1. The morality of a Caitlyn Jenner Halloween costume.
2. Is Joe Biden serious about running for president? Why?
3. Taylor Swift is now routinely bringing celebrities onstage during her concert tour, including Julia Roberts, Joan Baez and Alanis Morissette. Where are Ruth Ginsburg, Sheryl Sandberg and Flo from the insurance ads?
4. The wonderful and essential website D-Listed posted a real-life TV ad by a San Antonio mortician named Dick Tips. Is the name Dick Tips better or worse than Deez Nuts?
5. Can Youtube stars with millions of followers become legitimate movie or TV stars? Isn’t this something only the Youtube stars’ parents should worry about?
Towards the end of Tony Kushner’s magnificent Angels In America, a character predicts a brighter future, claiming, “the world only spins forwards.” I’ve always loved that moment, even though the world keeps providing evidence to the contrary.
There’s currently a particularly dimwitted freshman at Duke, who’s refused to read Alison Bechdel’s classic graphic memoir Fun Home (the book is part of a voluntary reading list.) Brian Grasso has said that, “I still hold that personally it would be dishonoring to God for me to read it and view it.” Naturally, Grasso claims that any objections to his idiocy are the result of discrimination. He says, “The purpose of the university is for people to come and hear different perspectives, and I thought I was consistent with that in my decision not to read the book.”
Arguing with Grasso is pointless, although he might at least acknowledge that if he doesn’t read books he might disagree with, how will he ever experience his beloved “different perspectives”?
Grasso is also nervous because he’s been told that the book contains sexual imagery. I’m assuming that Grasso has never seen any TV shows, movies, billboards or other people. My fondest hope is that someday, Grasso will be found trembling and twitching, unable to form words, with Fun Home open by his side.
I’m working on I Shudder, a pilot for TV Land, with the wonderful producer Dan Jinks. With the help of the superb casting director Bernie Telsey and his associate Conrad Woolfe, we’ve been assembling a sensational cast, including Hamish Linklater, Megan Hilty, Geneva Carr, John Behlmann and ten-year-old Brooklyn Shuck. I’ve been feeling very spoiled, as you can tell by all the superlatives in the previous sentences.
The show is inspired by the Elyot Vionnet stories from my collection also called I Shudder. Elyot is a very special guy, who lives in what he calls his “perfect studio apartment which almost overlooks Gramercy Park.” Elyot is apalled by indecent behavior and he resolves to help the world become a better, more compassionate and more stylish place. As he does this, through no fault of Elyot’s, people occasionally die. Elyot has perfect taste and he’s not afraid to use it.
Both Josh Duggar and Sam Rader, a creep with a Christian vlog, have been caught with accounts on Ashley Madison, the website designed to promote extra-marital affairs. Both Josh and Sam have manfully admitted their transgressions, claimed that everyone’s a sinner, and they’ve asked the Lord’s forgiveness. The wives of both of these men have reportedly forgiven them. Here’s my question: what wouldn’t these decent Christian ladies forgive?
If their husbands cheated with women from a Jewish website called Rachel Melissa.
If their husbands publicly stated, “I hate my wife’s bangs.”
If their husbands cheated with men from a gay website called Chad Brice.
If their husbands publicly stated, “I love online porn much more than my wife’s mac and cheese.”
If their husbands not only cheated, but forgot to walk the dog and the dog peed on the wife’s favorite ribbed, slimming polyester cardigan, the one she likes to wear in the videos where the couple talks about how gay marriage threatens their freedom of religion.
If the wife suddenly realized why their 15th baby was named Ashley Madison.
I’ve been watching the new show Difficult People on Hulu, and it’s completely wonderful. It was created by Julie Klausner, and stars Julie and the terrific Billy Eichner as two frustrated, opinionated show business obsessives, lurking around the fringes of fame. In the course of the early episodes, the pair has managed to gloriously insult child understudies, Blue Ivy, PBS and so many other worthy targets. The cast is packed with people like Andrea Martin, Cole Escola, James Urbaniak, Gabourey Sidibe, Martin Short and Andy Cohen, all having a blast. The show is smart, fearless and always goes just a bit farther than you think it will. The first three episodes are now available, but I’m kind of glad that Hulu didn’t air the entire series all at once, so now I have something to look forward to every week. I’ve also watched and adored the full first season of The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt on Netflix. Both of these shows are addictively pleasureable.
