by Colm Summers and dramaturged by May Truhaft Ali. A multi-dimensional, neo-absurdist play, The Wind Cries Mary, questions the confines of reality, memory and death through a queer disabled lens. After agreeing to a dinner date with long lost childhood friend, Mary, Reg is forced to reconcile their idyllic early memories with the complex and off disturbing realities of adulthood as they confront the ghosts of their past. So tonight we're incredibly lucky to be joined by Morgan Dean, who will be playing Reg, Cara Young, who will be playing Mary, Munira Batul, who will be playing Dala, and finally Antoinette Levecchia, who will be our Aunt Judy this evening. Yeah, so we just wanna thank you all so much for being with us tonight and supporting Live Theater in quarantine. It's been so, so incredible for this entire team and just everyone associated with this festival to get back into the rehearsal room and bring this show and hopefully a little bit of joy to you tonight. And so without any further ado, The Wind Cries Mary, I'll be reading stage directions. All right, The Wind Cries Mary by A.A. Brenner. For me, identity is fundamentally about desire and death. How you construct your identity is predicated on how you construct desire and how you conceive of death. Desire for recognition, quest for visibility, the sense of being acknowledged, a deep desire for association. It's the longing to belong, a deep visceral need that most linguistically conscious animals who transact with an environment that's us participate in, Cornell West. Will The Wind ever remember the names it has blown in the past? And with its crutch, its old age and its wisdom, it whispers, no, this will be the last. And The Wind Cries Mary, Jimi Hendrix. One, lights up on a cramped space, a table with two table settings, two glasses full of water and two empty wine glasses, two chairs and some suggestion of cheap restaurant kitsch, Russian nesting dolls, snow globes or prayer flags and Christmas lights. In fact, the entire ceiling and three of the walls are strung with them, giving the restaurant the appearance of a bizarre neon soka. Reg sits at the table alone with an unopened bottle of wine. They fidget nervously. Suddenly, Mary enters. She does not notice Reg. Hi. Mary doesn't notice. Reg rises to get her attention. Mary. Mary turns around. Mary, hi. Oh, hi. Hi, you made it. Yeah, sorry. Don't be, don't be. No, I am. It's my fault early. Yeah, but it's my fault. Don't be. Reg goes in for a hug. Mary doesn't notice. They sit. So, oh, so how you been? Me? No, the other Mary. That was a joke. Oh, of course you. Oh, yeah, yeah, I've been, I've been fine. Yeah? Yeah. How are you? How are you? Good. Good, no, really. Really, I'm good. Really? Yeah, and you? Me, I'm fine. You are? Yeah. Good. Well, you made it. I'm glad. I was worried you wouldn't. You wouldn't be able to find this place, you know, hole in the wall. Yeah. But you found it. You did and I'm so glad. So how have the past 15 years been? No, seriously, I'm pretty sure the last time I saw you, we were nine. I mean, except for on Insta. Ah, Insta! Yeah. How did you find me? Huh? On Insta. On Insta? You found me on Insta, which is why we're here. Oh, yeah. How did you, I don't know. You don't know? I find everyone on, I find everyone, I don't know. It's Insta. Gay Insta.  Sorry, I'm so sorry. I just came from my building. We had this barbecue today in my building and I just, I just came from and there were margaritas and now I'm a little, I'm a little tipsy, that's all.  It's okay. No, I'm such a mess. I'm so sorry and I'm an alcoholic. No, really. I'm really an alcoholic. Oh. Well, well, I guess I'll just have to catch up to you then. Reg pours himself a glass of wine. Please do, please do catch up to me. Please don't be an alcoholic, but do catch up to me.  We've been friends forever, but if you aren't, don't like become one just because of me. Oh, don't worry, it won't be because of you. Shit, wait. So you're an alcoholic?  I mean- Shit, well, I thought I was the only one. I thought I was the only alcoholic I was friends with, but now I'm not. Now you are too. Yeah. Mary reaches for the bottle of wine and ends up knocking over her water glass. Shit, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm such a mess. It's fine, let me help you. No, no, no, no, no. They'll get it. They'll get it. Nobody gets it. Mary pours herself a glass of wine. So how about you? How are you? How have you been? Good. No, but like, how are you? Tell me, how have you been? Tell me everything. Tell me everything about you.  Just like, you're like my best friend. We've known each other since we were 10. You mean we've known each other since we were three? Yeah, we've known each other since we were 10. Tell me everything, everything about you. When did you realize you were gay? What? I mean, I'm sorry. I mean, I'm blunt. I've always been blunt. Blunt, it's not just because I'm tipsy. I swear. So yeah, when did you know? When did you know you were gay? I mean, I always kind of knew, you know? Mm, right, right. What about, what about you? Yeah, I mean, I never liked boys. One time in high school, I brought this girl home and I was like, this is my girlfriend. And my parents were like, cool. And I was like, cool. And that was it. How's your mom? My mom?  She was so cool. I remember her. Really? Oh yeah. My mom worked a lot when I was little. You sure you weren't thinking of my babysitter? No. Your mom. I remember because she was cool. How was she? How was your mom? She's good, thanks for asking. Good, she was cool. So was your aunt. How was your aunt? I remember my aunt. Yeah, your aunt. You remember my aunt? Of course I remember your aunt. She was cool. She was cool like your mom. Only she had this hair, this like crazy hair. What was it? Red. Red. That's it. This crazy hair. Yeah. And a thing. She had a thing, didn't she? A cane. She had a cane, right? And she like, she like walked funny. Not like funny, funny. Just like cool, funny. Yeah, it was cool, super cool. Does she still have it? Does she still have red hair? Well, actually. Oh, she does. Actually, it was a... That's great, that is so... It was a wig. A wig? Yeah, she actually, she had... Well, does she still have it? What? The red hair, the red hair, does she still have the... I mean... She's done it. Of course.  Oh, so. Yeah. What? Yeah, she's dead, she died.  Like, like 10 years ago, 10 years ago now. Oh!  She was so cool.  Yeah. Yeah, and your dad? Yeah, just moved back in with them, actually. Oh, really, really, with your dad? With both of them. Oh, both of them, wow, that's great. That is so great, wow. They live together? Yeah. Wow, that is so great. That's so great that they live together, and they're still alive and live together. Yeah, that is great, that's so great. I'm glad. How nice, your parents, your mom was cool. My mom's dead. Oh, yeah. Oh, oh man, wow. Shit, I didn't know that. Yeah. I'm so sorry. It's fine, it's whatever, yeah, she's dead. She died last December. I'm so, I'm so sorry.  Yeah, whatever, but your parents, they're still together, that's great, they're still alive and together still. Reg pours himself another glass of wine, so does Mary. Suddenly, chicken tikka masala appears on the table. It was always there, but nobody noticed until now. Is that chicken? Yeah.  So tell me, tell me everything, everything about yourself. What do you do? Like on average, what's an average day? An average day in the life of Jina? It's reg. What? Yeah, like reg, I go by reg now. Oh, not Jina. Oh, that's cool, that's cool, I like it, yeah. So what do you do? What do you do on average, an average day in the life? Well, I guess I draw a lot. You do? I mean, yeah, I'm an illustrator, so. Wow. Wow, that's so cool, that is so cool.  I mean, it's my job. Oh, cool. And then you're in fashion? No. I mean, I was. I was in fashion, I went to FIT, not MIT. It's FIT, not MIT, I told someone at the barbecue, I went to FIT and they said, MIT? Me too, I said, FIT, they said, yeah, MIT. So I gave up, you know, I interned for CBS one summer and whenever I told someone where I work, they always thought I was interning at CVS. Well, right, it's like, who do you think I am? You think I'm interning at a drug store? Not just at drug stores. Okay, yeah, so yeah, okay. So you went to FIT, you graduated, what do you do now? Yeah, well, I'm not really doing anything at the moment. Oh, if you're in between jobs. Well, no, no, because I wasn't really doing anything before. Oh, yeah, I'm kind of a mess. You're not. I am, but you, you look great.  You look great.  Thanks.  You really do. You look great too. Thanks. Like really, really great. Your shirt is great. Oh, thank you.  No, no, no, of course I like Star Wars. I never do that. I mean, I'm basic, but I'm not that basic. I mean, I live in Brooklyn and my dad pays my rent and I'm like basic, but I am not that basic. Of course not, of course not. Sorry, I suggested you were, I did, I mean. Yeah, sorry, don't be sorry, don't be, it's fine. You're fine, you're so cute. Look at you, God. I'm hungry, aren't you hungry? Mary takes a bite of chicken and ends up smearing masala sauce all over her face. You got something on your- Oh, that's so good.  I'm obsessed, don't you think? Uh, yeah, yeah. Mary smears more masala on her face. Reg gives up. Anyway, I saw on Instagram that you read a lot. Yes, yes I do. I do read a lot, I read seven books a week. Wow, that's amazing. Yeah, I mean, I'm an employee so I read a lot. You know, there's nothing else to do really. I hang out by myself all the time, I don't have any friends. Really? Yeah, I mean I have friends, I have like three, but I don't like them. Ah, got it. Yeah, like I told my dad I was getting dinner with you and he was like, why don't you find new friends? Why do we keep going back to the old people? And I was like, girl, I call my dad girl. I was like, girl, I hate new friends. I hate new people. You know this about me.   