Who needs a distraction from the [important, necessary, crucial] election cycle!?? If you raised your hand, here it is!
Isn’t it just our — [“our” as in America Herself’s] — luck that on election day a rare Blood Moon will be staining the skies? I don’t know ANYTHING about astrology, but I have to agree with my friend Kayla that election day has “real blood moon eclipse energy”! Anyways, hope you smile at an election worker today!
This week I have been watching ~*~documentaries~*~, and Ben has been watching and rewatching this video of the Barstool Sports guys practicing the National Anthem. I’m not kidding, on Saturday morning, while lumping on the couch watching Bake Off, I heard this pitchy rendition of “O Say Can You See” from the back room at least 10 times!! Ben is nothing if not a Completist, and I have to hand it to him — it is very funny! These guys have found the happy middle between Whitney Houston’s Greatest and Fergie’s Worst. I honestly think this could <sarcasm>bring Republicans and Democrats together once and for all!</sarcasm>
I would love to know this week — as we are PLUNGED into Winter Darkness at 4:50 p.m. — what are you watching and rewatching that gives you the same amount of joy and laughter as those two dudes singing the National Anthem gives to Ben? Mine is this guy on TikTok imagining how people reacted to Beethoven in olden times.
In the News
Vote on the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards! You can see all the 2022 Finalists here.
In his new memoir, Matthew Perry from Friends insulted Keanu Reeves…kind of on accident? He was talking about mourning his friend River Phoenix who was “talented” and an “original thinker” and how unjust it is that River died while people like Keanu Reeves are still walking among us. TOUGH. LOOK. MATTHEW!!! As a massive Keanu fan, I have to ask how anyone from Friends thinks they can take the high road on “original thinkers”!? Anyhoo…
Not to be all 2013, but can we all just be more like Jennifer Lawrence?? She backed out of a huge movie about Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos because she watched Amanda Seyfried KILL the role in The Dropout, and she said, “Yeah, we don’t need to redo that. She did it.” APPLAUSE!!! Meanwhile, we’ve got filmmakers out here making the second sweaty teenage Elvis in as many years!!
That bossy toddler from Ellen is pregnant, so now you can all go doomscroll and set up appointments with your general practitioner because you’re OLD.
Caffeine counts as water now!! The Lord giveth! The study that said caffeine is dehydrating is from 1928 [only twenty years after TAP WATER became POTABLE] and was based on only three (3!) people!! However, if you want my UN-SCIENCY opinion: I read something about how we don’t need to drink as much water as we once thought, and I tried it and immediately got a UTI! [TMI?] That’s not science, but it IS something that has happened in the world!!
Zac Efron has given up discovering water [hearsay by me after watching one episode of Down to earth with Zac Efron] and taken up steroids [also hearsay by me after looking at the above photo]. He looks like this for a role in an upcoming movie “The Iron Claw” about wrestlers, also starring “Yes Chef” Chef from The Bear.
Speaking of physical transformations, JLo was spotted holding multiple Dunkin’ Donuts cups while out with her noted Dunkin’ Donuts Apologist Husband, Ben Affleck. Last I checked, JLo did not drink alcohol [verified] nor caffeine [verified] and neither has she let a single liquid except for extra virgin olive oil touch her skin [unverified]. I can’t decide if it’s giving “Cooperative Couple” or “Teenage Me Changing My Entire Personality for My Crush Who Played Video Games 24/7.” Thoughts??
Four Things That Made Me Cry This Week
Get ready for some ZERO FUN and TEARS!!!!!!!! Three of these are the aforementioned documentaries/news stories I’ve been watching, and one is a movie that I cried over by myself with a bottle of wine and bowl of tortilla chips for company.
1. Descendent
Everything about this story feels like a myth, and yet it’s all REAL. The documentary follows the quest to unearth [un-water?] the last slave ship to ever come to America — and how the descendants of the people on that ship almost all ended up in this one community in Alabama. But of course, it’s about more than just the ship. It’s about the twisting, interlocked web of injustice that followed. It’s about the resilience of both white and Black neighbors coming together to try to make even the smallest of reparations. It’s heartbreaking, beautiful, uplifting, and enraging — all the things that human stories hold.
2. Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me
I’m a little too old to have been a massive Selena Gomez girl, but after watching that documentary, I would kill for her!!! I don’t care if people think she’s problematic!
“Why have I become so far from the light? Everything I’ve ever wished for — I’ve had and done all of it. But it has killed me.”
I don’t want to sound like a youth pastor, but: THAT’LL PREACH, SELENA!!!!
Six minutes and thirty-three seconds into this film, I was sobbing like a baby, screaming along with her from my darkened bedroom with my laptop glow on my face as if I was under stadium lights: “WHO SAYS!?? WHO SAYS YOU’RE NOT PERFECT!?!! WHO SAYS YOU’RE NOT WORTH IT!!?!” This was beautiful, uplifting, wonderful.
3. Causeway
If you ever thought, “Where is Jennifer Lawrence, I want her back!!” — well, the Oscar-winning b**** is back! This movie is quiet, slow, languid, and heavy — like a New Orleans summer night. It’s not going to answer your questions; it’s like life in that way. It’s powerful like Moonlight or Lady Bird. It’s just a glimpse of a part of someone’s life, someone who might be very different from you or just like you.
Also, I had NO IDEA it was going to be set in New Orleans, so when she arrived in the city on a bus in the first 15 minutes, I cried. The sounds of deep south Louisiana. The heat. The bugs. The birds. Where it’s so hot, you want to sit in a kiddie pool on your stoop at midnight. The humidity you can see on people’s skin and hair. The sound of the thick air. The broad blades of St. Augustine grass where the rich folks live. The freezer, empty except for Bluebell ice-cream. The flower-printed cardboard "keep boxes.” Tchoupitoulas and Bordeaux and getting sno balls. These are my sacred relics. Even the tiles from her memory game were from my childhood in Baton Rouge.
[Did everyone have all these things growing up, or is whoever is in charge of The Sim[ulation] f***ing with me??]
4. John Oliver on Bail Reform
“To defend this system is to defend a people-wrecking machine.”
I don’t try to be political on here, but this is so not partisan!
Additionally, this issue matters to me personally because one of my best friends is dead now, thanks to how messed up our jail and bail system is. Sorry for that BUMMER WHIPLASH, but this is a truly important watch, no matter what your politics. [And thanks to John Oliver’s fun approach, it won’t feel TOO heavy.]
Saturday Night Live Highlights
Since I missed last week, I’ve got two episodes’ worth of highlights!
Halloween Episode: Jack Harlow as Host and Musical Guest
Highlights: (1) Jack Harlow’s Monologue. (2) Kanye Skechers Commercial. (3) Halloween Red Carpet Show. (4) Horror Movie Trailer about Democratic Candidates is LOL.
Amy Schumer and Steve Lacy
Highlights: Honestly, just watch this entire episode, there were no skips!! It’s so obvious they had an experienced comedian hosting and writing. But if I HAD to pick… (1) Amy’s Monologue. (2) COVID Commercial. (3) Jurors. (4) The Looker, based on Netflix’s The Watcher. (5) Pinx Period Underwear. (6) Big Dumb Hat.
Bake Off Corner - Why bake when you can thirst trap?
A Statement from Baking Herself:
Bake Off is dead to me!! Bake Off who!?? WHO NEEDS YOU!!!! Bake Off can go find ANOTHER WOMAN to keep it WARM and HAPPY!! Oh, Bake Off wants to mess around with Cooking?? They want to try a little Ice-Cream on the side? Keep your money, I got my own!!! Don’t let the door hit you on your way out!!!!!!!!
In other words, I do not understand how SPRING ROLLS count as BAKING, how ICE-CREAM is BAKED [unless its Baked Alaska, which is WASN’T], or why this show is gaslighting us! But it’s WHATEVER.
Final Thoughts: Maxy DID NOT deserve to go home and Sandro’s ass-tight leather pants saved him! [Evil Kermit voice in my head: But you’re glad he didn’t go, aren’t you…?] Also, if my girl Syabira doesn’t win it all, I’m mutinying!!!!!!