EPISODE 625: TOXIC DRAG SHACK BABY
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POP CULTURE SPIRIT WOW
Hi! I have a sense that there might be some new folks who saw a piece I wrote about John Mulaney last week. If you’re new around here, welcome!
Also, to current readers, thanks for the kind words about last week’s piece on the need for queer saints and also singing. I feel pretty strongly about that stuff, and I am grateful for the support. I’d like to write more about that and who knows, maybe I will!
So I am not watching the Emmys because I am doing this instead and That’s fine, it’s fine, I’m fine, it’s not like I bought glasses like the kind you buy in Times Square on New Year’s Eve, except instead of the year number it would have just said “WOW”, just for you or anything. It’s good.
Sometimes it’s fun to not watch something and gather your impressions strictly from social media. Based on those, it seems like Ted Lasso and Jean Smart have done well, Bowen Yang got his first Emmy (yeah!), Conan O’Brien is drunk, everyone loves Debbie Allen and Rita Wilson has once again been asked to do a thankless job, WILL SOMEONE PLEASE BRING ON THE RITASSANCE ALREADY???
Ooh, I see Michaela Coel just won for her writing on I May Destroy You. Boy was that a fantastic show. If you left right now to watch that and never came back to read my stories about possessed dogs and queer monasteries I would totally understand.
While as I say I did not watch the Emmys, I did watch the first episode of American Horror Story: Impeachment (you know that’s what it should be called) and I don’t know….does anyone really want to spend all this time with Linda Tripp and rape-y Bill Clinton?
It just feels like when you’re at Thanksgiving and your third cousin Elrond says, I have got to tell you this terrible story about what they actually do with your garbage and you think, Do you, Elrond? Do you? And what is with your ears now? And then he does anyway and surprise surprise it was terrible just like he said but we all knew that before and now when you look at the turkey all you can think is maggots.
Maybe it will have some fresh insights for us all. I’m just having a hard time wanting to spend much time with the despicable people that it is populated with.
Meanwhile things seem to be going super good in Live TV Land.
I also started Q-Force, which is an animated show about queer spies in West Hollywood, i.e. all the fun things.
It reminded me of a fun experience: when I first moved to Los Angeles in 2010, I reached out to my new UCLA classmates to see if anyone wanted to get together before school started. Four of us agreed to meet up, and the suggestion was made that we should meet at a restaurant called the Abbey. And I thought, oh this will be hilarious, these guys don’t even know I’m a priest yet.
Just to be clear, I’m totally new to Los Angeles at this point—if you are not, you may know where this story is going.
So I show up at this place and instead of some kind of monastic-themed place—We curdle our own beer! (you know that’s what it should be called) – it’s clearly a gay bar. And by clearly I mean there are guys dancing on tables, and not a single one of them is wearing a habit. In fact not a single one of them is wearing anything more than a g-string.
And I think to myself, “This is either a really unusual monastery or an interesting choice for a place to meet up.”
So I wait. And wait some more. Averting my eyes the whole time, of course. (AMA about custody of the eyes, a tradition in our Jesuit training.) The music shuttles through Madonna, Britney and Celine and I don’t even tap my foot. And my classmates never show up.
At this point I was new to smart phones, and I didn’t have anyone’s number. So instead I’m forced to send emails to them, which let’s be honest is the absolute worst form of instantaneous communication in existence, and that is including running into people on the street. It can work, but it just feels wrong. Like dogs wearing hats.
People say fossil fuels have completely imbalanced the planet. I agree, but I also feel that dogs wearing hats is doing irreparable damage to our psyches and has to stop.
And to be clear this is a true fact and not at all to do with the fact that this is my parents’ dog and he is referred to as my brother and apparently now is having birthdays and getting hats.
Look at that dog. He’s clearly Cthulhu in a dog skin.
So I’m sending emails to these people I don’t know, feeling very ashamed for violating the fabric of the communication universe so fundamentally but wondering if I might in fact be in the wrong place, or whether they’re all dancing on tables and just not talking to me?
Turns out, there was another place not far from where I was that was also called the Abbey (which in case you were wondering did not involve anyone either monks or anyone dancing on anything).
And this is all a long way of saying that the Abbey features prominently in the pilot of Q-Force and that made me feel seen.
My Gen X gente, here is the earworm you requested.
I am slightly worried I have given it to you before but wait, there is another.
These are the sacrifices I make for you.
I don’t know how to feel about this article. On the one hand, it’s got some very worrying things to say about the future of the Empire Strikes Back Building™ (you know that’s what it should be called). On the other hand, it’s told in such an original, visual way, I ended up feeling more excited than concerned.
I love Jon Stewart and I feel like his new Netflix show could be conversation-defining in a way similar to Last Week Tonight. But reading this article feels a little like watching someone fighting a ghost.
(You guys, how many posts do I have to share where your fellow readers threw a punch at a ghost and it did not go well? Do not try to cold cock a spirit. It doesn’t matter if you manage to land the blow, they will always come for you later, and it will be way more Poltergeist than Ghost.)
David Simon also wrote a piece about working with Michael K. Williams on The Wire. If you’re at all interested in screenwriting or behind the scenes stories of television making, this is a good thing to read.
This was a busy writing week. I did a piece on John Mulaney’s appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers for America and also one on how the Catholic Church needs its own Met Gala. I did a piece for the Australian Eureka Street talking to three New Yorkers about the 20th anniversary of 9/11.
And I got to write this little piece for Fordham’s Center for Religion and Culture on moving back to New York City, which includes a couple little drawings I did. (I’m very into trees right now.)
I sort of assumed the Met Gala piece would get a lot of “Cardinal Burke’s train is longer than The Snowpiercer” and/or “Oh Yeah, Let’s Go Back to Flashy Church, That Sounds Right” comments and not much else. I’m not sure anyone took the idea very seriously, but the more I worked on it the more strongly I felt. The Church at this point seems to have two speeds: normal people trying to live their lives and maybe do some good, and The Catholic Cops who do more finger waving than a Bob Fosse number.
At the very least they could say Skidoo.
We’ve basically ceded the ground of joy and beauty and art pretty much entirely. And that’s just not a fun place to be.
THREE TWEETS (OR FIVE)
This is the greatest Superman tweet ever.
This is also a true tweet.
And since we’re doing Film Twitter today.
And the follow up:
(Note: Doug Benson is now a ghost. Do not punch Doug Benson.)
Meanwhile:
So there you have it. September, two thirds over. I don’t like it either. Better get out there and have some fall before the snows come and I get frostbite walking the half block to the subway.
Man I really have to buy a winter coat.
Byyyeeeee.
(PS If you liked some of the memes I used in this episode, you really should subscribe to Sean Bonner’s newsletter, because he finds all the good things.)