I get that.  But not you.  I like my- Search the web for them. No. Just tap the search chip below. Okay.  You're like my best friend. We've been best friends since we were five. So we're gonna be queer friends, right? Uh, sure. Yay! I've always wanted queer friends. I have like three friends and they're like all straight.  So tell me, are you single? Am I single? Yeah, are you single? Are you? Yeah, yeah, I am actually. I just, I just- Oh, oh, you're, oh good. I'm not, I'm not. I mean, technically I'm not. I have a girlfriend, technically. I technically have a girlfriend. Oh. Yeah, she's cute. She's real cute. I like her. I like her a lot. That's great. That's great you like her. Yeah, well, kind of. It's kind of great. It's kind of not great at all. She left me, you know? I mean, she not left me, left me. We're still together. I mean, she went on a road trip and left me. She left you. Yeah. I mean, she told me she wouldn't let me go. She told me we needed to be in an open relationship and she wouldn't let me go. Like, she was like, I'm going on this road trip, this road trip for three months. We should be in an open relationship. And I was like, no. And she was like, yes. And I was like, okay, because I like her. I really like her. Actually, I kind of love her. Is that bad? I don't think so. That is so bad.  It's great that you like her.     She's so cute. She's so, so cute. She's like best friends with my dad. Really? Yeah, she'll like, she'll like call him on her own and they'll like hang out and stuff. He like, he really, he really likes her.  He like really does. They love each other. Mary attempts to spoon more chicken onto her plate and ends up dropping a dollop of masala sauce into her wine glass. Here, here, let me, let me see if I can get you in. No, no, no, it's fine. It's fine. We'll get it. Don't worry. Mary pours more wine into her glass and takes a large swig of the now viscous fluid. Reg chugs the remainder of their glass, then refills it. So, but yeah, she left my girlfriend left so, so long ago and I missed her. I've missed her the whole time. I'm just, God. So, so sad. How long has she been gone? Three months. You're almost done. She's almost coming back soon. I mean, yeah. So that's great. She'll come back and you guys can be together and it'll be all good. No, it won't be. It won't be. No, I mean, she'll come back, sure, but it won't be good because she's not the one. She isn't. No. I mean, I love her. I love my dad loves her, but she's not the one. But you and me, you and me, we've got each other, always. You can count on me forever. Do you know that? Thanks. Oh, seriously, seriously, I mean it. You can seriously count on me. I'll always be there. I'll always be there for you. We've known each other since we were 12. We've got each other.  Mary reaches over the table, grabs Reg's hand and kisses it. Well, thank you. I appreciate it. Well, but seriously, seriously, forever means forever means forever, okay? Okay. Mary takes more wine, spilling some onto the table. She doesn't notice. Hey, wait a minute. Yeah? Wait a minute, do you still have that thing? The thing? Yeah, you know that thing? I remember your mom. She was cool. And I also remember you had a thing. You mean my babysitter? No, no, no. Not your babysitter, not a person, like thing. You had a thing with your legs. You still have it? Oh, yeah, yeah, that. Yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah, I still have it. Really, you do? Yeah. You really do?  Wow, you still have them. I can't believe it. You still have the thing. I remember it was, it's like the only thing I remember, not in a bad way, never in a bad way. You were always my friend. You were always just my friend, do you know what I'm saying? You had these two things. What were they called? I had two things? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you used to wear them, like, excuse me, you had to wear these like, these things, these things. You wear them, you wear them on your. Oh, my braces. Yeah, braces. I'm sorry, I'm blunt. I'm always blunt. I'm happy because I'm drunk. I swear, wow, those things, those leg braces, you still have them? I mean, I don't have braces anymore. You still have them, I can't believe. You still have CP, but not braces. I haven't had braces in years. I have orthotics now. They're much smaller and. You still have them. You were always my friend, my friend with those things. It didn't matter. It never ever, it never ever mattered. I still loved you anyway. What are you reading right now? What? Your books, what are you reading now? Anything good? Well, now I'm reading in Carson because Jenny Schechter reads Annie Carson and I'm Jenny Schechter, but also I hate Jenny Schechter because everyone hates Jenny Schechter.  Yes. Mary tops off her drink. God, I'm so sorry. I'm a mess. Don't worry about it, don't worry about it. No, no, I am, I really am. Just so sad, so sad. It's okay, it's okay to be sad. I'm there too.   Hey, hang on a minute. No, I swear, I will, I will, I swear, I swear, I swear. Just wait, I'll do it, I'll do it. You can't kill yourself yet because we just became friends again. I know. So you can't. I know, but. No, Betz, you just can't. I know, I know, I'm sorry. I know we just became friends again, but also we were always friends. We're always, we've always been friends. We've been friends since we were eight, but we're queer friends. We are queer friends forever and we're gonna have so much fun. Just wait, we're gonna have so much fun to do so many things and it'll be great, I promise. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right, you're right. Okay, okay, okay, you're right, but I can only promise you a year. Okay, deal. Actually, I can only promise you a month. Actually, a week. Actually, Mary checks her phone. What are you doing right now? Nothing, why? You'll be my best friend forever if you come back to Fort Green with me. Please, Gina, please. Suddenly the scene shifts and we're transported to Mary's apartment in Fort Green. It is a glass box one bedroom with a view of the Manhattan skyline. Grab a chair, make yourself at home. You want some wine? Yeah, sure. Mary pours reg, a glass as reg takes a seat. This apartment is beautiful. Thanks. No, seriously, this view, if I lived here, I think I'd probably just spend all day staring out the window. Reg notices a poster on the wall. It's a vintage movie poster of Annie Hall.  Of what movie? Annie Hall. Wait, really? Wait, really? Really, me too? That's my favorite movie.  Yes, I am Annie. But you hate Annie. No, I love Annie. I am Annie. Oh, I'm Alvie, but I hate Woody Allen, so.  I love his movies, but I hate him.  Why? Oh my God, do you know him? No, no, no, no, no. I don't know him, just... There's that abuse thing. He was accused of abuse. I mean... You're cute. Mary pulls Reg's arm around her shoulders and kisses them. Is this weird? No. They make out. It gets intense. Mary knocks her glass of wine onto the floor. It shatters, spilling wine everywhere. Shit, are you okay? Yeah, I'm fine. Let me clean that. No, come here. Mary, he eats glass. It's fine, they'll get it. They, who's they? They, they'll get it. They will, I promise. I promise, just come here. Come here. She kisses Reg, she pulls away. Listen, I think I should go. What, you just got here? Yeah, but it's late and I live with my parents. Parents? Yeah, I live with them. I told you, remember, I'm saving money, remember. You should just stay here. Because artists don't make money. No, you should stay here. You should stay here with me. You're being silly. This is your house. This is your house. This is your house because it's my house and my house is your house. You're my best friend. Did you know that? Did you know that? You're my best friend. I've known you for so long, so, so long. I've known you since I was 13. I didn't. I'm going. No. Yes. But we haven't even watched Annie Hall. Mary. We haven't.  You have to stay here and watch Annie Hall with me, just like you said. Just like you said you would. Please don't go, Gina. Okay, okay, geez. I'll watch Annie Hall with you. Yay! Yay! Yay, you will. Yay! They sit back down. Mary grabs her remote and turns the movie on. She grabs Reg's hand. It's so good to have you, Gina. It's so good to have you back. I missed you. Did you know that? You did.   The movie plays. After a few moments, Mary begins to nod off and lets go of Reg's hand. Reg looks at Mary. Sure, she's asleep, they rise. A roll of paper towels appears, or perhaps it was always there just hidden.  They start to pick up the broken glass and cut themselves. Shit. They take a paper towel to staunch the bleeding. Look at Mary still sleeping. Look at Annie Hall. Look at the glass and exit. Two.  Reg sits at the table alone. They fidget nervously. Suddenly, a wind chime placed over the door sounds. Reg notices it. A short middle-aged woman enters.  She looks around the restaurant. Dala. Dala does not notice Reg. Dala, hi. Dala sees them. Gina D. Reg rises, they embrace. Oh, Gina D, just look at you.  Only somewhat, Dala. They sit. I ordered some naan for the table. I remember it used to bring it to the house sometimes, so. Oh, it's wonderful. Wonderful. Oh, you look wonderful. How are you? Well, you must be wonderful. I'm good. Oh, splendid. And your mommy. Good. And your daddy, too. My dad, yeah. Wonderful. And how about Aunt Judy, your sweet old Aunt Judy? How is she? She's, she's... Is she still in Brooklyn? Well. In Sheep's Head Bay, yes. She was in Sheep's Head Bay. Yeah. So she's moved. I mean. Out of Brooklyn. Yes, but. Are she clean? Actually, she's... In Long Island City. No, I mean. Yes, actually, I guess she's technically in Long Island. Splendid, splendid. Oh, I'm so glad she's well. That's really... Yeah, see, the thing is, she isn't exactly... Oh, I ought to give her a call on the telephone. She isn't because she's... Or does she not have a telephone anymore? Does she just use her cell phone? Doesn't need a phone because she's... Unplugging. Yes, she... Isn't that what all the kids say he does? No, because she's dead.  