Meeks' Rising Empire: A VCU student launches

SOmetimes I . think I can jUst don't Ittt it

Hercules

Disney's take: The son of Zeus and Hera, Hercules was robbed of his immortality by Hades, the god of death, but Hercules retained his strength. Tasked by Zeus with proving himself a hero to restore his immortality, Hercules is trained by Louie De Palma, and soon falls in

love with a beautiful woman who, unbeknownst to him, is a mole for Hades. She comes around in time for Hercules to totally save the universe and stuff.

Theoriginal: Hercules isn'tthechild of Zeus and Hera; he'sthe illegitimate

child of Zeus and one of his numerous extramarital mortal trysts. This

gives Hera a burning hatred of 01' Here, leading her to possess him and make him murder his wife and kids in his sleep. In keeping with the ancient Greeks' immaculate sense of justice, Hercules'

shenanigans earn him community service, in the form

all of which are intended to kill him - except for has to get all the filth out of a king's stable .. AI'ter1comolleJi&

he is accidentally given a poisoned shirt immolates to escape the pain, at which

Mount Olympus. We apologize if you nnl· things we mJ;l!twned would

Disney's a beautiful princess' birth, an evil

fairy who wasn't invited (mostly because she's an evil fairy and all) crashes the party and proves why she shouldn't have been invited.

She curses the infant to prick her finger on a spindle and die in several

years. One of the fairies who DIDN'T knock over the velvet rope to get

in amends the curse so that the princess will only sleep until her true

love kisses her. Needless to say, all this happens. Yay. The original: The above summary is actually pretty faithful, but in the original Charles Perrault fairy tale it's only the first act In the second part, tre prince and princess marry and have kids, and the princess then meets her new mother-in-law, who her hubby conveniently forgot

is a cannibal. Taking a common grandparently idiom a

I I the mother-in-law demands that the cook prepare or"norhildrf'nfor her to eat The cook naturally balks at this plan, Dahmer by giving her roast goat instead, proving that makes you both insane AND stupid. Realizing she's been apparently less hungry, she prepares a pit of poisonous

the kids into, but the prince arrives in the nick of time,

fea,dinlo hi<nomnlllp'F,lv-,npwPri mother to cast herself into the pit While

obviously traumatize every child everywhere, it would be of inleresting to see how the casting turned out.

how quickly the prince n.LIII ..... all those tedious sticky

in the back seats of

. whileyoucouldonlydream

out. .. "

Disney's take: In a fictional Arab country, Aladdin, a charismatic, impoverished thief, discovers a lamp containing a genie, who helps

him win the heart of the local princess and defeat the megalomaniacal prime minister, and simultaneously earning our hatred by opening the door for the Disney DTV sequel market

The original: Set in China, in the original story, as in the movie,

Aladdin recovers the lamp at the behest of the villain; however, he

also ends up with a magic ring with its own genie, which comes in

handy when the baddie reclaims the lamp, leading to the two genies

having a massive genie throwdown until. .. aw, crap. We see no reason at all why this couldn't have been in the movie, and we're going to go cry ourselves to sleep that something this awesome wasn't

committed to celluloid.

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Esmel Meeks, a senior majoring in international business management, entered college in

hopes of following in his father's footsteps as

a currency trader. After watching "The Pursuit

of Happyness," Meeks learned that becoming a

currency trader was not the path he wanted to

follow.

"It made me realize what I wanted to do to make me happy - not doing something that was going to make me money," Meeks said.

A trip to California on his 2 pt birthday inspired Meeks to pursue a high school dream of owning his own clothing line.

"Everybody out there was just motivated to do

something," Meeks said.

With this new drive, he approached graphic

designer Ryan "Rusty Watts" Winn and an investor with his idea for a T-shirt line.

stuff in order. It wasn't just talk. He was really

trying to do something," Winn said.

Within a year, Meeks started a T-shirt li ne named DANK, an acronym for Determined to Attain

New Knowledge, which premiered in STRUT,

VCU's annual fashion show.

Meeks used DANK as a platform for community outreach. As the only black player from his high school football team to attend college,

Meeks uses a portion of the profits to help

underprivileged kids get into college.

"Not only was I trying to uplift myself, but I was trying to uplift my community as well," Meeks

said.

Selling in Rumors, located on Harrison Street,

and Urban Exchange, located on West Broad Street, Meeks has raised about $400 for a $500 scholarship to be awarded to a First Colonial High School student. The shirts reta il for $32

at each location. He is also planning a book

drive with Richmond County public schools next

semester.

"First and foremost, we want everyone to know

that the money is going towards helping out kids," Meeks said.

Meeks quickly learned the hardships of starting his own company, especia lly at a young age. Looking back on his first collection, he learned

from his mistakes and made changes.

Discovering that his company wasn't the only

one named DANK, he decided to start over.

Using most of his savings he created a new company, ATE, an acronym for Ancient Thread

Empire, with the same idea and mission.

He also hopes to start a nonprofit organization using the same initials standing for

Achievements Through Education. Although

his main focus is to give scholarships to

underprivileged children, Meeks plans to do

more. He wants to host charity events, create free recreational sports teams, and speak to youth about unprotected sex, financial responsibilities and college preparation.

The remaining shirts from DANK Will be sold for $5 each. All of the proceeds will go toward the