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The nieces saying goodbye to Uncle Josh. This warms my dumb heart so much.
Random Thought
I’ve never purchased a mirror in my entire life. The other day I was at Target in the mirror aisle. I wasn’t totally committed to buying a mirror but as of late, I’ve really dialed in on how the mirrors in my apartment aren’t very good. I have three altogether.
The worst one is my bathroom mirror. It’s small and low. My bathroom was not built for a 6’7” person so any time I wanna take a peek at my teeth, hair, or whatever, I have to bend down. I might be the only person you know who walks into a hotel bathroom and goes, “whoa, I can see my whole self in this mirror.”
The second worst one was gifted to me by my ex-neighbor who no longer lives there. He was a wild guy but in an awesome way but he moved which is sad. He was like my own personal Cosmo Kramer but maybe I’ll write a thing about him on another day. He would just knock on my door for random things. Sometimes he’d ask me if I had weed or beer. Sometimes he’d offer me some of his weed or beer. One time he offered me a fish he caught. On one occasion he offered me a desk because I guess he just bought a new one and I’m actually typing this at that desk as we speak. He also offered me a mirror for whatever reason and this was very early into my living here and I didn’t have any mirrors (except for the bathroom mirror) so I took it.
The least worst one, honestly, I don’t even remember where it came from. Come to think of it, it may have been in one of the closets when I moved in. But it’s also just as likely that one of my ex’s I used to live with left it behind. Who knows for sure? The only thing I know for certain is I didn’t purchase it. It is the best mirror in my home but it’s still not very good. It’d help if it was somewhat taller and wider. If I’m looking to take mirror selfies, this is the one I’ll use. I’m not a big mirror-selfie guy but that may be due to the fact that all my mirrors are mediocre at best.
I’ll think about my mirror situation sometimes and I’ll have conflicting thoughts. Sometimes I’ll think that it’s time to upgrade my mirror game. Other times I’ll think it takes a certain amount of vanity to think I need a new mirror that gives me a better reflection even though I already have three.
Also, sometimes I’ll think, fuck mirrors. Stop looking at them. I’ve seen things online, like 30 day no-mirror challenges and whatnot. We’re so obsessed with ourselves in our selfie culture. I feel like checking myself out might be detrimental to me. Why am I so concerned with how I look? It is what it is and most of the time a mirror just reflects something I don’t like about myself. That might be more on me than the mirror, but still, why feed into it?
So anyways, I was at Target the other day in the mirror aisle. I was just curious. Then I suddenly had this epiphany that I’d never actually bought a mirror before and I thought at age 44 maybe that’s kinda weird, I don’t know for sure. But I was looking at the prices and I was kinda surprised how pricey mirrors were. It’s just something I’ve never looked into. I’m not sure what I was expecting but I guess the concept of a piece of glass that shows my reflection is cheaper in my head than in the real world.
I didn’t buy a mirror, not that day. My guess is I will soon though. That’s how new purchases work sometimes. First you window shop and investigate. That’ll leave you with something to think about. The seed is now planted. I suppose it’s just a matter of time till I break this threshold of the human experience and buy my very first mirror.
But until then, I’ll seek the mediocre views of these three letdowns:
bathroom mirror:
Crazy neighbor mirror:
the least worst mirror (w/ Jinx cameo):
I wanted to include a thing about how living alone, I feel like maybe I depend on the mirror a little too much sometimes. Like my existence here isn’t fully validated until I can see my own reflection and confirm it. With no other witnesses, sometimes it feels like there’s no other proof that I’m even here at all.
Movies I Watched Recently
Pain Hustlers
(Netflix)
So this was a pretty good movie based on a true story. There’s this company that sells pain medication for cancer patients. The medication contains fentanyl and it’s the year 2011 so fentanyl doesn’t have the same amount of bad press that it does now. Anyways, the company is not doing very well and they’re on the verge of collapse. Then they hire a new sales employee and everything changes.
Her name is Liza and she gets the idea to start bribing doctors which is actually illegal. But it’s not direct money bribes. It’s more like throwing parties at hotels and showing doctors a good time and in turn the doctors start peddling their medication (still illegal but easier to get away with).
The whole scheme works out really well and the company starts to take off. To capitalize on their success, they try to figure out ways to make even more money. That’s when things start to get very ethically questionable. At first, they sold the medication exclusively for people with severe cases of cancer who had nowhere else to turn and were just looking for pain relief. But eventually the company would start pushing it on less serious cases of cancer and eventually anyone who was in any type of pain at all.