Look at you, Jean-Marie. Always the joke stuff. Yeah, and I'm not joking. She's... Oh, it's so good to know that everyone is well. You don't know how often I think about all of you. How I wonder. How I wonder what happened to you all, all my wonderful patients. Yeah. You must keep in touch with Nicholas, don't you? Nicholas? Or is he unplugging too? Who's Nicholas? You don't remember Nicholas? No. Gina D. Oh, I'm surprised. I would have thought you both would be dating by now, or at least I'd become best of friends. You mean that kid you introduced me at your office? Yes, Nicholas. Oh, he was such a darling boy.  So how you made such a cute pair playing together at the office? Huh. Oh, you must remember, Gina D. You must. And Aunt Judy, she used to take you to all our therapy sessions. Don't you remember? I mean, I remember her taking me some of the time, but... Oh, no, she was there all the time. Yes, she used to come in from Sheepshead Bay to sometimes three times a week. Three times a week? Oh, yes, you remember? Oh, and you were so cute, Gina D. So, so cute. You were the littlest one of them all, little Gina D. And the three of us, we'd play games and sing. And of course, you remember what song we used to sing. I do. Of course, of course, we used to sing. Buf the magic dragon lived by the sea. I remember that I actually remember that now. Of course you do. It was two, three times a week for years. Of course, you must remember. You must remember it all. I mean, I remember my legs hurting, sometimes my feet, my heels. You used to press them when you were stretching me out. You didn't mean to, but you did. You had to, well, my legs would snap right back, stinging. I remember that tea you'd bring from Calcutta and the cookies from... Luca? From Luca, yeah, yeah. And the honey candies from the corner store. And the blue plastic log and the white plastic brace and the green ball and the red ball and the yellow ball. I hated the yellow ball. Yes, it was a bit too large for you if I do remember correctly. And I remember walking in the forest. Do you remember? No, the rainforest. Yes, yes, of course. Don't wake the birds, Gina D. Clyde, Clyde, don't wake the animals. Remember, heel toe, heel toe, there you go. Yes, yes. Oh, I could go on. A plate of biryani appears or perhaps it was always there. Dalla notices it. Oh my goodness. Is this biryani? Yeah, dinner's on me. No, no, no, Gina D, no, no, you mustn't. At least I can do. It's been 15 years, Dalla. Has it really? Yep, the last time I saw you, I was nine. Were you? Uh-huh. Time really flies, doesn't it? Yeah. Dalla spoons some biryani onto her plate and begins to eat. Hey, Dalla. Yes? What happened? Big fun. 15 years ago? What happened? I went in for my appointment and you never showed up. That's odd. Yeah, I remember Aunt Judy came in and we walked over to your office. She could still walk back then. It was before her leg gave out, so she could still walk. We walked over and when we got to your office, there was someone else there. Are you sure? Of course I'm sure. We walked in and there was this guy, this random guy, and when we asked where you were, he said that he didn't know. So Aunt Judy called you, just kept calling and calling and nothing until one day on our way into the city, she drove over to the hospital to see if maybe they knew and when she got to my house, all she'd say is that you were sick.  So I want to know, I want to know what happened. Well, I'm afraid I don't remember. You don't remember.  Oh, Gina D, Gina D, you must turn on channel 13 tonight. What, stroke? It's the magic flute. Of course, all this time and it's been 15 years. The magic flute on BBC, it's playing and it's... I want to know, I want to know what happened the day that you just... You must remember, you must remember the magic flute. What happened? Dala finishes her biryani. She looks at Reg.  Dala checks her watch. Well, I'm afraid I must be heading out. She digs around in her bag. Where did I put that? Still digging. Must have left it at home when the kitchen countered the chair. Oh, the tea, oh my, I know how much Aunt Judy loves that tea. I will, next time. Yeah, next time. Dala pulls something small out of another purse pocket. Honey candy? Okay. She hands Reg the candy. Thanks. Dala rises. It was so good to see you, Gina D. So good. She begins to exit, then she stops. Oh, and Gina? Yeah? Do tell Aunt Judy that Dala sees hello. Dala exits. A moment, another moment, a third moment. Reg checks their phone. Suddenly the restaurant's Christmas lights flicker on. Reg notices them. The door chimes jingle, Reg looks up. Mary enters. She's dressed in the same outfit she wore in part one. The scene restarts. Hi. Mary doesn't notice. Reg rises to get her attention. Mary. Mary turns around. Mary, hi. Oh. Hi. Hi. You made it. Yeah, sorry. Don't be. No, I am. Don't be, it's my fault for being early. Yeah, but. It's my fault, don't be. Reg goes in for a hug. Mary doesn't notice. They sit. So, three.  Blood seeps through the makeshift bandage and is smeared on the pole next to them. They stare into space. The train doors open. An older woman with a white cane enters. She is dressed in white, white pants, shoes, pocketbook, all but for her overcoat, which is black and her hair, which is bright red. She takes a seat next to Reg. Reg doesn't look at her. The woman doesn't look at Reg either, except for every few seconds when she sneaks a peek at them when she thinks they aren't paying attention. The woman is Aunt Judy. She pulls a roll of lifesavers out of her pocketbook. Here, take one. What is it? Lifesaver, they're good. No, thanks. Suit yourself. She helps herself to one and puts the roll away. Let me see. No, let me see your hand. Oh, Reg. Please don't, come on. Reg reluctantly gives Aunt Judy their hand. Aunt Judy begins to unwrap their makeshift bandage. Ow! Oh, don't be dramatic. I'm not, you're hurting me. There's still glass in there. No, there isn't, ow! Aunt Judy holds up a tiny shard of glass she pulled out of Reg's hand. See what I tell you.  Well, well what? Well, what do you say? What do I say? Thank you, Aunt Judy. Oh, come on. No, is that nice? You hurt me. I helped you.  Thank you, Aunt Judy. That's better. I can't believe you. I can't believe you. Did you see all that? Of course I did. I see everything. Everything? God, not everything. Of course there's some things I don't want to see.  You're the one who said everything. So it makes sense, Reg, really. How am I supposed to know what you can or can't see? It's everything except for the sup. I shouldn't. Who says you should have seen any of that at all? I don't know, but you're lucky I did because you could have gotten in some real trouble. Since when do I get into real trouble? Since always. Name one time. That alleyway in Chinatown. What alleyway? Drinking at seven o'clock in the evening. I was 15. Exactly, you were underage and in public.  Okay, listen, number one, it was still light out. Number two, we ran away the second we heard that cop car coming. Yeah, and you know who sent that cop car to keep you from any real trouble? Are you kidding me? We were 15, Aunt Judy. I think the cops have a lot more pressing issues to worry about than underage drinking. It wasn't the cops I was worried about, it was everyone else. At 7 p.m., the sun hadn't even set. But it was going to. You're lucky, you know that? I don't feel lucky. Well, you are. Aunt Judy gestures for Reg's hand. Let me see again. No. Come on, let me see. She grabs Reg's hand and unwraps the paper towel. Ow! Aunt Judy inspects Reg's hand. More glass? No, that time I was just screwing with you. She was Christ. Reg pulls their hand away and begins to rewrap it. Since when do you screw with me? Since when do you do things that are stupid? Well, this one time in Chinatown. Oh, don't be smart. Did you just let it go? No. I'm literally bleeding right now. Well, whose fault is that? I don't know. You apparently sent that cop car eight years ago. You couldn't have stopped that wine glass from smashing or something? I could have, but I didn't. Jesus Christ, why not? It was because you're so smart, you can figure it out yourself. I give up.  Well, well what?  No. Suit yourself. You have five more stops. Reg lifts their head up. Hey. Yeah? What ever happened to Skylar? What? You know, Skylar, what ever happened to her? You know what happened? We broke up. I liked her. She was kind. She was boring. So what's exciting, this?  I didn't ruin myself. Just look at you. I'm fine.  Well, if I'm such a mess, then maybe you should have stopped that from happening. Is that a defeat the purpose? What purpose? You mean which? Which purpose? And besides, I'm not God. I don't know.  Hey, is that nice? I'm kidding. No, you're not. You've gotten very bold lately. Yeah, it's called growing up, really. Because I think it's just a sign of immaturity. Reg begins to shiver. Aunt Judy gestures towards them again. Come here. No, relax. I just wanted to give you my jacket.  She places the jacket around Reg's shoulders. There. Thanks. Your stop is soon. I know. Aunt Judy reaches into her pocketbook and pulls out the lifesavers again. Take one. Aunt Judy, well, you have to have one. Right, all right. Reg takes a lifesaver. They pop it in their mouth. Well, they're pretty good. They? I forgot. I forgot how good they are. What did I tell you? You need money. I'm good. You sure? Yeah. All right. How's your nana? I am. We all share? Every now and then, but it's different.  Oh, well.  