PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Local woman Tracey Garibay entered the wild world of bondage by trying on a pair of American Apparel skinny jeans she hadn’t worn since her junior year of high school, stunned sources reported.
“You’ll have to excuse my underwear,” said Garibay, sitting on her bed with her pants stuck halfway up her thighs. “I’ve experimented with some light bondage in the past, like when I put my pants on right after they came out of the dryer, but I’ve never done anything this extreme before. I don’t know what got into me. I was sitting alone in my room feeling a little kinky and decided to test the limits of my leg circulation.”
Garibay’s subconscious desire to surrender control was triggered after a long-forgotten pair of size 26 jeans resurfaced while cleaning out her closet.
“I didn’t even know she owned jeans,” recalled Garibay’s boyfriend Andrew Whitaker. “I’ve only seen her wear one-size-fits-all sweatpants or my basketball shorts. Whenever she’s around me, she keeps it very vanilla, I’m talking overalls and t-shirts from promotional giveaways at the gym. I have to admit seeing her helplessly wriggling around on the floor begging me to pull on one of her pant legs got me pretty hard. I’m hoping she might also want to try on that Warped Tour 2008 tank top I saw in the back of her closet.”
BDSM is not risk-proof. It’s important for beginners to tread lightly, whether you’re working with spreader bars, crotch knots, or trying to get out of a dress you haven’t worn since 2012 without dislocating your shoulder.
“She already broke rule number one by engaging in self-bondage,” said Madame Felicia Evil, dungeon monitor at an undisclosed location. “It’s important to have a Dom standing by so you can administer safe words like ‘hazelnut,’ ‘pineapple’ or ‘Oh my god my legs are turning purple, call an ambulance and tell them to bring scissors.’ I once walked in on a girl bound so tightly by a pair of vintage Guess jeans that it made a shibari hogtie look like a spa treatment.”
At press time, Garibay was heard screaming “pineapple” midway through trying on a pair of raw selvedge jeans she hadn’t worn since college.
It would be remiss of me not to give a nod to the 2019 single that launched Ghost into the hearts of young people on TikTok everywhere. The A-Side of “Mary on a Cross,” a decidedly ’60s sounding double-entendre-fest, is their most-played song on Spotify, and you can tell why. Shit’s catchy and very accessible to fans who may be turned off by their songs that lean closer to metal than standard rock.
“Infesstissumam” has the unfortunate honor of winning the “Ghost Album with the Most Tracks that Sound Like an Evil Carnival” award. This album is pretty long as it contains an EP in the deluxe version, and although it has one of their most viral hits with “Year Zero,” the rest falls pretty damn flat into a mess of samey-sounding spooky-scary, without the sick riffs to back it up.
Ghost’s debut album “Opus Eponymous” is a pretty great album overall. It’s quick, consistent, and brought them roaring into the spotlight when “Ritual” started getting banned from the radio in the southern US, which is strange. Usually people in the south are so tolerant and open to new ideas. Despite all that, some folks find this album to be lacking in production quality, and the songwriting is not quite as elaborate as later albums, which leads to many tracks blending together.
On the other end of the spectrum entirely, we have Ghost’s 2022 chart crusher. It’s tough to deny that “Impera” is a bit over the top. It’s got a certain Black Parade quality to it that hits the nostalgic theater kid button, but at the end of the day, it’s a very large and dramatic album that sometimes leans towards the aforementioned overproduction. However, there are really some bonafide ’80s hair metal bangers on there, which balance out the insane Danny Elfman Haunted Hayride energy that a few of the lesser tracks bring.
“Prequelle” is probably Ghost’s most straightforward album. It’s big, it’s loud, it has some kooky instrumentation, and yet, there are very few weak spots that come to mind. The combination of fuzzy hard rock riffs, stacked vocal harmonies, and hooks so catchy they were probably made in a K-Pop lab works to make this album solid as a rock and extremely fun to sing along to in the car when your cooler friends aren’t around.
Man, this shit goes hard. You’ve got your retro ’70s hard rock fist-pumpers, your fake gospel ballads, some Scooby-Doo sounding shit, actual genuine metal, and of course, “Square Hammer.” There’s something for everyone on this record. “Meliora” has multiple songs with over 100 million plays on Spotify, and honestly, it deserves that honor. This is an endlessly replayable album, buffed up by the inclusion of the “Popestar” EP, that really reminds me of finding music like this as a teen and clinging to the CD for dear life. It fucking rips.
