i spent all goddamn day yesterday at the emergency vet with our cat cocoa (she’s fine) but i knew from experience that i was gonna be there all goddamn day, so i acted accordingly and brought a book. the book i brought? one of us by dan chaon, and IT FUCKING RIPS. what a great book. it’s about a pair of orphaned mind-reading killer twins in the 1910s who join a traveling carnival, and that’s all i’m gonna say.
i got into de la soul in high school because tim herman (i hope he’s somewhere thriving) dubbed me a tape of stakes is high. obviously i’d heard “oodles of o’s” and “me myself and i” but stakes is high really ignited something in me.
the first concert i ever went to was de la soul at the house of blues in chicago in 98. pretty sure the rest of the lineup featured big pun, eminem, and common, which is absurd. that ticket would cost three hundred bucks (before fees) today, and since i was eighteen at the time i’m 100% certain i did not spend more than twenty-five dollars on it, because i never had more than twenty-five dollars at a time.
i was working the closing shift at judy’s every night, so i got a ticket to the late show (remember being young and fun? neither do i) and then circled and circled my little rusty ford escort around dearborn and kinzie as the clock rapidly approached midnight, finally parked that piece of shit illegally in front of harry caray’s, then somehow stayed for ¾ of the show without getting ticketed (god’s favorite??) or towed.
i don’t remember a lot of specifics about the show (who opened? what songs did they do? how many plastic cups of diet coke did i drink because i was underage? we will likely never know) but i do very specifically remember wearing, despite the fact that it was summer at the time, this exact same orange sherpa GAP vest because it was the only item of clothing i had that i thought might pass for “hiphop.” i’d hoped it would make me look less “i work in a kitchen” and more “i know all the lyrics to that song by company flow,” but i don’t know if it worked because i was boiling and ditched it near the bathroom shortly after i got inside. anyway, i miss trugoy but the new de la album seriously fucks!
a few more new hiphop records i been on:
dave the boy who played the harp
little sims lotus
wale everything is a lot.
some links i’ve sent
-the funniest video i have ever seen
-chris paul got fired (??) the other day, which means i had to bust out deandre jordan dunks on brandon knight for 5 minutes straight because the announcer says “here comes chris paul” approximately 572 times
-my lady asked if i needed anything from walgreens and i texted her this and this (iconic duo)
-the goon squad loneliness, porn’s next frontier, and the dream of endless masturbation by daniel kolitz
-tokyo toni wisdom
-jump scares 2026 horror book list
-dead man’s wire trailer
-does my lady agree that i probably have this disease i first heard about two days ago?
-david byrne tiny desk
-with anti-consumerism, women bear the burden from more to hate, written by the god kate manne
-literally me and my guy steve reidell
-silky nutmeg ganache vs jimbo
-i was trying to convince someone stupid of the insane charisma and sexual energy just radiating from big papi so i texted them this clip and my god, imagine those teeth on your bare skin???? oh crumbs, i think i’ve sprung a leak!
-i bought a drop dead gorgeous DVD off ebay (not this one, though)
-this take, with which i 100% agree
-mike epps on kevin garnett’s podcast
-the trailer for mother mary because in this house we worship anne hathaway
-mo’nique!!!!!!!! the only comedian
industry season four trailer! we back!!!!!!!! finally, a reason to live. gun to my head i couldn’t tell you what the fuck this show is about, and four seasons in i’m absolutely not about to learn. i simply cannot wait to be reunited with the don dada.
i hope you had a nice thanksgiving and didn’t fistfight anyone you’re related to. we outsource the meats and just go absolutely fucking crazy making the sides, which is so much less stressful??? i’m not cooking a fucking turkey ever in my life. turkey tastes like napkins and the only way i’ll touch it is if it’s mixed with black people dressing and canned cranberry sauce from the store. do not approach me with an intact cranberry straight from the bog, i will kill you. we get a smoked turkey from these guys and my lady orders a fancy pre-cooked internet ham, but i don’t really mess with that either because there’s corn pudding, sweet potato casserole, and the aforementioned only kind of dressing worth eating. have i eaten the brutally sharp-edged, fresh herbs that never meld with the rest of the dish, big ass crunchy pieces of hairy celery kind? i am from the suburbs, so of course i have. but that shit is against god and is not allowed in my home.
i was flipping through the food and wine thanksgiving edition a couple months ago and saw that this year they suggested making a pickle tray instead of a basic charcuterie board, and since we had a couple real pickle heads coming over i decided i needed to go overboard and make* a huge one.
dill crackers
dill havarti
pickled cauliflower
pumpkin spice pickles???????????
miss vickie’s spicy pickle chips
fermented okra
pickled sausage
cornichons
cucumber kimchi
pickled carrots
pickled asparagus
greek olives with mediterranean herbs
pickle balls
*i didn’t technically make the relish try, i just went crazy and bought all the weirdest pickled foods i could find. also i didn’t even eat any of this stuff because park brought her famous clam dip, and as a notorious fish bitch i simply could not tear myself away!