Okay. Then I need you to go into that closet and I need you to go to that top shelf. Aunt Judy, I'm not finished. I need you to go into that closet and I need you to take down whatever is there and I need you to put it in the garbage bags, one for garbage, one for recycling. But, and then I need you to throw it away. All of it? All of it. Even, even your wig? Especially my wig. Aunt Judy fixes her hair, reg watches. You look good. So do you. Thought it was a mess. You are. Tonight. Oh? Don't let it get to your head. The train door is ding open and closed. Aunt Judy notices the stop. Hey, you're next. I know. Reg begins to pull off Aunt Judy's jacket. Here's your- He said it's chilly out tonight. The train stops. Well, here you are. So long. Wait, but- What? When will I see you? You will. Reg begins to exit. Be careful. Reg is gone. Aunt Judy sits on the train alone. A moment. The next stop, Dala gets on. She sits next to Aunt Judy. They nod at each other, then sit in silence. The train continues. Another stop, another. Next stop, the door is open. Mary, now dressed in the same shroud as Dala and Aunt Judy gets on the train. She is bleeding. She sees Aunt Judy. Aunt Judy sees her. They recognize each other. Mary freezes. White stem end of play. Thank you so much, J.A. That was amazing. Love that piece of theater. Thank you. And that was The Wind Cries Mary, which was directed by Colm Summers and featured Manira Batul, Morgan Dean, Antoinette Levescia, and Carrie Young. And now onto our final play this evening. And reminder that while tickets are free, we are asking you guys to give a suggested donation of $10, just $10 to new alternatives NYC, which increases the self-sufficiency of LGBTQ plus homeless youth by enabling them to transition out of the shelter system to stable adult lives. And now I'm gonna pass the mic to my beloved friend, Catherine Ann Taylor, all yours, Kat. Thanks, Keith. Hello, everybody. Thanks for staying tuned in. Our last play of the night is The Darker Side of Paradise by Franco D'Alessandro. This play is about a gay high school teacher, a fragile pupil of his, and hideous insinuations about them in an Irish-American community. Reading for us tonight, we have three actors. David Leeper is playing our teacher, Mr. Grace. Amy Bisjack is playing our headmaster, and Zachary Galt is playing 17-year-old student, Danny. I'm Catherine Ann Taylor. I directed the reading, and I will be reading our stage directions. I would like to dedicate tonight's reading to the life of Dr. Frank M. D'Alessandro, our playwright's father. He lived from 1928 to June 13th of 2020. He was 91 years old, and we dedicate this to him. Thank you all so much for tuning in for live theater and quarantine. We definitely appreciate you taking the time to watch. So without further ado, we'll start the play, The Darker Side of Paradise by Franco D'Alessandro. The time is 2010. The place is Hope Valley Academy, a private school anywhere. Mr. Grace and the headmaster in the classroom of the private school. The headmaster looks around Mr. Grace's classroom curiously. Oh, education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. Oh, well, I can assure Mr. Yates that most pails certainly need filling and most fires are hardly worth lighting. I... Be who you needed when you were young. Who said that? Me. It's kind of my personal motto. Oh, I see. You do? Let's be honest, Mr. Grace. Children don't need people. They need knowledge, learning. This is a school, not a daycare facility. That is certainly an opinion.  I know that. Your numbers reflect that. In fact, they speak volumes, and the students truly respond to your class in pedagogical style. Thank you. And I am certain that you have neither the time nor the inclination to take personal interest in any students. I don't. Do you know why I'm here? I can't say I do. Mr. Grace, you were hired well before I came to Hope Valley Prep. I know that. How many years? 20 years. I am 42 tomorrow. I never knew much about you, but over the years and certainly recently, strangely, I've come to know far too much about you. I beg your pardon. I don't care what you do outside the school, but I do care when a teacher becomes a topic of conversation. Have I become a topic of conversation? Oh, indeed. You have. Well, I'm not sure I have any control over what topics people choose for their conversations. And I absolutely certain I no longer care what people say about me. Well, you should. You've become quite the popular teacher, which is never a good thing. Indeed. The students should be miserable and abhor their teachers. In recent years, your behavior has become flavorant and more aggressive. Flagrant. That's a word for a crime, which I'm gathering means marrying my husband last year.  Homosexual. Homosexual. My God, what decade is this? No one uses that word anymore. Oh, really? Yes, really. It's offensive. It's a made up word in a recent year.   This isn't the 1950s. So many babies thrown out with the bathwater. The 50s was a perfectly good time period. Really. And aggressive. You know what? I have no idea what that means. Patrick, come on. You have that Celtic culture. Come on. You have that Celtic culture club that is filled with boys. The boys are learning their Irish heritage. It's a fun atmosphere of them to learn in a casual manner about who they are, their, their history and roots. It's all boys. And frankly, the optics. There are six girls who are members. Mary Catherine is the vice president. What about the boy? The leader. Danny. Oh, great. What about Danny? You spend an awful lot of time with him. His father died the first day of high school. His younger sister has cerebral palsy. His older brother is autistic. His poor mother was pretty much a basket case and trying to make ends meet is very happy. I look out for him. The kids got a lot on his plate. So we talk. I know what you're going with this. No, you don't. Don't be presumptuous. Don't be presumptuous. Don't be presumptuous. And being uppity and smug. Will not put me at ease. I said aggressive because there's been some complaints. Plates. By whom? You're spending time with so many of the boys make some of this students uncomfortable. Uncomfortable. Who has been made uncomfortable by me? None of your business. Certainly is. I cannot think of anything that is more of my business. I have the right to face my accuser. In an effort to protect the child who made the accusation. Oh, so it's one person. One person, not several. You implied that there were multiple complaints. Don't be obdurate. I'm not playing around here. Oh, I assure you, neither am I. You know, my family and I fled British occupied Northern Ireland in the 1960s. Oh, I remember the 60s. Peace protests.  The Vietnam war. Oh, really? You fought in Vietnam? No. I was in graduate school getting my PhD in mathematics. But I remember it well. Total chaos. Self-inflicted human created chaos. In Ireland, we had our own chaos. And it was brought to us not self generated, which is why my parents left because they had no rights. Every action was monitored and restricted. I'm beginning to understand how they felt. You have fewer rights than you would like to believe. This is Hope Valley. Hope Valley. I always found that name ironic, don't you? Not in the least. Look, this is not some public school. No. What it is, is my life. Teaching is my passion. I've devoted myself to helping young people because I had no one helped me when I was their age. One teacher, one teacher in 12 disastrous years of education changed my life in my last year of high school. When most teachers would have given up, most kids would have expected them to. That was when everything changed for me. And I committed myself to being that person for others. You know, when I started teaching, I immediately felt I found what I was always meant to do. That empty lost feeling that every 20-something has was suddenly gone. Teaching was my true north. And when I came here, I thought I found paradise. I'm able to do what I do because I love this job. And I love these kids. Oh, God, Mr. Grace, you are not here to love them. That's what I mean by aggressive. And certainly a teacher with your, well, in your position should not use such words. It's a delicate. People get the wrong idea. I'm a numbers person. I came here to raise money and streamline things. I even got you teachers a raise, but it's a small town and people talk out of boredom more than anything else. And a scandal, any scandal. It's not good for the bottom line. Patrick, it's, it's nothing personal. But let me explain. I don't want you powing around with the students. No shoulder slaps. Certainly no hugs. No touching of any kind. Do your job. Fill the pale. We certainly don't need any fires around here. The headmaster exits. Fade to black. Seem to. Days later, Mr. Grace is at his desk grading papers. The door opens slowly.  He's oddly nervous and distant, considering this is the teacher he connects with best and comes to see daily just to talk. But this time something's off. Something is different. Danny makes no eye contact with Mr. Grace and it becomes increasingly obvious. He holds a folded six page letter in his hand, which is rolled tightly and seems invisible in the language phrases that Mr. Grace has been teaching the students. Hey, Danny, come on in. She'll kick me out the door. She'll squish my muncher. Mahara. Hey, Mr. G. Gonna sit out to Danny Mahara. I'll make a mouth. I'll go staphane. You'll make a mouth. That was great, Danny boy. Wow, you're really getting the hang of it. So, what's going on? Are you hungry? There are snacks in the fridge. No, I'm fine. Sir Irish is getting stronger by the week. I mean, I know it's only a few phrases, but it's exciting. I mean, we can't have Danny Boyle Brady not speaking a little bit of the Kaelic language of his ancestors. Worked on it all summer. It kept me focused.  