Pedro Pascal = Daddy
The Last of Us, Unhinged Celebrity Home Tours, and a Personal Update
Make 10,000 shows about Pedro Pascal smuggling a kid through the wilderness, and I’m gonna watch 10,000 shows about Pedro Pascal smuggling a kid through the wilderness!!
Is The Last of Us basically The Mandalorian with zombies? Number one: how dare you, it’s so much more than that. Number two: it’s not NOT that? May he who takes issue with a damn good story cast the first stone.
We’ll talk more about this later.
First, a little personal update since I know so many of you personally.
I’m writing from the Atlanta airport on a one-way trip to my parent’s house in Texas. My mom recently got a pretty devastating diagnosis of diffuse systemic scleroderma, a rare autoimmune disease, and we’re . . . still figuring it all out. What it means, what we need to do, what life will look like for our family. Also, trying to process the things that have changed forever.
I can’t pretend it’s not awful.
I listen to a podcast that has the tagline, “Educating you on things that entertain but do not matter.” I like the acknowledgment that it’s nice to have a place for those things. This is my place to talk about things that I love, but that don’t carry so much weight. So thanks again for joining me in this — a little escape, a little reprieve, a little fun.
On that note, please enjoy this insane & delightful video of a Cajun man raising money for the Baton Rouge Scleroderma chapter by making the world’s largest pastalaya.
[Yes, I am Cajun, and no, I will not be taking questions at this time about my Papaw — pronounced as the French “puh-PAW” — who did shoot squirrels for the gumbo from his trailer porch.]
In the News
30 Rock fans, please be advised that Tina Fey’s “MILF Island” is now a real show on TLC called MILF Manor. [TLC, short for The Learning Channel! Naturally!]
Yes, it is a dating show with a house full of sexy middle-aged women, and yes, the “men” they’re “dating” are all their ACTUAL SONS. I am positive that a Baptist preacher somewhere is proclaiming this the Sign of the Beast as foretold in John’s Book of Revelation!
I also learned from UrbanDictionary[dot]com that if these older women are cougars, then I, at age 34, am a Puma!
Anyhoo, I take this as the Lord’s final sign that I shall not be bringing children into this world.
Michael Imperioli from White Lotus Season 2 gave Architectural Digest a home tour.
Imagine if the writers of Gossip Girl said, “What would a fancy Italian man’s fancy apartment look like if he lived in fancy Manhattan?” Or just imagine he lives in the exact same villa owned by Gay Mr. Collins in White Lotus Season 2. Same-same.
In contrast to Imperioli’s classical Italian palace, Julia Fox’s home tour is something I cannot wrap my head around at all!
For those of you who have made the right choices in life, you may not know who Julia Fox is, but she dated Kanye West very briefly last year, wore any number of inexplicable outfits, is a self-proclaimed muse, and made the phrase “UNCUH-JAAAMMS” [in]famous.
I can’t decide if she’s a self-aware walking performance art production — or if she’s a completely sincere citizen of her very own Bizarre-o World. Probably both.
Anyhoo, her home tour is just a messy, nasty NYC apartment that looks exactly like the one I moved into 10 years ago when I had $10 in my bank account and my roommates and I still believed if you only SAW one mouse, there only WAS one mouse.
My brain can’t figure out whether to categorize her apartment as: “Celebrities: They’re just like us!” or “Cry for Help.”
Marie Kondo had a third child, and she has given up!
I mean that in the same sense that I would say I have “given up” negative self-talk! Or I have “given up” the lie of perfection! The queen of clean now admits her house is “messy” and I thank God for that!
Prince Harry Deserves His Privacy, and I’m Giving It To Him!
You asked for my thoughts on Prince Harry, I’ll give you my thoughts on Prince Harry: It is not in God’s plan for my life to know any more about what this man has to say!
May he find peace or whatever! I listened to 211 minutes of a 15-hour audiobook, and the Lord said, Daughter, I release you!
It was just…bad?? And awkward? And boring??* You know when you’re on a first date, and they start talking about their exes, and you’re sitting there like, “Wow, this person is a sweet child, and I’m sure their exes deserve jailtime/hellfire/to make reparations to all the countries they invaded and enslaved, etc—but I value my time too much to sit for this show!” I reclaim my hours from this man!
Anyhoo, God bless Harry in his pursuits, etc etc, and may we condemn the oppressors and let children everywhere live free. Amen.
This satirical article in The Guardian nailed the tone of the book perfectly and gives you exactly why it was unreadable.
*There was this one crazy story no one is talking about where an old hunting instructor pushed teenage Harry’s face into the stomach of a deer they’d just shot? Then he paraded Harry home with blood all over his face like a red-headed Targaryen??? THAT I would stick around a date to listen to.
Watching - The Last of Us on HBO
The Last of Us is HBO’s new “appointment television” show, taking the Sunday night slot reserved for prestige sensations like Game of Thrones and Succession. And, honey, this show earned her right to be here!
You may have heard it’s about a pandemic [true], is based on a video game [true], and is a zombie show [kind of true]. But even if none of those things appeal to you, you will like this show! [lol the PRESUMPTION in my voice!]
As I’ve said: Pedro Pascal, acting king. He and Bella Ramsey are the chef’s-kiss buddy dramedy pair of our dreams. Then the show says, “Let’s throw in Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett!” It’s like you have a perfect cheeseburger and then say, “But what if we threw on a fried egg and bacon?” Why yes, please.
I’m about as far from a gamer as they come. I have fallen off every cliff in Mario Kart [a game ~children~ can play], and the one time I “tried” Halo, I kept asking why the screen was blue, and everyone [~boys~] kept yelling, “You’re looking at the sky! Look DOWN!” [Pardon me, my only concept of “looking” “down” is the prologue to the 1980 musical theater production of Les Misérables!!]
I’m not a gamer. But I loved how the show paid homage to the video game while also being a damn fantastic television show. It only adds to the fabric and texture of the drama that’s unfolding.
Also: “Save who you can save”!? Why didn’t the CDC use that tagline in 2020? Inquiring minds want to know!!!! We might still be a real country! [I kid.]
Final Note - A Substack Rec
I’d like to shout out a colleague of mine in the sports writing world, Cole Rush, who has a Substack I find quite delightful.
He’s a gamer, and he knows The Last of Us inside and out. He’s got some great perspective on why video games don’t get the respect they deserve as a medium of creation and storytelling. Say THAT!!
[He notes that he wrote the above article before watching the third episode.]
Cole is a fantastic writer and is such a good cheerleader for other writers. For good measure, here’s another fun article he wrote for a website we both write for: We Need More Fantasy Mascots and Team Names in Sports. [He’s so right! Right!?]
First and foremost, sending all the love to you and your family <3
Second and aftermost (?), thanks so much for the shoutout!! Here's hoping our hearts may heal before whatever episode 4 throws at us on Sunday.
we will not tolerate any Julia Fox slander or hateration!!! we stan julia, she's a queen!! She's absolUTEly both a self-aware walking performance art production AND a completely sincere citizen of her very own Bizarre-o World and that's why she's a muse to the safdies and a breath of fresh air!!