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Hung out with my mom for the eclipse. We were looking very cool in our eclipse glasses.
*This week’s newsletter title is a lyric from the song, ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart,’ by Bonnie Tyler. Damn, I’m clever.
Random Thought
My Godmother passed away recently. It’s sad but also kinda weird. I don’t think anyone knew I’d grow up to be such an atheist that I’d think the term Godmother is kinda weird, but I get it. It’s a nice sentiment. The parents choose someone close to them that they love very much and it’s a pretty big honor I suppose even if you don’t believe in god(s).
But it’s also weird because we didn’t have much of a relationship towards the end. I don’t wanna turn this into one of those, “I wish we were closer,” things because I think we mostly stay close to the people we wanna stay close to for whatever reasons and you can’t really force yourself out of that. Not everyone is meant to play a role in your life forever. Some stick around for a chapter or in my Godmother Sue’s case, many chapters.
There’s a lot of things I wanna write but I won’t mostly because in many ways I feel like the story of Sue as my Godmother is more my mom’s story to tell than my own. She was always sweet to me though. And I sometimes felt like the universe was hard on her. I don’t have any concrete proof or examples and even if I did, it’d feel too intense to share publicly. But there was a period of my life when I’d spent a fair amount of time around her and I loved her very much and if I could, I’d definitely like to go back to age 14 and give her a big hug and tell her I love her and thanks for being nice to me.
In some ways I felt like maybe that was a thing we shared. I’d feel like sometimes the world wasn’t nice to her and at 14, I definitely felt like the world wasn’t nice to me, teenage angst and all that. It felt like a weird, unspoken bond because we never talked about this stuff. It was just a feeling I had back then and still hold on to.
I’m not sure what to say or how to conclude. I’ll miss Sue. Maybe she didn’t play a pivotal role in my life for a couple decades now, but I’ll always try to hold on to the memories of her being a sweet Godmother to me. It was never about religion, it was about love.
Thanks, Sue. Rest in peace and love always.
Movie I Watched Recently
Dumb Money
(Netflix)
This was a fun movie about that whole GameStop thing that threw the stock market into disarray. Not gonna lie, I watched a documentary about this topic a few weeks ago and that was more informative while also being entertaining. I probably enjoyed that more than this movie. But this movie does attempt to put a narrative to the whole thing and it’s mostly enjoyable.
It’s also a fun cast that features the likes of Paul Dano, Seth Rogan, Pete Davidson, and Nick Offerman.
I’m also a sucker for the story. Give me any David vs. Goliath scenario especially if the Goliath in question is the stock market and disgustingly rich hedge fund types.
There’s also the whole cat aspect of this story that I’m obviously a fan of as well (the dude that led the charge called himself Roaring Kitty and he’s a bit of a cat nerd).
TV shows I’m currently watching
Atlanta
(Hulu)
I’m about three episodes away from being completely done with this series. I’m deep into Season 4 and the weird Black Mirror-ish episodes have disappeared. These episodes are all about the gang. Sometimes it’s about all of them. Sometimes it only focuses on one of them. None of them seem to tell a linear story, that is until this last episode I watched, episode 7.
Earn, Vanessa, and their daughter, Lottie, go camping for Lottie’s 6th birthday. Earn brings up moving to LA and how he wants Vanessa and Lottie to go with him so they can be a family out there and this is kinda the first time in a while this show seems to be telling a long term story about Earn. It’s also kinda relieving as a fan of the show because I was personally waiting for Earn to stop messing around and commit to Vanessa already. So it felt like a bit of a payoff for being into one of the very rare linear topics of this show.
The rest of the episodes are fun. There’s something cool about each episode sorta being its own thing and not feeling directly connected with the episode that comes before or after. It’s just a collection of these random stories about the characters you’ve spent the previous three seasons getting to know.
The show is still plenty weird at times, which is good. There’s one episode where Paper Boi is shot at in a mall and in that same episode, a bootleg sneaker salesman wants Darius and Earn to kiss for shoes. There’s another episode where an old white woman in a wheelchair chases Darius with a knife throughout the entire thing.
Those are just a couple examples. I don’t even know how to begin to get into the episode where Earn tries to represent D’Angelo while Paper Boi tries to scout young white rappers to manage or that other episode where Earn quits therapy and goes waaay too hard to get revenge on someone.
A sleeper episode to me is the final episode of Season 3. Vanessa is in Paris and some friends from Atlanta run into her and follow her for a day. Vanessa ran away to Paris and completely changed her life and almost started being a completely different person, even changing her accent to fit her new identity. I love this episode so much because in one episode it celebrates the liberation and joy that might come from completely disappearing and showing up somewhere else to start over but it also demonstrates the dark side of all of that. Vanessa in Paris might be my favorite character in the entire series, even if it only lasted for a brief period.
Album of the Week
Hand On Heart / Cock Sparrer
Hey, it’s Cock Sparrer, the greatest punk rock band out of England (and maybe even beyond just bands out of England) that many people probably never heard of. For those not in the know, Sparrer has been at it since the 70’s and now they’re probably approaching or in their 70’s and are still cranking out new music. They helped pave the way for the British/Oi! stuff in the 80’s and yea, a lot of their stuff has that Oi! feel but I also feel like they have a fair amount of tracks that sound like something beyond the constraints of just Oi! But I digress…
This is a very fun and spirited album by a bunch of old blokes. Sparrer is known for writing anthemic songs that are easy to sing along to and this album is no different. There’s a lot of positivity in the music on this album but also a lot of old school, ‘stand up and be tough because life isn’t easy,’ type messaging as well. I enjoyed it… not as much as their old stuff but try and show me a band who can keep up with their own classics, it’s a task no band should feel forced to accomplish. If you got a career and library of classic tunes to back you up, one more good album will suffice.