What did Yates say? That's funny. I really hope you study a semester in Galway like we talked about. Mr. Grace reaches for the leather bound journal that he has been wanting to give Danny. His desire to give this to Danny is met with Danny's desire to give Mr. Grace a piece of his writing. Galway, huh? Yeah, the idea of college, never mind seeing Ireland seems a million miles away. Nonsense.  I mean to are you okay? You look thin. I'm fine. Yeah? You sure? Sure. So I wanted to give you this and I didn't want to do it in English class or Celtic club. When I was in high school, I had a teacher, Mary Cronin who took a special interest in me. She gave me a journal.  I think that was true as much as she believed in any talent I had, but she and I are still friends and I'm still writing and well, you had mentioned you had felt the urge to write more and more and I suspect there may be a writer in you because you certainly have the talent Danny. Mr. Grace hands him an expensive leather bound journal with the letter D embossed on it. Every writer needs a place to put his thoughts and ideas and gripes and grousings, grievances, complaints, blusterings, bombasts, rants, ravings and rages, et cetera. Thank you, Mr. G. You didn't have to do this. Sure, I did have to. I believe in you kiddo. You know, I really wanted to. Sorry. Oh, I just go ahead. I'm a teacher. I talk too much besides I'm always more interested in hearing what you have to say. You are. Oh, sure. Yeah, you are. That's true. You've always been interested in hearing me blather. But. What did you want to tell me? Just that. Well, I don't have children of my own, you know, and I've taught for 20 years and. And I never, well, if I have any regrets and I try not to have them, it would be not having a child of my own, but. I really feel blessed to have you in my life. That's all. Hence the quote from Fitzgerald's this side of this page. Read it. You're my. You're my month, senior Darcy. Thank you. What a famerie never had Darcy. Never had Darcy. That's the whole. I'm sorry. It's beautiful. You start writing in it. Yeah, I don't know about that anymore. Danny, you're gifted. I've read your work for three years. Believe me when I say you have true talent and you have to keep writing. I can't. I can't. I'm tired. I have no energy. I have no desire, nothing to say. I'm just so tired. I don't care anymore. Don't care about what? Anything. Everything. I can't. I just... You know, remember we read The Glass Menagerie freshman year? I don't want to be like Tom in that play. I don't want to leave them behind. I can't bear the idea of abandoning them. But at the same time, Mr. G, it's too much. I can't take care of them.  My sister, her CP, it's never getting better. I mean, it's not like she will ever get better. There's no hope for that. We all delude ourselves and my mom goes broke paying for physical therapists and occupational therapists and therapists, therapists. And then my mom, she never got over.  I thought your father passed away before ninth grade. Yeah, he did. Right after he walked out on us for the last four years, I thought he was on a business trip, but my mom just let it slip that he left us.  He drops dead of a heart attack in front of the woman who's supposed to be an expert in the organ that failed him.  And I wish I could unhear that little bit of information. Yeah, yeah, she unloaded that bit of reconnaissance last month when she was having a meltdown. One of the few times she has an ketonic, which of course she is most of the time. So I drive my brother to his life skills classes. I take my sister to therapy. I cook dinner. I mean, I try, I really try. I know you do. I try, but I'm so, I can't fucking, I can't do this anymore. Danny, what's wrong?  Can't wait to get out of here.   Like, do you know the pre-industrial education system was much more about experiential learning? The Greeks would walk and talk and have conversations to facilitate learning. The peripatetic school dates all the way back to 350 BC when Aristotle began teaching in the Lyceum. They did philosophical and scientific inquiries while walking around and asking questions.  Like that was the greatest aspiration for you to have. And this is where we are in 2010.  When we all know they should be sleeping, but then we change the start time. No, no, we drag them out of bed at 6 a.m. and we still sit them in these crab classrooms and little-ass desks in these small-ass chairs.  In the same class, every day, at the same time. It's routine, routine boredom, boredom. Good way to kill your level of learning. Good, the perfect way to murder the mind, to slaughter the soul.  Hello, anyone listening? Mr. Grace understands all in this moment and gently goes over to Danny and sits next to them. Their eyes don't meet quite yet. I am, I'm listening to you, Danny. No, no one listens, no one ever listens. Danny, I am here and I'm not going anywhere. Not until you look at me. I can't. What? You can't what? Look at you. Why? I can't, I don't wanna. It's okay, you can. I lied. I lied. I haven't been writing. Here. Danny hands Mr. Grace the letter. It's a three page suicide note. Mr. Grace's eyes grow large and he very quickly understands what's happening. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have shown you that. I've been working on it for the last few weeks. I don't even see any color anymore.   I can't feel anything.   Every day, all I think about is ending it. It's all I think about. I just wanna stop.  All I wanna do is get off and sleep. Remember freshman year when I had that injury on the football field? It was horrible. I remember lying on the field. I couldn't feel anything. My arms, my toes. I was so worried about you, but what's that? Nothing, paint.  You were the only one. You really cared about me. Don't think I forgot. And you brought me a pillow in the shape of a football. I love that football pillow. I still have it somewhere, but as I was lying there, I remember thinking, I thought, oh shit, this is it. I am fucked. I'll never walk again, never be able to do all the things I love, like hike and climb and swim and ski. I wanted so badly to live, to be alive. Why can't I feel that anymore? Look at me. Danny, look at me. I can't because you know me. I know you know me. And if I look at you, I can't. I can't what? Keep lying. Mr. Grace has noticed that there are red spots on the gauze of Danny's wrist area of his shirt sleeve. The red dots on the sleeve become more visible as if they're leaking. Danny, today the lying stops. You don't need to lie. OK, from now on, you tell me everything, OK? You're safe. You're safe with me, but I need you to look at me. Look me in the eyes.  Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. I'm going to do it every second of every day.  I can't make it stop. I want it to stop. Listen to me. I'm going to get you help. You're going to trust me, OK? You have to trust me, Danny. We're going to leave here. We're going to see a doctor. We're going to get you a therapist. We're going to find medicine to help you through this.  Danny, that is not going to happen. I'm not going to let anything bad happen to you, OK? You trust me, right? Danny, do you trust me? Mr.  Yes. But you need to know that a lot of people love you. And ending your life is not an option, OK? You are so strong, Danny. You inspire me.  You're an amazing son, a phenomenal brother, a spectacular human being. And I am so honored to have taught you and be your friend.  You have been a rock these last three years, and it's OK to feel weak. It's OK to want a break. It's OK to need help, Danny. You are loved and needed.  OK? OK? So many people love you. I love you. Danny flies into Mr. Grace's arms and hugs him for dear life. I'm not going to let you out of my sight. And it's all going to be OK. I'm not. I'm going to help you through this. You understand me, Danny boy? The headmaster appears in the doorway. She opens the door. Oh, great. Step away. Mr. Grace, what is the meaning of this? What is the meaning of this? As the two men separate, Danny picks up the gifted journal off the desk with his bloodied hand. And Mr. Grace is now plunging the suicide note in his hand. Danny looks at the headmaster, his red tear-streaked face utterly confused and terrified. Lights dim to blackout. Epilogue in darkness. Lights slowly reveal Danny's face. Dear Danny boy, teaching you these last few years has made me a better teacher and a better person. With your curiosity and passion, you single-handedly revived my own passion for the noble profession when it started to wane 17 years in.  And I thank God you came into my life. This quote by Fitzgerald sums up how I feel about our friendship. I have had dreams sometimes, and I'm going to tell you one of them. I've enjoyed imagining that you were my son, that perhaps when I was young, I went into a state of coma and begat you. And when I came to, had no recollection of it. It's the paternal instinct. Sometimes I think that the explanation of our deep resemblance is some common Celtic ancestor. Curiously alike we are. Curiously unlike too. When lightning strikes one of us, it strikes us both. I want, I need to thank you, Mr. Grace, for being there. When I kid me, la bojas, la munchor, majara, 100,000 thanks to you, my teacher, my friend. Lights fade to black. Curtain. Wow, you guys. Thank you so much. Thank you to everybody who is still watching. I want to thank Kat, Catherine Anteller, my co-producer, and Katora Brown. And thank the playwrights of Rounds by Johnny G. Lloyd, which is directed by Kenan Tyler Oliphant and feature Torian Brackett, Brendan George, Malik Reed, Jason Alexander Wilkes. The Wind cries Mary by A. A. Brenner, which was directed by Colm Summers and drama turged by May Truhaft Ali. And that featured Munira Batul, Morgan Dean, Carrie Young, and Antoinette LeVeccia. And The Darker Side of Paradise by Franco da Alessandro, directed by Catherine Anteller and featuring Amy Bitchak, Zachary Galt, and David Leaper. Thank you so much and good night.


