If You Don't Got Mojo Nixon Then Your Store Could Use Some Fixin'

The Josh Wells Weekly, Episode 234

Feb 09, 2024

This newsletter is free however if you like the content and you think it’s worthy of any sort of gratuity, feel free to drop a donation to:

Venmo:

@joshwells666

or Cash App:

@joshaintfunny

No pressure. Now, on with the newsletter.

Me roasting my good friend, Jason Scott, who just turned 40. Despite the fact that all we did was say a bunch of mean things about each other, it was a fun night.

Random Thought

My sober month got off to a weird start. If I’m being honest, I wasn’t even totally ready for a sober month. January moved so quickly and on the 31st I was just sorta like, “if not now, when?” Because the weather’s only gonna get nicer and if I’m gonna sacrifice a month maybe it should be one of the early months when the weather’s still shitty.

Speaking of which, just looked at the forecast for this weekend and it’s gonna be high 40’s-mid 50’s with sunshine. Super nice for February. Last weekend’s weather was pretty nice too. It’s like nature knows I’m sober and trying to rub it in. At this rate, since I’ll be allowing myself to drink again in March, expect blizzards and locusts next month.

But anyways, about that weird start. On the third night of the month, I got pulled over coming home from a comedy thing. I don’t get pulled over a whole lot so I’m not even good with pullover protocol. I pulled over to the side of the road and turned my car off. Are we supposed to turn our cars off? I have no idea. The cop talked to me through the passenger side window and that was a first but maybe it’s because we were on the right shoulder of a highway? Anyways, he asked if I knew why he pulled me over and I didn’t. He told me I had a broken brake light (actually, he told me I had a broken brake light, was driving a little out of the lines in the center lane, and my license plate holder was blocking the bottom of my license plate which seems unimportant to me since you can still see the number and the state… ANYWAYS).

I assume mostly it was the broken brake light though that did me in. Brake and taillights are the worst. I never know when they’re out. I usually only find out when someone else tells me, a friend, another driver. I’m never on top of that part of my car I can’t see while I’m driving. But fair enough, laws are laws. But unbeknownst to me, my registration had also expired. This really bummed me out because I’m usually great at staying on top of these things but in this case I had slipped up and now here I was driving an unregistered vehicle.

The cop gave me two tickets (lamp maintenance, driving an unregistered vehicle). He then made a pretty cool cop gesture and said, “I want you to pull into that parking lot over there. I’m gonna leave in a few minutes. Wait a few minutes after that and then decide what it is you gotta do. I’m not gonna babysit you, just do what you gotta do.” Which I assume meant, ‘chill for a few minutes and then drive home as inconspicuous as possible,’ which is what I did. I made it home safe and immediately scheduled an appointment to renew my registration at the NJ MVC asap.

There’s a few minor bummers here that kinda sucked. The tickets of course. Having to go to the MVC to renew my registration (you can renew online AS LONG as you do it before it expires which I did not qualify for). I had to go to the MVC for the first time since before the Pandemic and it’s changed a lot. It’s more organized but a big bummer is that only certain MVC’s do certain roles now. I live right around the corner from a MVC. I can throw a rock and hit it from where I live. But they don’t renew registrations there so I had to go to another one instead. Not to mention the money I would spend on tickets, registration, and new brake bulbs (the brake bulbs are stupid cheap though).

But on the bright side, the cop didn’t have my car towed. He could have and he let me know that. That would’ve quickly added hundreds of dollars to the situation and way more headaches. So while it sucks to get pulled over in the first place, I still feel some kind of personal responsibility to show gratitude in this situation. Murphy’s law says what can go wrong will go wrong and at this moment in my life, that law did not apply. It’s not the brightest of silver linings, but I’ll take it.

But when I’m sober, especially in the beginning, I feel way more fragile. I sorta spiraled mentally for a day or two. I was all like, “stupid me for not keeping up on things,” and, “stupid cop but wait he’s not stupid because he sorta let me go with not towing me,” and so if the cop’s not stupid then I double down on me again and then it’s, “stupid laws,” “stupid universe,” and I think you get it… it’s a whole vicious cycle and the only thing that got me out of it was going through the motions and renewing my registration. I felt a great sense of relief after that. All felt right with the world again, if just for that moment.

Usually when I do a sober month, my best days are the first few days because I’m fully charged and motivated to prove I can avoid drinking for an entire month. That usually dissipates a bit somewhere in that 7-10 day range which is where I’m at now and suddenly this feels like the new, “I can do this shit,” phase. So I guess that’s kinda nice.

Anyways, I got a gig that’s an hour’s drive away tonight so wish me luck (don’t wish me luck. I wrote this yesterday and that drive already happened and if something crazy happened on that drive, I’d have added it here before sending it out for you to read. But if you were gonna wish me luck just because I said so, stay rad).

Jinx’s reaction when I told her the above story about getting pulled over.

Movie I Watched Recently

Young Adult

(Prime)

Spoilers abound. I like to think I usually do a decent job of trying not to spoil things but I have failed here and so you have been warned.

