Metal Monday
A brief addendum on a previous post calling the 90’s sitcom The Nanny a “perfect sitcom: The first 4 Seasons of The Nanny are perfect. Seasons 5 and 6 lose an element of camp that the first 4 seasons had in spades. They begin to take themselves too seriously and that’s just not funny.
YouTube Obsession
The algorithm has a knack for sending me sassy gays who talk about media and good on you algorithm, you continue to nail it.
Mike’s Mic is a gay, breaking down all the looks, gags and serves of recent popular media. Add a healthy dose of diva worship, aussie slang and a dash of zoomer irony to round out the mix and I’m stanning.
Reading
I am obsessed with JFK. Not the president really (though I find the cult of personality he was able to create interesting) and not particularly his assassination (but I think everyone spends a summer going through the Warren Commission, right?¹) but JFK, the Oliver Stone movie is a masterpiece of unintentional camp. Think of a popular actor in the early 90s….they are in JFK and they ACTING. Eating the scenery, dialog and shrubbery. I dare you to watch it and not come away with some one-liner stuck in your head (A reoccurring line in my psych is Walter Matthau saying “Looooove child heh heh heh” in an exaggerated southern accent.). It is an absolute joy to watch and one of the few movies that earns its 3+ hour run time.
All this to say JFK’s assassination is often considered the beginning of a death spiral of the civil rights movement. Followed closely by the murders of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr the end cap of the movement is often considered the murder of Robert F. Kennedy.
A Lie too Big to Fail by Lisa Pease attempts, by going into excruciating detail, to break down the events surrounding the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.
Exposing my own ignorance here but I had no idea that RFK’s murder was clouded by a lot of weird details. As Pease explains in the book, RFK is often overlooked because it is the last of a brutal string of shady assassinations and the people were exhausted and discouraged by the entire investigation process.
I’m halfway through the book now and already I’m seeing girls in polka dot dresses in my dreams.
Watching
Along the same lines of aforementioned sassy gays and obsession with JFK; I am finding Feud: Capote vs The Swans absolutely fascinating.
I’ve been a fan of Ryan Murphy since seeing the amazing The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story(Big JFK vibes). Not only was the drama broughten, the OJ Simpson trial was the first big event of my life that where I was developing a cultural awareness so I have a genuine interest in the subject. The Assassination of Gianni Versace also delivered drama/camp and queer history (When I first saw Penelope Cruz as Donatella Versace I let out the gayest shriek.).
Then Murphy’s Hollywood ruined any good faith I had in him at that time. Smaltzy liberal revisionism. Barf. I’d not really been interested in his other projects.
I had similar doubts about Feud but my roommate told me that Murphy is just producing and Gus Van Sant was actually directing. Why not give it a try?
You want divas? We have the divas! There are certain actors that I will watch anything they do because I love them and at least 2 of them are in Feud (Demi Moore and Calista Flockhart²). I am holding out that Christina Ricci and Michelle Pfeiffer will show up. I may die.
I highly suggest Feud, the first two episodes are on Hulu and I really think Murphy stepping back to the producer role has really softened the edges of his more recent failures.
Gaming
I know gaming has been light as of late and that’s because that yes, I am back on my Escape from Tarkov bull shit. As mentioned before I play the single player mod of Tarkov because of many various reasons but partly because I am still learning mouse and keyboard FPS controls. I recently became more confident in my skillz that I was able to up the AI difficulty and it has completely changed the game for me sucking back into an entirely new play through.
On another note, I may have to replay Death Stranding because Hideo Kojima (a favorite video game designer of mine) dropped this the other day…
As bat-shit as you would expect honestly. I love Death Stranding, the game is vibes. You should play it.
Additional Items
A deep dive on chapter 4 of Alan Moore’s From Hell from the ancient internet. I love when people write smart on media I love.
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¹ Right?!?!
² In early sobriety my first sponsor told me to send out “Thank You” letters to get in the spirit of gratitude. Of the many letters, I wrote one to Calista Flockhart thanking her specifically for Ally McBeal a show that awakened my queerness. I don’t know if she ever got it but I think about it often. Needless to say, I will watch anything she does.