River State now has a new governor who will oversee the affairs of the state for a four-year term. The historic event took place after the Yacuba-Gewan Stadium in Pothack into the state capital. Simeone-Nalaya Fubara took over leadership from Yosemite to become the fourth democratically elected governor since the commencement of the new democratic era in 1999. River State Governor Simeone-Nalaya Fubara firmly called Sime declares his administration's resolve to expand the existence of socioeconomic opportunities in order to engender prosperity for all rivers' people. In its inaugural address, ties it together, let's consolidate the new river state. Governor Fubara recognizes the poor state of the national economy. However, Prime Minister Simeone-Nalaya's administration will take measures to diversify the river's economy and insulate it so that it can grow. Together, let's consolidate the new river state. We will prioritize the well-being of our state and our citizens with a real focus on economic growth. People-centered projects and social services will improve the ease of doing business and sustain a regime that will attract local foreign direct investment to stimulate greater economic activity, rich wealth, and improve our citizens' livelihood. Meanwhile, residents of the city of the Crown of Governments and the governor ask the express great expectations from his administration. Some of the residents charge the governor to give priority to the areas of security, information technology, and violent, reduced poverty and employment amongst others within the next four years of his administration. In the areas of ICT, because of course we are in the 21st century and we all know that ICT is a driving force for development and I want the new administration to equally see how to develop the ICT sector if possible, creates a full-fledged ministry for information and communication development. Like their team says, consolidation. I expect them to consolidate on so many things that the previous administration couldn't achieve, especially in terms of employment, because employment is key, because once there is employment for the youth, the youths are being physically carried along. Then also, I also expect in terms of infrastructure and several other things, I expect a lot of things from this new administration. He's a technocrat. We have the confidence that he's going to continue from where the immediate past governor has, you know, from where the immediate past governor ended. And we believe, we have confidence in him that there's going to be a tremendous change in river states. We are vying to be hard on crime and criminality. Governor Fubaya, thanks to C7 for their support, promises regular payment of salary, gratuity, more training, permission for them and Alison following commanders.


Well, after vandalism to a park in Pierce left the equipment unsafe for children, the community there has come together to replace the park structure. Sarah Winkelman has the story.  But the future of the playground was unknown after an act of vandalism closed the park in May. Somebody had thrown a rock through one of the slides. And because the park was so old, we were not able to replace the just the slide. So unfortunately, we had to replace the entire structure in order for it to be able to be safe for children to play on. With no room in the budget for this kind of upgrade, the community thought the park might remain closed for quite some time. We were looking at, you know, into the spring before we were even going to be able to start construction on the playground. Instead, it's the end of November and the new playground is already up and running. Although the final numbers aren't in quite yet, the city estimates the project costs somewhere between $25,000 and $30,000, with that support coming from NJPA and the community. Kerry called the National Joint Powers Alliance just days before their fiscal year ended, taking advantage of a $2,500 small project partnership grant for both 2016 and 2017, totaling $5,000. NJPA has a program that if you purchase through them and their vendors, you get a percent back in rebate dollars. Which added on another $5,600 and the local Lions Club, Legion and Knights of Columbus added to the total. Pierce is a very tight knit community and we are all about community support. A community support that saved the park. Reporting in Pierce, Sarah Winkleman, Lakeland News. The sentence to surf program in Morrison County helped with the installation of the new equipment. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.


down on Earth, so we're enjoying this Thanksgiving Day also. There's a lot to be thankful for down here, and one of the things we have to be thankful for is that we have people like you doing the work you're doing, and we're very grateful to you for seeing you back here. Thank you very much, sir, and of course we couldn't do it with all the thousands of men and women in the United States and in other countries helping support the space shuttle program and of course in the future the International Space Station. You keep doing your job, and we'll see you back here. This downlink video that we're receiving from on board Columbia right now is a recording of what's going on with the WSI or wedding characteristics of a Missibles experiment. Columbia Houston, we're ready to take the downlink of PEP video at this time if it's convenient. All right, thank you very much. This is Mission Control Houston. This is videotape from the crew of the spacewalk that was shot during that spacewalk as it occurred Sunday evening. This videotape playback was requested by the EVA team here in Mission Control as part of the development flight test team to gather some additional data on activities that occurred during the spacewalk. This is Winston Scott as he was attempting to soft dock the large orbital replacement unit simulator into the end effector of the small crane that he and when Tekau Doi operated during the spacewalk.


The sunshine double over we've got Miami to go through my predictions for Miami, which I mean I don't think that did too bad. We'll find out in a second, but on the second channel By the way, we do have these predictions coming out for the big events We do want for this show and open Indian Wales Miami, but let's go through how I did this week in my predictions This is a tough one to start with, but I think we're back in a might outperform Shviyantek All right starting with a win Why do I always start these videos by getting the first one right? Of course Shviyantek losing to Alexandrova before the quarterfinals and we're back to making the finals, so I'll take it With the best qualifier I'm gonna go with Volley Nets. She did really well last week And on the men's side, I'm gonna back Klein because he's been pretty good the last couple of weeks All right, so Volley Nets lost in the second round a little bit disappointing I expected a little bit better from her Townsend was actually the best of the qualities making it to the third round And Klein lost in the first round of Mikkelsen, which was a huge Disappointment I should have probably picked somebody else maybe Vilts who made the third round He's had a couple of good weeks in the sunshine double. So a bit of a loss on this one With the country I'm gonna go with America again. I mean Americans in America. It's a super easy thing to pick Thank you, Danielle Collins. She saved this one because they did do well They did better than anybody else and again America. They're playing in Miami The Americans are gonna do well and they did and Danielle Collins saved the day. She won the title So for the aces, I'm gonna go with Zhang who really hasn't been good lately And I'm gonna have a Shelton being the hometown hero and I reckon he's gonna have a good run So Zhang she ended up losing early in the tournament So didn't have a chance to hit any aces really that many aces that I expected from her Shelton's the same He lost early as well. So I should have picked Rebecca in a hindsight I mean she had the most aces out of everybody and on the men's side Maybe his variable mevredev would have been a better pick because they both serve really well even to Metrov He was a really really big server this week So this is a bit of an interesting one as well. Sinner, El Kharaz both played well last week Of course I played each other in the semifinals, but I'm gonna go with Sinner in this one. I'll pick Sinner All right, so I uh forgot to react to that one for some reason I don't know why it just didn't come through but uh, I picked Sinner Anyone and he won the whole thing and I'll take that one and let's Yep, let's keep going All right, so for this unseated runs that I think are gonna happen I'm gonna go with Neymar Saka on the women's side. I think she's got a really good draw And on the men's side, I'm gonna back Russovore because I think he's been really good here in the past So Saka did do well. She made the third round. She beat Svetlilina, which was a huge win to get through She ended up losing to Garcia on a close match But very very good run there. We're happy to have that one But Russovore lost in the first round to Hefman That was super disappointing a bit of a shock as well because I think a lot of us expected more from him Especially considering he was so close to beating Medvedev at the Australian Open. He just hasn't seemed to replicate that since Now top 10 upsets. This is an interesting one. I'm gonna go with Alex Diminor on the men's side And I'm gonna have a Sakri who again played really well last week, but I feel like her draw might be a little bit tough All right, so Diminor made the fourth round lost to Marijan. Yeah, it was an upset But technically is an upset in the first couple of rounds not the fourth round So I can't claim that one but Sakri did really well. She made the quarter final So that was just a terrible pick. I could have picked Sabalenko. I could have picked Jabir I should have just gone with what I did in Indian Wells to pick Jabir and Riblab. I mean, that's what got me the wins there So for my dark horse picks, I'm gonna go with Kalinskaya on the women's side And on the men's side, I'm gonna go with Hashinov. I reckon he might be able to do a little bit damage So Kalinskaya did make the fourth round. Unfortunately had a walkover against Sakri I really reckon she would have beaten Sakri in that match on the men's side Hashinov made the fourth round as well So look, they had a little bit of a run. He lost his Verov in the end pretty easily, but look they both made good runs. I'll take it So many versus Verov, a little bit of a different one here. I'm gonna go with Medvedev I think Medvedev, he's the defending champion. He played really well last week So I can't claim this one I'm just gonna give myself half a point because they both made the semi-finals and they both lost So nobody actually progressed further. I think this is the first time we've had this problem where they both Made the same round and both lost My hot take for this one. I reckon we're gonna get an unseeded semi-finalist on maybe both the men and the women Or maybe just one or the other. I reckon there's just gonna be some random player in the semi-final lineup How good's Danielle Collins? I mean she saved this There was actually a lot of random players in the quarterfinals. Danielle Collins making the semi-finals And like I said, the over the last couple of years we've had this happen, you know Demetro making the final that was unexpected this week We had players like Alex Androva making it far who weren't expected as a renker on the women's side as well We only had one top 10 player into the semi-finals on the women's side on the men's side, of course We had players like Mahatch, Marijan doing really well All right, so the semi-final picks these ones are always the hardest to do but on the top half of the draw I'm gonna go with Fiontech taking on Osaka on the bottom half of the draw I'm gonna go with Sabalenka versus Rabakina On the men's side. I'm gonna go with Elkress taking on Hashinov and then the bottom half I'll go with Medvedev versus Sinus All right, so one out of four that I mean this was horrible Look, I get one right, but I get all these wrong You know, I get the Rabakina right, but Sabalenka loses She obviously had tragic circumstances Fiontech got upset in the fourth round, so a bit disappointing there So I nailed one of them, Medvedev did play Sinna So that was good, got that one right Elkress, of course, just losing before the semi-finals, Hashinov losing to Zverev Zverev ended up making the semis So yeah, a little bit disappointing that, you know, that we didn't get maybe three out of four here But two out of four, I'll take that every day And the champions of the event on the women's side, I'm gonna go with Rabakina And I'm gonna go with Sinna on the men's side Man, if Rabakina had won, you would not hear the end of it. I'll tell you that much But Sinna winning, love that, love that I should get bonus points for this I mean, these are only worth a point each to get these winners And I should be getting like 10 points for this Gannick Sinna, he's played so well, I mean he's so easy to pick I mean, it's almost like picking Djokovic for the last 10 years It's so obvious that he's gonna win most things Sinna right now So there are my predictions I did the same at Indian Wells and Miami So better than the Australian Open One of these days, I'm gonna definitely get like 20 out of 25 It's gonna happen, one of them Then I'll retire, then I'll be done, I'll ride off into the sunset And it'll be all over Let me know down in the comments below How'd you do with your predictions for the Miami Open? Look, there were some massive, massive upsets and random results Very, very hard to predict this one But of course we'll do these again When we get the clay courts in a couple weeks