So I stumbled across this movie because the blurb presented it as being about someone in their upper 30’s struggling with their position in life. She’s struggling with finishing up a young adult book series she authors and she comes across a child announcement from an ex-boyfriend in her hometown and she follows this distraction to go back home for a visit.

Mavis, played by Charlize Theron, is kinda an awful person. And maybe 30-40 minutes into the movie I thought, there’s nothing I like about Mavis. In fact, the only thing I connect with her as a character are things I don’t like about myself. She seems to wear all that stuff on her sleeves.

Her full intentions were to go back home and somehow steal her ex-boyfriend back who is happily married and JUST had a baby. It’s like a Hallmark movie on acid or maybe the anti-romcom. And that’s when I kinda started to dig this movie. At quick glance you might think it’s a romcom, but it’s everything a romcom isn’t. It focuses on someone who is selfish and overconfident and who is willing to ruin the lives of others to get what she wants.

There’s a point in this movie where Mavis makes a big time fool out of herself. It’s at the “baby naming ceremony” which I guess is a thing some people do after the baby is born? I don’t know. This dude’s entire family is there. Mavis’s own parents are there. And she still tries to hook up with her ex-boyfriend. Meanwhile her ex’s new wife is super supportive of Mavis and super nice to her but a thing happens and they get into it and Mavis looks like a really bad person.

But in this moment, which should be her lowest, she gets some kind of closure. She realizes she moved out of this town for a reason. It sucks and her life in the big city as an author is much cooler and maybe she needed to do this to be reminded of that. No more hometown for her. And with that real life closure, she was able to find the inspiration to put the closure on her young adult book series, which was about a selfish, overconfident high school student.

Patton Oswalt’s in this movie too. He plays Matt, a local who wasn’t popular in high school (surprise, Mavis was). They form a kinda twisted bond over drinking and talking shit about others and sometimes each other.

TV show I’m currently watching

My So-Called Life

(Hulu)

After not watching any episodes for a couple weeks, I got a few episodes in this week. Must be sober February. Suddenly I got the time.

I gotta start off with mentioning how the Christmas episode is definitely the most incredible episode of the series I’ve seen so far. It’s powerful and emotional. It hit me pretty hard in the feels and I wasn’t ready for it. They even skipped the usual opening for this episode because I guess they knew shit was just too serious.

Ricky is homeless. A homeless angel is watching over him. Angela’s family is teetering back and forth on whether they should take Ricky in. Angela wants to help. Rayanne says let him be. All of this is happening with the holiday season happening in the background. It was really well done. I had to text a friend who I know is a fan of the show immediately after and be like, “holy shit, that Christmas episode of My So-Called Life.” And she knew exactly what I meant.

There was an episode where Rayanne quit drinking and I really enjoyed that episode. Rayanne is probably my favorite character on this show and it was cool to see an episode very focused on her. It kinda bummed me out though when she relapses at the very end. And it wasn’t even a crazy relapse. Some dude gives her a sip of beer and that’s all we see and I’m about three episodes past that and they haven’t acknowledged it yet. So I don’t really know if Rayanne is still sober and just fucked up that one time or is completely off the wagon.

Angela and Jordan broke up but they seem to have a pretty good friendship now and it honestly seems less toxic for both of them so I think that might be a good thing.

Is Angela’s dad going to cheat on Angela’s mom with the now-divorced chick from his cooking class who hired him to be a cook at her restaurant? That’s not good. Angela’s mom annoys me a whole bunch but I don’t wanna see her get cheated on.

That’s it for now. This show has become a complete soap opera and sometimes I wonder if I’m really into it. But it’s good enough that I keep going.

This is the homeless ghost/angel (played by Juliana Hatfield). This episode was so good that I let it slide when they made the big reveal. But if this episode had been any weaker, I probably would’ve been like, “she’s a ghost? GTFOH with that!” But well played MSCL, well played.

Album of the Week

The Complicators (self titled) / The Complicators

Funny thing about this band, any time I begin to type their name into Spotify, ‘Complicated,’ by Avril Lavigne, comes up in the results. Avril has the market on any form of the word, ‘complicate,’ cornered.

I was just out on the internet looking for something new and punk and came across this. They’re apparently from the Bay Area (California) but if you would’ve asked me to guess based just on their sound, there’s no way I would’ve thought this kind of music was bathing in California sunshine. This album sounds like a black eye or an alleyway fight. It’s street punk. It’s rigid and ugly (these are compliments btw in a punk rock sense). When I listen to it, it’s almost like there’s no color in the spectrum of the sound. It’s gritty black and white. I wanna say it’s punk the way punk’s supposed to be but then again, who am I to say what punk is supposed to be? But it’s definitely got a classic, dirty punk rock vibe. If you wanna hear something with a little grime on it, look no further. This is your fix.

Upcoming Releases - The Complicators - The Complicators | Punk Rock Theory

The more I stare at this album cover, the more I like it. But at first glance, it’s ugly. Probably a good metaphor for the Complicators’ listening experience.

