EPISODE 402: WOULDN'T HAVE GOTTEN THE LETTUCE IF I KNEW IT DIDN'T FIT
POP CULTURE SPIRIT WOW
Hi. It’s still January, but later then last week, which I mean, sure, you knew that, except I still feel like we really should be around the date of last week, I mean maybe a little later, like tomorrow or the next day, from then I mean, definitely not the 25th, the 26thor 27th. But I guess time is weird that way. In fact, maybe it’s actually well and truly weird that way, maybe time really does pass more slowly if you’re paying attention to it – isn’t that Heisenberg, when he wasn’t making meth? – like maybe our attention creates a sort of mass or weight akin to a planet and so it warps the time/space continuum and in fact that means even if we’re both on Planet Earth, maybe even if we were attached at the hip, we might literally be aging at different rates. I mean, why not, really?
(We’re kind of jumping in with both feet here. Don’t worry, you’re doing amazing and probably it’ll wear out any second. Or minute. Or year, I guess, depending on how much it weighs you down.)
We’ve survived a week of rain here in Los Angeles, which was a lot for us and thanks for all your thoughts and prayers and angel alerts, they really helped and I even *shameless self-promotion* wrote a whole piece about them *shameless self-promotion ends* and this thing where everyone everywhere else refers to California as one long apocalypse and kids about us falling once and for all into the ocean. I wonder if Atlantis ever had to deal with that. I can only imagine how infuriating it would be to be this great and interesting place for hundreds of years and everywhere else they’re like, yeah, but look how unstable it is here every once in a while, you’re definitely probably all going to drown in a horrible catastrophe at some point ha ha ha, and then that’s what actually happened.
(Atlantis had to have existed, don’t you think? I mean, how does an idea like that stay in the consciousness of people for thousands of years if it wasn’t a real thing at some one time?)
(Also, UFOs.)
And speaking of which, is it me or has NASA hired some kind of PR firm in recent years to start branding lunar events? Five years ago we had eclipses like normal people, but now instead we have 80s emo-punk album titles to describe the same things – Wolf Blood Lunar Moon, oh excuse me? And as soon as they release the newest name they say it will never happen again in our lifetimes, which, you know, I hope not, because these names are ridiculous and if our government is shutdown how do we still have PR firms naming lunar events? And how old are the dudes doing this anyway, because seriously, if you’re going to name a lunar event with a crazy song name why haven’t you dropped an accompanying song list? NASA, you are filled with Olds.
So yeah, it’s been a week of time. Our government is still shutdown, but don’t worry, people are working for free!, meanwhile our country once again went crazy over the weekend (keep track, it always happens on the weekends) because of stupid things that never should have happened – hey, school chaperones, love you’re taking your kids to a march in Washington, D.C., but maybe you should not leave them unsupervised? And also maybe you should consider what you let them wear? No, I get it, free speech, democracy, tiki torches were not always used to frighten people, but also, they are now, and that also means something?
I got all wrapped up in the Covington story – it turns out if you really want to see me get crazy say or do bad things to Native Americans -- jumped in with both legs and my invisible third eye right from the start and then watched the whole thing get a lot more complicated. And also not, really; I feel for that young man, I really do, but you don’t stand that close to someone as a sign of respect. You either do it for a gag or because you really don’t know what the hell you’re doing, which feels like a very teenagery thing to feel and happen, and if so please see: Where were you chaperones?
For me there are two really interesting things takeaways from the Weekend of Competing It’s Their Faults: (Cut to: A great Stephen Sondheim song about exactly this featuring fairy tale characters.)
1) Life is hella complicated, yo. The more I’ve read and watched about what was going on at that event the more confused and basically silent I’ve become. And honestly, I think a lot of life is like that, and for me that’s really worth remembering.
2) What you wear really does impact how people see you, and so we should think about that when we’re out in public. I get it, not everyone who wears one of those hats thinks women and gays and minorities are garbage–and MAN did I have a lot of people telling me over the weekend ICIMI.
But if you look at the outrage over the initial incident, it seems like most of it doesn’t happen if that young man isn’t wearing that red hat, because many people have seen people wearing those hats say and do terrible things and therefore made some assumptions. Correct assumptions? I don’t know. Hopefully not. But even the bishop of Lexington was not happy with the kids’ gear choices, and to his credit he waited until Wednesday to comment.
Anyway, that was a weekend that happened to all of us, and some day hopefully we will look back and say what was that all about anyway, and could someone please pass the guac, I need to watch the Rams curb stomp the Patriots.
(Dodgers and Rams both in the championships this year, and you know, honestly, you’d barely notice, traffic and work are still pretty much the same. But I am excited.)
Eventually these will make sense, I promise.
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Have you heard of Bo Burnham? He’s one of these Hollywood types who is good at everything and makes us all regret our choices. He’s a singer, comedian, director, TV series creator, now filmmaker. He had a movie out over the summer called EIGHTH GRADE which absolutely should have been nominated for all the awards. Basically, it’s about a very shy eighth grade girl a week before her graduation who tries to break out of her shell. Unbelievable performances and writing. I mean, just unbelievable. For me, one of the three best movies of the year, alongside THE FAVOURITE, BLACK PANTHER, AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR, SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDERVERSE and IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK, which is six, but never mind, the rest are not as good, except maybe ROMA, which I have not seen.
Seriously, though – go find EIGHTH GRADE. If you see it and don’t like it as an apology I will send you a gif.
Okay, you caught me, I will send you a gift.