This movie has the whole rise and fall of a great money scheme. There’s even a moment or so when I found myself sorta rooting for them. Like hey, they’re providing pain relief for people who can’t get it anywhere else. Maybe that’s okay. But then they push it and things get out of control.
Andy Garcia should be in the promo stuff. He crushes in this movie. But ultimately it is Liza’s story (played by Emily Blunt) and they do a very good job of humanizing her. It’s a real rags-to-riches story. She also has a daughter who has her own serious medical problems so Liza is easy (and at times fun) to root for.
TV shows I’m currently watching
Atlanta
(Hulu)
Atlanta or a tale of two shows. One is about the rapper Paper Boi, his manager/cousin Earn, and their homie Darius (and Vanessa too sometimes). On that show, the crew is still in Europe, Amsterdam specifically. Paper Boi just had a bad trip that may lead to some heavy revelations, like do Earn and Darius have his best interests in mind? I’m almost at the end of Season 3, I just have the finale to go and the way this show works, I don’t really know what to expect. Will anything get resolved? Is there anything to resolve? I guess I’ll find out.
The other Atlanta is more like Black Mirror but like if Black Mirror just wanted to make episodes that scare white people. I’m not complaining. I find the subject matter interesting and intriguing. What makes it more interesting is how these episodes are peppered periodically in between what seems to be a completely different TV show. It’s bizarre but entertaining. I said it last week, but it keeps me on my toes and that’s a fun thing.
I wish there was one image I could use to encapsulate the vibe of the second side of Atlanta, the Black Mirror-ish side. This probably doesn’t do it however this is an image of this well-to-do white family attending the wake of their Trinidadian nanny, Sylvia. Sylvia’s family begin to yell at each other and fight one another and the white family tries to sneak out and suddenly one of Sylvia’s family members yells, “Stop! You’re scaring the white people!” This image is of them busted, trying to sneak out, offering some awkward excuse before completing their uncomfortable exit.
Jeopardy Invitational Tournament
Or the JIT as the cool kids call it…
Jeopardy is currently in the midst of an Invitational Tournament where they invite a collection of past champions to compete in a tournament where the winner will compete in Jeopardy Masters later on this year.
This is a fun collection of champions. There’s Austin the bartender who may be the first multi-time champion I enjoyed during the Pandemic (I don’t think he played during the Pandemic though, that was just when I happened to watch his episodes when Jeopardy was on Netflix).
There’s also some of my favorites from the very recent past like Andrew He, Sam Buttrey (“bring it!”) and of course, the most dominant champ in recent memory, Amy Schneider. Amy feels inevitable. She sorta underwhelmed at last year’s Masters and this feels like her opportunity to correct that.
But the competition is fierce. The Daily Doubles are insane. Everyone is doing a true Daily Double all the time. It’s intense.
Austin with the best Final Jeopardy answer ever: "What is how can I beat Amy? Round of (well only) shots on me!" (He’s a bar owner.)
Album of the Week
This Is All We Ever Get / Spaced
This was a very fun, spirited, youthful foray into current hardcore music. Listening to this album made me wanna be young again. Maybe somewhere in my low to mid 20’s where I could mosh the entire night away and go home covered in other people’s sweat and completely rejuvenated.
I could never latch on to hardcore completely but I always need a fix here and there. I love the positive stuff that you find in hardcore a lot of the time and this album is crammed with it. The charge is lead by vocalist Lexi Reyngoudt who’s as loud and energetic in her vocals as the onslaught provided by the rest of the band. Spaced never really allows you room to breathe which is okay because the album is only about 16 minutes long. Just enough to get your fix.
I actually learned about this album a few weeks ago but between the name and the album cover (I was guilty of judging an album by its cover), I was worried it was gonna be some kind of stoner/prog thing. It very much isn’t. It’s the complete opposite. It’s a direct hit, no fooling around, get in or get out of the way.
The kids are alright.
Book I’m Currently Reading
Big Swiss / Jen Beagin
This is a fun and at times sloppy book (the book is not sloppy but the content is). Greta is a 40-something who just moved to Hudson, NY, an enclave for aging hipsters apparently, to sorta start over. She just had a long term relationship crumble in Cali but now she’s living in a dilapidated farmhouse (with her friend Sabine) that would give the house in Fight Club a run for its money in terms of falling apart.
She gets a job transcribing recorded conversations for a sex therapist named Om. The pay isn’t great but the work is interesting. She doesn’t know their identities but she knows their initials and voices. She starts to become obsessed with one patient who she lovingly nicknames, ‘Big Swiss,’ in her head. She eventually runs into Big Swiss at a dog park (she recognizes her voice) and they start a love affair.