Hey, welcome to this CUBE conversation with NetScout. I'm Lisa Martin, excited to talk to you, Richard Hummel, the manager of threat research for Arbor Networks, the security division of NetScout. Richard, welcome to theCUBE. Thanks for having me, Lisa, it's a pleasure to be here. We're going to unpack the six NetScout threat intelligence report, which is going to be very interesting, but something I wanted to start with is we know that and yes, you're going to tell us COVID and the pandemic has had a massive impact on DDoS attacks ran somewhere. But before we dig into the report, I'd like to just kind of get some stories from you. As we saw last year about this time, rapid pivot to work from home, rapid pivot to distance learning. Talk to us about some of the attacks that you saw in particular that literally hit close to home. Sure, and there's one really good prime example that comes to mind because it impacted a lot of people. There's a lot of media sensation around this, but if you go and look, just Google it, Miami, Dade County and DDoS, you'll see the first articles that pop up is the entire district school network going down because a student did not want to go to school and launched a DDoS attack. There was something upwards of 190,000 individuals that no longer connected the school's platform, whether that's a teacher, a student or parents. And so it had a very significant impact. And when you think about this in terms of the digital world, that impacted very severely a large number of people and you can't really translate that to what would happen in a physical environment because it just doesn't compute. There are two totally different scenarios to talk about here. Amazing that a child can decide, I don't want to go to school today and as a result of a pandemic, take that out for nearly 200,000 folks. So let's dig into, I said, this is the sixth net scout threat intelligence report. One of the global trends and themes that is seen as evidence in what happened last year is up and to the right. Oftentimes when we're talking about technology, with analyst reports, up and to the right is a good thing. Not so in this case. We saw huge increases in threat vectors, more vectors weaponized per attack, sophistication, expansion of threats and IoT devices. Walk us through the overall key findings from 2020 that this report discovered. Absolutely. And if you glance at your screen and you'll see the key findings here where we talk about record-breaking numbers. And just in 2020, we saw over 10 million attacks, which, I mean, this is a 20% increase over 2019. And what's significant about that number is COVID had a huge impact. In fact, if we go all the way back to the beginning, right around mid-March, that's when the pandemic was announced, attacks skyrocketed and they didn't stop. They just kept going up and to the right. And that is true through 2021. So far in the first quarter, typically January, February is the down month that we observe in DDoS attacks. Whether this is, you know, it's going back to school from Christmas break, you have the Christmas routines and e-commerce is slowing down. January, February is typically a slow month. That was not true in 2021. In fact, we hit record numbers on a month by month in both January and February. And so not only do we see 2.9 million attacks in the first quarter of 2021, which I mean, let's do the math here, right? We've got four quarters. You know, we're on track to hit 12 million attacks potentially, if not more. And then you have this normal where we said 800,000 approximately month over month since the pandemic started. We started 2021 at 950,000 plus. That's up into the right. And it's not slowing down. It's not slowing down. It's a trend that it shows, you know, significant impact across every industry. And we're going to talk about that, but what are some of the new threat vectors that you saw weaponized in the last year? I mean, you talked about the example of the Miami-Dade School District, but what were some of those new vectors that were really weaponized and used to help this up into the right trend? So there's four in particular that we were tracking in 2020. And these aren't necessarily new vectors. Typically what happens when an adversary starts using this is there's a proof of concept out there. In fact, a good example of this would be the RDP over UDP. So I mean, we're all remotely connected, right? We're doing this over a Zoom call. If I wanna connect to my organization, I'm gonna use some sort of remote capability, whether that's a VPN or tunneling in, whatever it might be, right? And so remote desktop is something that everybody's using. And we saw actors start to kind of play around with this in mid 2020 and right around September, November timeframe, we saw a sudden spike. And typically when we see spikes in this kind of activity, it's because adversaries are taking proof of concept code that maybe has been around for a period of time and they're incorporating those into DDoS for higher services. And so any person that wants to launch a DDoS attack can go into underground forums and marketplaces and they can purchase, maybe it's $10 in Bitcoin and they can purchase an attack that leverages a bunch of different DDoS vectors. And so adversaries have no reason to remove a vector as new ones get discovered. They only have the motivation to add more, right? Because somebody comes into their platform and says, I wanna launch an attack that's gonna take out my opponent. It's probably gonna look a lot better if there's a lot of attack options in there where I can just go through and start taking buttons left and right. So all of a sudden, now I've got this complex multi-vector attack that I don't have to pay anything extra for adversaries already did all the work for me. And now I can launch an attack. And so we saw four different vectors that were weaponized in 2020. One of those are notably the Jenkins that you see listed on the screen in the key findings. That one isn't necessarily a DDoS vector. It started out as one, it does amplify, but what happens is Jenkins servers are very vulnerable and when you actually initiate this attack, it tips over the Jenkins server. So it kind of operates as like a DOS event versus DDoS, but it still had the same effect of availability. It takes a server offline. And then now just in the first part of 2021, we're tracking multiple other vectors that are starting to be weaponized. And when we see this, we go from a few incidents or alerts, 2000s, month over month. And so we're seeing even more vectors added and that's only going to continue to go up and to the right, you know, that theme that we talked about at the beginning here. As more vectors get added and what did you see last year in terms of industries that may have been more vulnerable as we talked about the work from home, everyone was dependent really. Here we are on Zoom, dependent on Zoom, dependent on Netflix streaming media was kind of a lifeline for a lot of us, but also was healthcare and education. Did you see any verticals in particular that really started to see an increase in the exploitation and in the risk? Yeah, so let's separate this into two parts. The last part of the key findings that we had was talking about a group week for a campaign we call Lazarus Baramada. So this is a global DDoS extortion campaign. We're going to cover that a little bit more when we talk about kind of extorted events and how that operates, but these guys, they started where the money is. And so when they first started targeting industries and this kind of coincides with COVID, though it started several months after the pandemic was announced, they started targeting financial organizations, commercial banking, they went after stock exchange. Many of you would hear about the New Zealand stock exchange that went offline. That's this LBA campaign and these guys taking it off. So they started where the money is. They moved to financial agitation, targeting insurance companies. They started currency exchange places. And then slowly from there, they started to expand. And in so much as our Arbor Cloud folks actually saw them targeting organizations that are part of vaccine development. And so these guys, they don't care who they heard. They don't care who they're going after. They're going out there for a payday. And so that's one aspect of the industry targeting that we've seen. The other aspect is you'll see on the next slide here, we actually saw a bunch of different verticals that we really haven't seen in the top 10 before. In fact, if you actually look at this, you'll see the number one, two and three are pretty common for us. We almost always are going to see these kind of telecommunications, wireless, satellite, broadband, these are always going to be in the top. And the reason for that is because gamers and DDoS attacks associated with gaming is kind of the predominant thing that we see in this landscape. And let's face it, gamers are on broadband operating systems. If you're in Asian communities, often they'll use mobile hotspots. So now you start to have wireless come in there. And so that makes sense seeing that. But what doesn't make sense is this internet publishing and broadcasting. And you might say, well, what is that? Well, that's things like Zoom and WebEx and Netflix and these other streaming services. And so we're seeing adversaries going after that because those have become critical to people's way of life, their entertainment, what they're using to communicate for work and school. So they realize, if we can go after this, it's going to disrupt something. And hopefully we can get some recognition maybe we can show this as a demonstration to get more customers on our platform or maybe we can get a payday. In a lot of the DDoS attacks that we see, in fact, most of them are all monetary focused. And so they're looking for a payday. They're going to go after something that's going to likely send out that payment. And then just walk down the line. You can see COVID through this whole thing, electronic shopping is number five, right? Everybody turned to e-commerce because we're not going to in-person stores anymore. Electronic computer manufacturing, how many more people have to get computers at home now because they're no longer in a corporate environment. And so you can see how the