I’m just glad they’re still at it. I love this band very much. I have a lot of good memories and stories attached to them. But beyond that, the music is just so much fun to listen to. Cock Sparrer forever.
The album cover screams, “somewhere on the streets of England..” That’s what Cock Sparrer is, street rock and roll from England.
Book I’m Currently Reading
Big Swiss / Jen Beagin
Just finished this book. Last week I left off describing what a sloppy soap opera this whole thing was about Greta who transcribed therapy sessions of people in town and ended up having an affair with one of the clients who she named Big Swiss. Big Swiss was married, to a man, and now cheating on her with Greta, a woman.
A lot of the excitement in this book feels like it comes from the first half whereas the second half (or maybe more like the final third) feels more like Greta having to deal with the unraveling of everything.
The conclusion was a little boring and underwhelming but also maybe it had to be that way for this story. There’s something I really like about Greta. It might be because she’s in her mid 40’s living in a dilapidated house far from having everything figured out. Also, she’s a bit of an introvert and seems untrusting of everyone. There’s almost a spark of a more grown up Holden Caulfield in her character.
Big Swiss and Sabine (Sabine is Greta’s roommate or really the woman who owns the dilapidated house and was allowing Greta to crash there) were also interesting characters who I liked for different reasons. Big Swiss had a bold personality and was loud about not being a people-pleaser. Sabine was weird and quirky.
So it was a mostly enjoyable read with three mostly enjoyable characters. The most important part of the plot seems like an unlikely thing that could happen in real life though… a therapist paying someone who lives locally to transcribe sessions knowing those clients also live locally. I’m not gonna google it, but I hope that’s not really how things are done. Seems like a really irresponsible setup and would make the therapist (Om, his name is Om and he’s a sexual therapist, specifically) the true bad guy in this story.
There are doggies in this book, and donkeys too.
Random sports thought of the week
The final game of the NCAA Women’s basketball tournament was a really fun watch. I’ll fully admit (and have fully admitted already in the past few weeks) that I am a Johnny-come-lately bandwagon fan by way of Caitlin Clark. And maybe this makes me a bit of a poser but I am not alone. Millions of people are tuning in. The audience grew big time. Growth in popularity means lots of posers tuning in, so yea, I guess I’m that. But who cares? I’m having fun with it.
And sure, I really wanted the Iowa Hawkeyes to win. It felt like that was the fairytale ending most people were hoping for. But the story of this game is a great one. While Clark was doing her thing and making history and putting eyes on the game, the South Carolina Gamecocks did everything you’re supposed to do. They won every game. EVERY… all caps. They played a dominant, unselfish, team-first brand of ball that was just better than what the totality of the Hawkeyes had to offer. Clark is undeniably the best player on the court but sometimes that’s not enough.
So shout out and props to the Gamecocks. It was a well deserved win and championship victory on their part and how cool is that to win it all during such a historic season?
I’m sure Caitlin Clark will show up in this newsletter again and again. But for this week, let’s let the Gamecocks have their moment.
Random pro wrestling thought of the week
WrestleMania weekend came and went and it was all pretty cool but if I could just lay down one minor complaint, I would like to say that it’s too much wrestling. I know, what kind of fan am I? Too much? You can never have too much, right? But there was so much wrestling/wrestling adjacent programming this weekend, on top of TWO NIGHTS of 4 hour WrestleMania’s, I’m lucky I found time to watch the NCAAW basketball championship in that timeframe.
If you’re really into it, you’re pretty much giving up an entire weekend of your life and I don’t wanna do that, it just feels like too much. It’s like leave work on Friday, watch wrestling two nights in a row, and boom, I’m back to work. What happened to my weekend? Did I really spend it all watching Cody Rhodes finish his story?? What about my story?
I know that 2 night WrestleMania is still a relatively new concept, but it’s a Pandora’s box and once it was opened, there’s no going back. And I find that to be kinda a bummer. I liked WrestleMania more when it was one rad detail of my weekend, not the ONLY rad detail of my weekend.
The roster is too big. WWE is able to fill up 2 nights (3 nights if you count NXT) every week with storylines. It’s just too much to contain in one night of WrestleMania I suppose. Maybe next year I’ll protest one of the nights and do something else that’s non-wrestling related for fun.
I suppose I could comment or acknowledge the whole dumb CM Punk drama going on right now with AEW and security footage but I’d rather not. I’d rather highlight what was my favorite moment this past Mania weekend, and that’s Bayley winning the Women’s Championship (Sami Zayn winning the IC Championship comes in a very close 2nd Place).
Top 5 Defunct Retail Chains I’d Like To Invest In To Help Topple The Stock Market
1- KB Toys
2- Sam Goody
3- Blockbuster (yea I know, there’s one left. But you get my drift here)
4- FuncoLand
5- PayLess ShoeSource
Weekly Quote
“I spent a lot of time alone, but I was rarely lonely because I like my own brain.”
-Greta in ‘Big Swiss,’ by Jen Beagin
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UPCOMING SHOWS
Fri, 4/19, 9:30pm
NEXT HELL YEA! ALERT
Wawa Social Club,
North Bergen, NJ
Sat, 4/20
Branchburg, NJ
Thur, 4/25
This is at a “secret” venue. I’m not supposed to tell you where it is unless you directly inquire within.
Sat, 5/18
Smush Gallery
Jersey City, NJ