i just read this newsletter from my good pal jenn romolini in which she essentially says that long ass newsletters feel like homework to the reader and i feel that; i do not want you to groan when you see my name in your inbox. so i’m gonna recommend maybe 4ish good to me things and leave you to the rest of your day, not flop sweat while compiling an overwhelming list of everything i have laid eyes on since the last time i turned on my computer. it was too much, right? for me, too! feeling actual stress over not accurately reporting every single detail of my pop culture consumption to people who mostly don’t even open these free emails (can i opt out of those analytics reports somehow? they make me want to lie down on the highway) is a ridiculous thing to feel stress about!! anyway, i’m gonna rein this shit the fuck in and get outta my head. shout out to mental illness.
one bad bunny’s tiny desk. every tiny desk is good but this one is amazing. his band is so fucking talented. if you don’t have a full 33:53 of undivided attention to give benito, this performance of “la mudanza” goes batshit crazy, skip ahead to 21:50. that shit had me levitating like bobby hill.
two beyond the gates!!!!! one of the biggest injustices those of us around a certain (middle) age have had to suffer in our early lives is having grown up in the halcyon days of young and the restless/one life to live/days of our lives but still being too young to have a real time understanding of the lore. even though i watched it on my grandma’s lap, i had no prefrontal cortex development when luke married laura on general hospital.
but lucky us, now we have the opportunity to get in on the ground floor of our very own daytime soap. and this one is absolutely perfect. it looks like shit, the acting is wooden, the sets could be showrooms airlifted directly from my local la-z-boy store, the dialogue is stilted yet extremely dramatic and also so expository that you will shit yourself laughing (verbatim from ep 1: “baby you know i want to, but the DC metro police department frowns on brand new robbery-homicide detectives playing hooky with their wives” had me screaming? how did he memorize all that?? did he nail it in a single take??? outrageous)!!
there are women standing in their waterless set kitchens drinking coffee at eight in the morning while fully dressed in fuschia blazers and frosted lipstick; every single flower, in every single shot, is 20%-off-michaels-polyurethane-funeral-arrangement fake; no, but seriously, every new character they introduce enters the scene like “hey, grandpa! it’s me slobbo, your favorite instagram influencer slash orthopedic shoe model whose father abandoned me but nevertheless i graduated top of my class, also i have a crippling fear of snakes and i hate soup and my favorite color is purple, how are you doing today?”
THIS SOAP OPERA IS FOOLISH AND ABSURD AND I CANNOT GET ENOUGH OF IT. bonus: the mom is the medical examiner from svu and the dad is THEE reverend reuben gregory and they even got my beloved grande dame to play a rude ass extra!!!!!!!!!! every show should be exactly like this, the greatest show i have ever watched in my life.
three i just started reading the most incredible! fucking! novel!! emma pattee’s book tilt, which takes place over the course of a single day (with flashbacks, a device i love) in which annie, the pregnant main character, is in a portland ikea attempting to buy a crib when a massive earthquake hits the region. she manages to dig her way out from beneath the pile of GRÖNKULLAs and EKTORPs (thank you ikea name generator) that traps her during the quake, but she can’t find her phone or her keys so she just starts walking through the wreckage toward home. it’s really very good!!
four i’m pivoting back to CDs in the car because they sound good as hell and transport my delusional old ass back to 2003, and i just added florence’s symphony of lungs to my current stash, which includes: a copy of de la soul’s stakes is high that i had to buy off ebay a few years ago when you couldn’t stream their shit and i couldn’t find my copy from high school (i am not nostalgic until i am, when it will inevitably become a problem); a scratched-up ani difranco bootleg that came in my gay person starter pack; and mel tormé live at marty’s, his hands down absolute best record according to me, an expert in golden-voiced male frogs, which is so old you’d have to teleport back in time to a borders books and music to buy a copy.
a few songs:
comes & goes big x tha plug
sweet dreams angel olsen
heard it all before ben watt lazy dog mix sunshine anderson
you’re good/pop diplo remix MIA (this knocks, sorry!)
‘tis autumn nat king cole trio
swimming (symphony of love version) florence and the machine
my heart’s in the right place lake street dive
nuff man a dead super cat
bam bam chaka demus
love u bye