EPISODE 712: CYNDI LAUPER HATE CRIME
I just wanted to say, I had a good run here on Earth.
POP CULTURE SPIRIT WOW
Happy Easter and Happy Passover! Hope you all have had a nice couple weeks. One of the Sondheim fans I follow online posted that great Ladies who Lunch/Easter mashup. I love it so much.
An article from last weekend has me obsessed. The story: A guy with an anxiety disorder tells his employer not to throw a party for him on his birthday because of his anxiety disorder. They ignore him and do it anyway. The next day his bosses confront him because he was really hostile about the whole thing. And the man—who had spent the last 24 hours having SEVERE anxiety because of what happened—has a panic attack in front of them. They feel threatened—can you imagine…?-- and two days later he’s fired, despite having never had anything but positive evaluations. He filed suit and just won half a million dollars.
It sounds very cut and dry—office=bad guys. And I’m certainly glad the man won the case, because what happened was clearly not his fault. But it turns out the staff wasn’t told by the office manager that the employee had asked for no party or why, and the manager wasn’t there the day of the party either. It’s also not clear whether the superiors who confronted him were told of his issue.
We’re not told what the party looked like, what the man found triggering, or what exactly happened in the private meeting, other than at least one of those superiors themselves felt deeply traumatized as a result of the man’s panic attack.
So this happened today.
I know this probably won’t bother some of you, but for me it is like nails on a chalkboard. My entire being shrieks at a subatomic level.
I can understand someone not understanding that the plural does not require an apostrophe, but that an entire supply chain worth of people kept approving it…Come. On.
POP CULTURE WOWS
I’ve been consuming lots of pop culture the last few weeks. Here’s a few recommendations for anybody looking for something.
HEARTSTOPPER (TV): New show on Netflix about a British kid who gets a crush on a rugby player the year ahead of him.
Just Watch: The first three minutes. They’re so damn sweet.
THE ANOMALY (Novel): The premise: A plane full of people flying from Paris to New York go through terrible turbulence, but it all turns out okay. They land. We follow their lives a bit. Then, 100 days later, the same plane, filled with the same people, lands in New York again. So yeah, two identical planes filled with the same people, who have no idea of each other’s existence. And we watch the world governments and these people try to make sense of what has happened. If you’re looking for an upcoming beach read (or, dare I say, something to read on a plane), this is the book for you.
Just Read: A few chapters. I think you’ll need more than the first one, which sounds like a completely different kind of novel. But give it a couple and you’ll be hooked.
WE’RE HERE (TV): I am massively late to the party on this two season HBO Max reality series about three former contestants from RuPaul’s Drag Race who travel to towns helping queer and straight people in those towns to be who they want to be via drag shows. It’s basically Queer Eye for the next generation, and the stories are incredibly moving.
Just Watch: Episode 206, “Watertown, South Dakota”. And have Kleenex handy.
Here’s a bit from episode 204, “Selma” starring one of the hosts, Bob the Drag Queen. It’s pretty cool.
SOMEBODY SOMEWHERE (TV): This 7-part TV show is basically “What if It was Okay to be Messy and the Church was Welcoming?” I just wrote about it; it’s really good.
Just Watch: The first episode.
THE MINUTES (THEATER): For anyone visiting New York soon, this is a new Tracy Letts play about a local city council where the new guy comes back after burying his mom to find one of the members has suddenly quit at the last meeting and no one will explain why.
I can’t say anything more than that without ruining it but suffice to say it goes in some very unexpected directions and has A LOT to say about politics in the US today. I’ve seen it twice, here and in Chicago, and I think it’s a main contender for Best Play of the year.
So the Elon Musk Wants to Buy Twitter Drama continues. It’s been a big hit online.
For anyone from California, a more general reaction is, Ask Me About the Hyperloop, the superfast underground train Musk has been supposedly-but-not-really building between Los Angeles and San Francisco. The man is way better at hype than reality.
Plus if you ask me it’s Facebook, aka Call Us Meta Because No One Trusts Us Anymore, that really needs someone to step in.
Speaking of Things Online, maybe you saw the news last week that they had a very bad first quarter, and people are starting to wonder about their viability. In talking about the story at America my editor came up with a fun take. If you’re interested, here’s what I had to say.
Couple Other Things I Wrote Recently:
Why Catholics should keep wearing masks even if Some Judge Says They Don’t Have To: For me the most surprising and compelling thing in researching the story was the fact that people with compromised immune systems have not terribly helped been by the vaccines. Almost half of breakthrough cases who have ended up hospitalized are those with compromised immune systems. I have to believe everyone knows someone in this kind of a position, so you know, maybe keep that mask handy…
The Catholic Church Should Stop Reading the Gospel of John On Good Friday: This got some people REALLY angry. The headline probably didn’t help—the article is not about cancelling the Gospel of John, actually, the inappropriateness of John’s Passion on Good Friday. We literally spent Passover this year sitting in Church hearing about how “the Jews” killed Christ. It’s not right.
THREE TWEETS
Definitely Click on This One To Get the Full Story:
That’s about all from here this week. Hope the week to come is good for all of you. See you in 7 days. I’ll set up the campfire. You bring the s’mores.