pandemic has really influenced this industry target. Significant influence, Sarah. And I also wonder too, Zoom became a household name for every generation. We're talking five generations and maybe the generations that aren't as familiar with computer technology might be even more exploitable because it's easy to click on a phishing email when they don't understand how to look for the link. Let's now unpack the different types of DDoS attacks and what is on the rise. You talked about in the report, the triple threat. We often think of that in entertainment. That's a good thing, but again, not here. Explain that triple threat. Yeah, so what we're seeing here is we have adversaries out there that are looking to take advantage of every possible angle to be able to get that payment. And everybody knows ransomware is a household name at this point, right? And so ransomware and DDoS have been a lot in common because they both attack the availability of network resources or computers or devices or whatever they might be. And so there's a lot of parallels to draw between the two of these. Now ransomware is a denial of service event, right? You're not going to have tens of thousands of computers hitting a single computer to take it down. You're going to have one exploitation event. Somebody clicked on a link. There was a brute force attempt that managed to compromise little faxes, credentials, whatever it might be. Ransomware gets deployed on a system and encrypts all your files. Well, all of a sudden you've got this ransom note that says, if you want your files decrypted, you're going to send us this amount of payment in Bitcoin. Well, what adversaries are doing now is they're capitalizing on the access that they already gained. So they already have access to the computer. Well, why not steal all the data first, then let's encrypt whatever is there. And so now I can ask for a ransom payment to decrypt the files and I can ask for an extortion to prevent me from posting your data publicly. Maybe there's sensitive corporate information there. Maybe you're a local school system and you have all of your students data on there.  So now they're going to extort you to prevent them from posting that publicly. Well, why not add DDoS to this entire picture? And now you're already encrypted. We've already got your files and I'm going to DDoS your system so you can't even access them if you wanted to.  And so this is that triple threat. And we're seeing multiple different ransomware families. In fact, if you look at one of the slides here, you'll see that there's SunCrypt, there's RagnarCryptor and then Maze did this initially back in September. And then more recently, even the dark side stuff. I mean, who hasn't heard about dark side now with the colonial pipeline event, right? So they came out and said, hey, we didn't intend for this battle of damage, but it happened. Well, April 24th, they actually started offering DDoS as part of their toolkits. And so you can see how this has evolved over time and adversaries are learning from each other and they're incorporating this kind of methodology and here we have triple extortion event. Really seems like triple extortion event as a service with the opportunities, the number of vectors there. And you're right, everyone has heard of the colonial pipeline and that's where things like ransomware become a household term just as much as zoom and video conferencing and streaming media. Let's talk now about the effects that the threat report saw and uncovered region by region. Were there any regions in particular that really stood out as most impacted? So not particularly. So one of the phenomena that we actually saw in the threat report, which we probably could have talked about it before now, but it makes sense to talk about a regionally because we didn't see any one particular region, one particular vertical, a specific organization, a specific country, none was more heavily targeted than another. In fact, what we saw is organization that we've never seen targeted before. We've seen industries that have never been targeted before all of a sudden are now getting DDoS attacks because we went from a local on-prem. I don't need to be connected to the internet. I don't need to have my employees remote access. And now all of a sudden you're dependent on the internet, which really, let's face it, that's critical infrastructure to these days. And so now you have all of these additional people with a footprint connected to the internet that an adversary can figure out and they can poke at. And so what we saw here is just overall, all industries, all regions saw these upticks. The exception would be in China. We actually in the Asia-Pacific region specifically, but predominantly in China, but that often has to do with visibility rather than a decrease in attacks because they have their own infrastructure in China. Brazil's the same way. They have their own kind of ecosystems. And so often you don't see what happens a lot outside the borders. And so from our perspective, we might see a decrease in attacks, but for all we know, they actually saw an increase in attacks that is internal to their country against their country.  So let's talk about what organizations can do in light of this. As we are here, we are still doing this program by video conferencing and things are opening up a little bit more, at least in the States anyway. And we're talking about more businesses going back to some degree, but there's going to still be some mix, some hybrid of working from home and maybe even distance learning. So what can enterprises do to prepare for this when it happens? Because it sounds to me like with the sophistication, the up and to the right, it's not if we get attacked, it's when. It's when, exactly. And that's just it. And it's no longer something that you can put off. You can't just assume that I've never been DDoS attacked and I'm never going to be DDoS attacked anymore. You really need to consider this as part of your core security platform. I like to talk about defense in depth or a layer defense approach where you want to have a layered approach. So maybe they target your first layer and they don't get through or they do get through and now your second layer has to stop it. Well, if you have no layers or if you have one layer, it's not that hard for an adversary to figure out a way around that. And so preparation is key, making sure that you have something in place. And I'm going to give you an operational example here. One of the things we saw with the LBA campaigns is they actually started doing network reconnaissance for their targets. And what they would do is they would take the IP addresses belonging to your organization. They would look up the domains associated with that and they would figure out like, hey, this is VPN.organization.com or VPN too. And all of a sudden they found your VPN concentrator. And so that's where they're going to focus their attack. So something as simple as changing the way that you name your VPN concentrators might be sufficient to prevent them from hitting that link link or right sizing the DDoS protection services for your company. Do you need something as big as like on-prem solutions? We need hardware. Do you instead want to do a managed service or do you want to go and talk to a power provider because there's right solutions and right sizes for all types of organizations? And the key here is preparation. In fact, all of the customers that we've worked with for the LBA extortion campaigns, if they were properly prepared, they experienced almost no downtime or impact to their business. It's the people like the New Zealand Stock Exchange or their service provider that wasn't prepared to handle the attacks that were sent at them that were crippled. And so preparation is key. The other part is awareness. And that's part of what we do with this threat report. We want to make sure you're aware what adversaries are doing when new attack vectors are coming out, how they're leveraging these, what industries they're targeting because that's really going to help you to figure out what your posture is, what your risk acceptance is for your organization. And in fact, there's a couple of resources that we have here on the next slide. And you can go both of these. One of them is the threat report. You can view all of the details and we only scratched the surface here in this new interview. So definitely recommend going there. But the other one is called Horizon. And nescal.com slash horizon is a free resource you can register, but you can actually see near real-time attacks based on industry and based on region.  Go look up the country where you belong and see is there actually attacks against this. And I think you'll be quite surprised that there's quite a few attacks against you. And so definitely recommend checking these out. Great resources, nescal.com slash horizon, nescal.com slash threat report. I do want to ask you one final question. That's in terms of timing. We saw the massive acceleration and digital transformation last year. We've already talked about this a number of times on this program, the dependence that businesses and consumers are like globally in every industry in every country have on streaming, on communications right now. In terms of timing though, for an organization to go from being aware to understanding what adversaries are doing to being prepared, how quickly can an organization get up to speed and help themselves start reducing their risk? So I think that with DDoS, as opposed to things like ransomware, the ramp up time for that is much, much faster. There is a finite period of time with DDoS attacks that is actually going to impact you.  There's a pretty high chance that DDoS attack isn't going to last for multiple days. So maybe it's like an hour, maybe it's two hours and then you recover. Your network resources are available again. That's not the same for something like ransomware. You get here with ransomware unless you pay or you have backups, you have to do the rigorous process of getting all your stuff back online. DDoS is more about as soon as the attack stops that saturation goes away and you can start to get back online again. So it might not be as like immediate critical that you have to have something, but there's also solutions like a cloud solution where it's as simple as signing up for the service and having your traffic redirected to their scrubbing center, their detection center. And then you may not have to do anything on-prem yourself. It's a matter of going out to an organization, finding a good contract and then signing up, signing on the double line. And so I think that the ramp up time for mediation services and DDoS protection can be a lot faster than many other security platforms and solutions. That's good to know because with the up and to the right trend that you said, the first quarter is usually slow. It's obviously not in that way as what you've seen in 2021 and we can only expect what we, and when we talk to you next year that the up and to the right trend may continue. So hopefully organizations take advantage of these resources, Richard, that you talked about to be prepared to mediate and protect their customers, their employees, et cetera. Richard, we thank you for stopping by theCUBE, and talking to us about the sixth NetScout Threat Intelligence Report, really interesting information. Absolutely, I definitely am pleasure to be here. Lisa, anytime you guys want to do it again, you know where I live. Yes, it's one of my favorite topics. So you got it, and I got to point out the last thing, your Guardians of the Galaxy background, one of my favorite movies. And it should be noted that on the NetScout website, they are considered the guardians of the connected world. I just thought that connection was, as Richard told me before we went live, not planned, but I thought that was a great coincidence. Again, Richard, it's been a pleasure talking to you. Thank you for your time. Thank you so much. For Richard Hummel, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching this CUBE Conversation.