But back to Bo Burnham. A couple years ago, he did an hour of comedy on Netflix called MAKE HAPPY. The show is filled with parody songs that mean to highlight the way that different sorts of performers try to fool us and why we should not be fooled. He’s actually kind of a preacher in his own way.
And he ends the show with a seven minute Kanye rant parody entitled “Can’t Handle This”. You can find it here. Note: We’re talking 2015 Kanye, cool lighting choices and autotuning Kanye, not SNL red hat rant Kanye.)
It’s a funny bit, filled with great rants about Pringles cans and Chipotle, but I don’t know, all week it’s kind of haunted me. It has some pretty serious moments, too, where he talks about what it’s like to be a performer, the uncomfortable relationship you have with audiences and his own mental fragility. It’s also just gorgeous; both in sound and lighting it just absolutely captures the visual majesty of a Kanye show. You could turn the sound off and find it pretty lovely to watch.
All week I’ve kept rewatching that same seven minutes. I still don’t quite know why. But I have this theory that the whole song is actually about how imperfect life is, how it doesn’t matter if you get what you’ve always dreamed of, it still isn’t what you thought it would be. Things don’t fit right, and usually there’s a lot more to it all than you would like. There’s this mantra sequence he repeats over and over, “Wouldn’t have gotten the lettuce if I knew it wouldn’t fit, Wouldn’t have gotten the cheese if I knew wouldn’t fit, Wouldn’t have gotten the peppers if I knew they wouldn’t fit.” It’s hilarious when you step back and think about it all on its own, and in part this whole thing is supposed to be a parody of Kanye’s crazy rants, right, so repeatedly describing the trouble you had with a burrito fits the “gag”. But if you watch it I think you’ll agree, it doesn’t “read” funny. There’s something way too heartfelt for that.
So yeah, even as he’s spent an hour mocking pop culture and us and burritos, I think in the end he might be giving it all back to us and saying it’s all important, because it’s where our lives are and happen, and in the end a lot of life is a disappointment, even the really good things, but somehow singing about it makes that, too, beautiful.
Or I may be overthinking this. Either way, hope you’ll have the chance to watch his “bit”. It really is the best thing I saw all week, other than his movie, which again, is amazing and called EIGHTH GRADE and you can find it streaming here. ++
Almost...there...
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One Little Thing We Can Do To Make The World A Little Better This Week:
When I went to look for that Bo Burnham comedy video YouTube popped an old 2013 Conan routine into my feed, where he wanders around his offices during a prior government shutdown, looking for people on his staff he can put on furlough. (If you know Conan, you know there is really only one possible choice, and it’s played out well.)
It’s strange to watch the routine today. There’s nothing funny about our current government shutdown. And the longer it goes the more I wonder what I can do to help the people who are out of work and/or trapped working for nothing.
As it turns out, there are actually some things we can do. The Points Guy notes that while TSA officers cannot accept money, they can accept gift cards. So if you’re flying in the next few days or weeks, you might think of that. Some airports have also set up boxes where you can donate non-perishable food.
Some workers and their families have set up GoFundMe accounts, like this single mother of two who is having to work without a paycheck, or this woman in a similar situation, or this single grandmother raising her 3 year old granddaughter, or this family, or this one which faces eviction, or employees of the Atlanta Public Schools or the Chicago Coast Guard. GoFundMe has also started its own to try and help.
You can also, if you want, buy a furloughed government employee a beer. Which sounds not exactly useful but also kind of perfect. ++ LINKS ++ There is an insane new theory about how life on Earth started, and it is basically that another planet crashed into us and we took what we needed and then tossed it away and it became the moon.
If you’re looking for inspiration this week, this New Yorker story about a photographer taking pictures of his wife over the course of their lives together is really worth a look. It definitely made me want to pick up a camera again.
In great things to be found on Twitter, Sarah Gailey’s frog gallery has outstanding captions.
And lastly, friend of the newsletter Chris Kent pointed out online yesterday a wonderful interview with long-time NPR Fresh Air host Terry Gross about how to talk to people. It reminded me of advice I read sometime ago that you should try as hard as you can as long as you can not to ask people what they do for a living, because most of the time that ends up being sort of a desperate lunge at something to talk about and can really make people feel pinned down. (The proviso in that piece was, When you do ask what they do, Respond to whatever they say with “That sounds hard.” You’ll be surprised at how they open up – which I found absolutely true.)
Currently I’m game testing a couple addenda to the “no jobs” rule.
Don’t ask people where they are from. Again, it’s usually about me trying to make myself feel more comfortable, rather than real interest. And it can pack with it SO MANY ASSUMPTIONS about race and nationality.
The real challenge: Do not initiate a conversation about film or TV shows. I don’t know about you, but it seems like 80-90% of my conversations right now have become “Here is a TV show that I have watched and isn’t it excellent?” If all involved have seen the show, that can be...okay, I guess? But mostly it’s monologuing and book reporting and livetweeting and “You would so love my boyfriend”.
There’s got to be a way to talk about TV and movies. But most of what we’re doing is not it.
Last week out of the blue someone sent me this pillow cover, which yes, is red sequins that when wiped slowly reveal the face of Jesus actor Nicolas Cage. It is in fact the greatest gift of all, and the person who sent it didn't even include their name. Which made the whole thing kind of more special and amazing.
You hear stories of the anonymous person who pays for the next person's meal at a drive through. I wonder what it would be like if we each did something like that for someone else this week. The world keeps saying we're all on our own and everything is dark and so forget about them, take care of yourself. But I've just had a conversation with my good friend and headrest Nicolas Cage and he says screw that. We're all in this together.
Look after yourself. And have a great week.