Here’s the sloppy: Big Swiss is married so she’s cheating on her husband with Greta. But Swiss’s husband (Luke) is cheating on Swiss and she knows it (Luke doesn’t know that she knows though). Greta’s last relationship was with a guy so it’s sorta new ground for both of them (Greta does have some previous sexual experiences with women). On top of all of that, Swiss doesn’t know that Greta listens and transcribes her convos with Om (she knows they’re being recorded and transcribed though). And Greta is using a fake name (Rebekah) with Swiss.
This book was a bit of a slow starter but it’s starting to get real good now. Swiss and Luke just had Greta over for dinner. Luke is under the impression that they’re just friends and that her name’s Rebekah. Also, Luke dropped the bomb on Greta that he and Swiss are trying to get pregnant and that they’re going to Ecuador for two weeks soon. And that’s where I left off.
As I type this, it feels like a soap opera. Do I like soap operas now? Now?? Maybe forever. I do watch pro wrestling after all.
I assume this is an artistic rendering of Big Swiss.
Random sports thought of the week
I was one of the 12 million or so viewers who tuned in for the Iowa/LSU game this past Monday, and what a game it was. It lived up to the hype. Caitlin Clark played out of her mind but LSU was able to keep it close (and even had a lead at one point).
Part of me wonders if the story remains the same if LSU phenom, Angel Reese, didn’t get injured early in the game. She came back pretty quickly and she seemed to be okay as she played. But a part of me wondered if maybe she wasn’t at full capacity, like maybe there was another level to her game that we missed out on that night.
Either way, both teams left it out on the court and it was very entertaining to watch. Reese just declared that she’ll be entering the WNBA draft for next season. It’s exciting to see so much hype for women’s basketball. I hope the shared star power of Clark and Reese can help elevate the WNBA and all of women’s basketball into the future. It’d be great if we all kept paying attention and this all carries over into the WNBA next season.
They hugged it out. Pretty cool moment for women’s basketball. Reese and LSU already won their championship last year. It’d be cool if Clark and Iowa get it done this year but… still 1-2 more games to go. Anything can happen.
Random pro wrestling thought of the week
CM Punk said some wild anti-AEW things in an Ariel Helwani interview a few days ago and it’s overshadowing everything else in wrestling. I don’t wanna put it all on Punk, sometimes the wrestling internet can take things like that and blow it out of proportion. But I think it’s wild that it’s Mania season and this is what a lot of fans are talking about.
I’m sure Mania will be great and that the entire weekend in Philly will be a great weekend for pro wrestling in general. I don’t wanna copycat Adam Copeland’s super positive response to it all from Dynamite, but this is such a great time to be a wrestling fan. Why focus on the negative or let the drama prohibit us from some of the joy? Pro wrestling is undeniably better with an AEW in it. They’re obviously not a perfect company and they got issues (just like anywhere else got issues). But ultimately it’s a great vehicle to showcase great pro wrestlers who deserve to shine on TV and in front of live crowds.
I’m not anti-CM Punk. In fact, there was a time when Punk was my dude, probably my favorite dude in wrestling. And a lot of it was because he spoke his mind, said what he wanted to say, and always felt a bit more real than everything else (his penchant for punk rock stuff also helped make him relatable to me). So whenever the dude has a live mic in his hand, some shit is going to be said. Sometimes it’s great, actually most of the time it’s great. And the stuff he said on Helwani’s show was all super interesting.
My current beef is with fans seeing it as some kind of call to arms. Like it’s WWE vs AEW. You gotta like one and not the other. I like both. I’ll continue to like both. I think AEW has pushed WWE. WWE was stale and boring pre-HHH taking over creative. It was almost painfully obvious at one point in time that AEW was the more entertaining product (some of that being when CM Punk was a part of the AEW roster). WWE had to pick up its game. Competition makes everyone better.
I hope everyone has a great WrestleMania weekend. It should be a fun one. But don’t forget, AEW’s Dynasty is right around the corner and that’s looking to be a great PPV too. What a time to be a fan.
This picture aged well.
Top 5 Money Making Schemes
1- robbing banks
2- selling drugs
3- gambling
4- Ponzi scheme
5- being born to rich parents
Weekly Quote
“I’m direct,” Big Swiss admitted, “because I don’t care if people like me. I distrust people-pleasers. They seem phony to me, and dangerous.”
-Big Swiss in the book Big Swiss (by Jen Beagin)
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UPCOMING SHOWS
Fri, 4/19, 9:30pm
NEXT HELL YEA! ALERT
more info to come
Sat, 4/20
Willie McBride’s
Branchburg, NJ
Sat, 5/18, 8:30pm
Smush Gallery
Jersey City, NJ