Book I’m Currently Reading

I didn’t read anything this week (except for internet articles and whatnot). I finished that last book and was caught with no new books to read. I’ve since remedied that situation and bought some new books to read so this section shouldn’t be empty again for a long while.

Random sports thought of the week

The Taylor Swift effect.

I feel like maybe I haven’t talked about this yet or maybe I have and I just forgot. But since we’re on the precipice of the Super Bowl and the Chiefs made it, this will probably be my last time to share my opinion on the matter. Well really, this shouldn’t be a matter at all. Travis Kelce just so happens to date someone super famous and that super famous person is supportive of him and goes to a lot of his games. Her super fame leads to several camera shots throughout the games which in turn has oddly drawn more people to football than even before, which is crazy because the NFL is already super popular.

I don’t really know if people get mad about the Taylor Swift thing. I hear people say that other people are mad about it but I don’t think I’ve encountered anyone firsthand who is against it. But if those people are out there, it just seems like a weak thing to be mad about. Go turn on a news channel if you really want something to be mad about.

Far be it for me to endorse mainstream pop culture noise, but isn’t it kinda nice that the world’s most famous popstar is dating a popular player in America’s most popular sport and the team he’s on just happens to be one of the best and playing for the championship? This is as close as we get to fairy tales. I’m very apathetic to all of it personally but if someone else is enjoying it, then that’s super cool. I’m not gonna rain on their parade.

So I guess that’s why I feel compelled to write about it. I’m just anti-raining on parades. Let people enjoy things, especially if those things don’t hurt you. Happy Super Bowl weekend to football fans and Swifties alike. I just hope everyone has a fun time.

Super Bowl Pick:

Kansas City Chiefs. They got momentum. They got Mahomes. They got one of the greatest NFL coaches of all time, Andy Reid. And let’s never forget, they got the Swifties.

Also… still bitter about the 49ers beating the Lions.

Chiefs owner, Patrick Mahomes' mom say Taylor Swift has brought in whole new audience to NFL | Fox News

She’s having fun! Disgusting!

Random pro wrestling thought of the week

So when it comes to wrestling, a lot of times I don’t wanna write about what everyone else is writing about. If you’re a wrestling fan, you’re probably inundated with articles, videos, and opinions about The Rock/Cody Rhodes/Roman Reigns. The main event at WrestleMania looms large and the way The Rock’s been thrown into the mix has sorta turned it into a bit more of a frenzy than usual.

I think eventually, maybe in the next few weeks, the dust will settle. We’ll have concrete main events (for both Night 1 and 2) and things will begin to make more sense. So instead of telling you what I think while we’re in the middle of all the development, I’m just gonna let things happen and have opinions in hindsight.

But what I’d really like to turn my focus on is the upcoming retirement of Sting. Sting’s run in AEW has been incredible to watch. As a fan, I’ve enjoyed it so much. The pairing with the young, brooding, face-painting upstart Darby Allin has been almost pitch perfect. It’s been fun to watch Sting take on this role of mentor who can still go in the ring and take a chair shot and fuck you up old man style. He’s had some wild spots, jumping off of high things and whatnot and I’m sure it’s all been planned very well because if you’re the dude he’s jumping on from high above, you’re probably like, “holy shit, the legendary Sting is suicide diving onto me. I BETTER make sure I break his fall.”

When Sting left WWE, I thought for sure that was it and that was the last we’d ever see of him wrestling. AEW has booked Sting sparingly in matches and always in a tag team format so he’s never carrying the load of an entire match on his own. It’s been very well done and whenever he’s booked, it’s usually one of the best matches of the night (and why wouldn’t it be? I feel like anyone else in that match is super stoked to be in there with Sting and giving it their best).

Sting and Darby recently won the tag team titles in AEW so it looks like they’ll be going into the next PPV, Sting’s final match, as tag team champions. I feel like AEW can’t possibly mess this up. Just give the fans what they want and Sting what he deserves, the super happy ending. Let Sting and Darby beat the Bucks. Let Sting retire as a champ. Let Sting’s final performance be a triumphant one.

Backstage Details On Sting & Darby Allin's AEW Tag Team Championship Victory - WrestleTalk

LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Top 5 Sober Beverages

1- Water

2- Coffee

3- Arizona Green Tea

4- Hot Green Tea

5- Ginger Ale

Weekly Quote

This week we lost Mojo Nixon, a beloved singer, songwriter, and country fried maniac. I came across this obituary/statement regarding his death and thought it’s possibly the best obituary statement I’ve ever read. Die how you live.

The Mojo Manifesto' Movie Recounts the Controversies of Mojo ...

*This week’s newsletter title is from the Dead Milkmen Song, ‘Punk Rock Girl.’

Thanks for reading!

Share it with your friends! Make sure to follow me on Twitter and Instagram:

@joshaintfunny

If you haven’t seen it yet, please go to Youtube and give my 40th birthday comedy set a spin, and while you’re at it, a like, a comment, or a share would be appreciated and goes a long way as well. If you’re feeling really crazy, hit subscribe… no pressure.