Ever since I was little, I’ve never been able to instantly remember which was my left foot and which was my right. In gym class I’d sometimes use a Bic pen to scrawl a large R and L on the tips of my sneakers. If someone said, “Raise your right hand”, I’d have to think about it, and try to recall which hand I wrote with, and I’d often second-guess myself. Don’t get me started on trying to figure out stage-right and stage-left.
According to the NY Times, “roughly 15 percent of the population suffer from profound left-right confusion.” The Times also notes that this syndrome doesn’t matter very much, unless you’re, for example, a surgeon who has to decide which leg or arm of a patient to operate on. Mistakes have occured in these situations, which is why most hospitals now require the doctor to clearly mark the limb in question, by writing THIS LEG, IF YOU WANT TO AVOID A MAJOR LAWSUIT on the patient with a thick magic marker.
I feel much better now that my condition has been named, which will make it easier to hold Profound Left-Right Confusion fund-raising events, including triathalons where half the competitors will run in the wrong direction. I also want to develop a line of merchandise, with gloves knitted with R and L, which of course I’ll try to shove onto the wrong hands, and t-shirts reading NO, YOUR OTHER RIGHT HAND. I’m also pleased to suffer from a profound disorder, rather than something more shallow.
I will file this entire post under More Good Reasons Why I Don’t Drive.
Use one of those cylindrical foam rollers to massage every part of your body on a mat at the gym. Especially if you moan.
Wear any garment with writing on it. Especially if the writing is on your butt.
Talk to your friend really loudly on the subway about how Shauna is a TOTAL SKANK I MEAN LOOK AT HER LEGS THEY’RE LIKE HAMS WHY IS JORDAN GOING OUT WITH HER?
Shave any part of your body while standing naked in a locker room.
Blow-dry any part of your body while standing naked in a locker room.
Jog wearing spandex while pushing an aerodynamically-designed stroller.
Walk along a crowded sidewalk with your arm draped around your loved one (any couple who does this will break up within a week.)
Stand in front of a painting at a museum and make little noises, as if you’re considering buying it.
To earn a certain sort of street cred, people will say things like, “I once killed a man with my bare hands” or “I just got back from my third tour of duty” or “I changed a flat tire.” Writers are a different breed, and to establish writers cred, you need to say things like:
“I once copy-edited my manuscript and removed over 314 semi-colons. From the first two chapters.”
“Real writers don’t use quotation marks.”
“Do you know the difference between capitol and capital? Do ya, punk?”
“Sometimes I don’t indent paragraphs. That’s right, baby.”
“I footnote my footnotes. Because that’s who I am.”
“My editor asked me to make my book’s chronology coherent. I just laughed.”
“Sure, I could Google the information about actual events. I just don’t want to.”
“Yeah, maybe the phrase Writers Cred needs an apostrophe somewhere. Do I look like I care?”
When a book, play or movie receives near-universal acclaim, it’s almost mandatory to approach that work with a chip on one’s shoulder, or maybe even a plank. Here are some possible responses to such a work:
“I’ll read it/go see it once the hype dies down.”
“I could tell from the reviews that I would hate it.”
“I saw the author on Charlie Rose and he was such a dick.”
“I’ve read so much about it that I feel like I’ve already seen/read it.”
“Do I have to?”
But sometimes the work lives up to the acclaim, and you just have to get over yourself. Te-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me has been greeted with rapturous reviews, magazine covers and endless op-ed pieces, and it deserves every bit of this attention. It’s an extraordinary book. It’s written as a letter to the author’s son, and it’s about being black, being white, the American Dream and a million other things. It’s not a chore or a diatribe; it’s so well-written, and so essential, that it can be devoured in an afternoon.
1. The morality of a Caitlyn Jenner Halloween costume.