THIS NEW ROSALIA HOLY SHIT MAN
i went to tiktok to look at some fat bitches in cool clothes, and i kept encountering these videos that wanted to teach me how to dress for my body shape and i was like, dress for my WHAT. apparently “bag of wet dirty laundry” is not an actual body type, so i was instructed by this tiktok lady (i am sorry to her, i do not really understand how to work my way around the app and can’t find her now to share her with you) to use her body type calculator so i could figure it out. turns out i am a PEAR and i will be dressing accordingly: in a dirty green skin with a twig sticking out of my head and one of those chic protective foamy packing sleeves.
this holiday season, i am thankful for erykah badu. i’ve been listening to new amerykah volume one a lot lately (it’s a pretty perfect “soggy leaves on the ground, dark at 4pm” kinda album) and the algorithm noticed that and sent me a couple gems on youtube:
a not tiny desk tiny desk
her echos 19 show (insane)
10 things she can’t live without
her vogue magazine life in looks (most style, best dressed, etc!)
also the new issue of my fave mother tongue is out now, and e badu is on the cover looking gorge and in the pages sounding insane (complimentary)!
books i’ve recently purchased that i look forward to getting into:
to smithereens rosalyn drexler when rosa, a depressed and drifting twenty-something, meets paul, a middling art critic, an off-kilter romance commences. paul longs to be dominated by physically powerful women and convinces rosa to fulfill one of his fantasies: that she become a wrestler. soon, rosa joins a women’s wrestling team and embarks on a tour of the south, befriends her horny teammates and their jealous boyfriends, and learns to hold her own among a crew of seedy coaches and greedy promoters. through wrestling, rosa learns to articulate what kind of life she wants, and to wriggle free of paul’s attempts to possess her.
why i bought it: DUH sexy lady wrestler
moderation elaine castillo girlie delmundo is the greatest content moderator in the world, and despite the setbacks of financial crises, climate catastrophe, and a global pandemic, she’s going places: she’s getting a promotion. now thanks to her parent company paragon’s purchase of fairground—the world’s preeminent virtual reality content provider—she’s on the way to becoming an elite VR moderator, playing in the big leagues and, if her enthusiastic bosses are to be believed, moderating the next stage of human interaction. despite the isolation that virtual reality requires from colleagues, friends, and family, the unbelievable perks of her new job mean she can solve a lot of her family’s problems with money and mobility. she doesn’t have to think about the childhood home they lost back in the bay area, or history at all—she can just pay any debts that come due. but when she meets william cheung, playground’s wry, reticent co-founder (now chief product officer) and slowly unearths some of his secrets, and finds herself somehow falling in love, she’ll learn that history might be impossible to moderate and the future utterly impossible to control.
why i bought it: i love elaine’s work, she has never let me down
the book of luke lovell holder following the car accident that ended his football career and left his body scarred, twenty-two-year-old luke griffin joins the cast of endeavor, a new competition-based reality show that pits the tabloids’ darlings against one another in tasks of endurance and problem solving. at first, he thrives, effortlessly forming friendships and even a romantic relationship that he thinks will last a lifetime. but luke has aspirations far bigger than the show’s million-dollar prize, and soon a series of betrayals leads to irreversible tragedy, changing the course of his and his fellow contestants’ lives forever.
why i bought it: gay man married to a cheating politician who jettisons his life to compete on an mtv challenge-esque reality show??? obvs cooked up in a lab specifically for me (and for my girl lauren, for whom i once purchased a cameo from TJ LAVIN, real sicko behavior)
the white hot quiara alegria hudes april is a young mother raising her daughter in an intergenerational house of unspoken secrets and loud arguments. her only refuge is to hide away in a locked bathroom, her ears plugged into an ambient soundscape, and a mantra on her lips: dead inside. that is, until one day, as she finds herself spiraling toward the volcanic rage she calls the white hot, a voice inside her tells her to just…walk away. she wanders to a bus station and asks for a ticket to the furthest destination; she tells the clerk to make it one-way. that ticket takes her from her philly home to the threshold of a wilderness and the beginning of a nameless quest—an accidental journey that shakes her awake, almost kills her, and brings her to the brink of an impossible choice.
why i bought it: because alicia menendez told me to!!
lightbreakers aja gabel maya, an artist, and noah, a quantum physicist, share an insatiable curiosity about the world. but their happy marriage has a shadow over it: serena, the child noah had with his first wife, who died before she turned four. when noah is invited by the janus project to unravel the secrets of time travel, he jumps at the opportunity. at a laboratory deep in the texas desert, he begins participating in a dangerous experiment that could result in something he thought impossible: seeing his daughter again. meanwhile, maya embarks on a journey back to her own past in japan, and to a formative lover who once shattered her heart. as noah and maya grapple with hope and despair, new information emerges that the experiments might not be exactly what they seems.
why i bought it: i liked her book the ensemble
a few bangersssssss to see you on your merry way
divinize rosalía
don’t let the devil killer mike feat el-p (PUT THIS ON IN THE CAR AND GO FAST)
fairchild dave
EN EFF de la soul feat black thought
where to start wale
i can make you dance zapp and roger (is this the greatest video of all time???)
bridging the gaps black eyed peas
flood little simz
open invite teyana taylor and kaytranada
attack me with your love cameo
telephone erykah badu (PUT THIS ON AT NAPTIME)