Something comforting about living in Montreal is that the summers have the same sort of riverbed humid heat that I would experience in Toronto. I look forward to that heat all year and its sort of comforting that the same heat comes to visit me here.
My love of humid heat is contentious with most people I meet. Everyone hates summer because during winter you can always add more layers if you need to warm up, but in summer you just have to be hot. Everyone hates summer because they sweat and it makes them uncomfortable.
It's not like these are actual arguments or this is something that really bothers me, it's just that it comes up constantly. Everyone is surprised that I can like summer. It's strange. I thought everyone liked summer? Maybe that's because everyone in my family loves summer, so that's what I heard while growing up and this is one of those situations where I didn't my family wasn't like the ones around me. Putting that aside, why is it so strange that someone out in the world could feasibly prefer summer to winter?
I don't really know where I'm going with this, but was just thinking about how nice and hot out it is today and that's what followed.
People are just always shocked when I say that I don't care about being hot. I don't know what to say man, I just don't mind it.
I've been having a hard time writing lately and I think that a lot of it is due to me not being able to articulate just how dumb I think the world is. During the height of the uprisings all over North America (they are still going on), I tried to not say much because I didn't want to take up space. I'm now shocked to see people moving on so quickly. It really sucks. That all of this is against the backdrop of COVID now starting to take even more of a hold in the States is so fucked. Everything is fucked man.
Tuesday, June 30, 2020
Sunday, June 28, 2020
Wouldn't You Like to Get Away?
A couple of recent enthusiasms:
First, the TV show Search Party returned this week as a title on the HBO Max service. I adored the first two seasons of this show (as well as Charles Rogers' excellent movie Fort Tilden) and am glad to see it return after it bounced around in network limbo for a bit. It lands somewhere between noir and comedy but is told from a millennial point of view in a good way, balancing the “that’s fucked up, I wonder what will happen next” breadcrumb trail with over the top silliness. It’s hard for a show to do that while maintaining the integrity of both, but doing exactly that is Search Party’s calling card. Rebecca and I blew through the first two seasons of the show shortly after discovering it and the waiting for the next installment was tortuous at first. Then it inexplicably got dropped by TBS and I stopped thinking about when it would come back.
The good news is that it did and the third season they already in the can could then be quickly released. This season is a huge pivot tone-wise, moving from the more noir tendencies of the first two seasons to a courtroom drama this year. A lot of interesting new influences were brought in this time as well and it seems like the show is growing in a cool and interesting way. Kind of an 80s John Waters vibe to a lot of it, especially in looking at society’s obsession with celebrity and media with a healthy scoop of camp.
Really can’t recommend this show enough. After making a movie that completely sums up the millennial zeitgeist in Fort Tilden and following that with a show as sharp and well-paced as Search Party, it feels like Charles Rogers will be someone everyone will love in ten years. Also, he has one of my favourite accounts on Instagram and is so consistently hilarious.
Second, this week I finished an 8-year-long watch of Cheers.
Whenever I have a piece of media that I care deeply about, I always feel the need to write some long saccharine essay about it on IMU. I know that it’s fine and normal to do that, but part of me also feels kind of embarrassed after the fact about having these odes to TV shows and albums on here. For that reason, I’m currently resisting the urge about writing a long-winded thing about how Cheers weirdly hit me at the exact right time in my life and I formed a weird emotional bond with it right away.
I guess, just know that I did.
Yeah, I was sad and watched a lot of Cheers in the summer of 2012. It was a nice escape. Since then, I’ve on and off worked my way through the entire series, because watching all 275 episodes felt like something I had to do. It's from such a different time in sitcoms and the episodes go down like water. There’s something so satisfying about the by-the-numbers storylines, that seemingly every sitcom has a version of, and the premise-set up-punchline nature of every joke. Rebecca began to joke that Cheers was my go-to “happy show” that I would put on whenever I had a shitty day or needed something to pick me up. Sam and Diane forever.
In all eight years of going through it, I never skipped the theme once. The build up to the chorus gets me every time.
First, the TV show Search Party returned this week as a title on the HBO Max service. I adored the first two seasons of this show (as well as Charles Rogers' excellent movie Fort Tilden) and am glad to see it return after it bounced around in network limbo for a bit. It lands somewhere between noir and comedy but is told from a millennial point of view in a good way, balancing the “that’s fucked up, I wonder what will happen next” breadcrumb trail with over the top silliness. It’s hard for a show to do that while maintaining the integrity of both, but doing exactly that is Search Party’s calling card. Rebecca and I blew through the first two seasons of the show shortly after discovering it and the waiting for the next installment was tortuous at first. Then it inexplicably got dropped by TBS and I stopped thinking about when it would come back.
The good news is that it did and the third season they already in the can could then be quickly released. This season is a huge pivot tone-wise, moving from the more noir tendencies of the first two seasons to a courtroom drama this year. A lot of interesting new influences were brought in this time as well and it seems like the show is growing in a cool and interesting way. Kind of an 80s John Waters vibe to a lot of it, especially in looking at society’s obsession with celebrity and media with a healthy scoop of camp.
Really can’t recommend this show enough. After making a movie that completely sums up the millennial zeitgeist in Fort Tilden and following that with a show as sharp and well-paced as Search Party, it feels like Charles Rogers will be someone everyone will love in ten years. Also, he has one of my favourite accounts on Instagram and is so consistently hilarious.
Second, this week I finished an 8-year-long watch of Cheers.
Whenever I have a piece of media that I care deeply about, I always feel the need to write some long saccharine essay about it on IMU. I know that it’s fine and normal to do that, but part of me also feels kind of embarrassed after the fact about having these odes to TV shows and albums on here. For that reason, I’m currently resisting the urge about writing a long-winded thing about how Cheers weirdly hit me at the exact right time in my life and I formed a weird emotional bond with it right away.
I guess, just know that I did.
Yeah, I was sad and watched a lot of Cheers in the summer of 2012. It was a nice escape. Since then, I’ve on and off worked my way through the entire series, because watching all 275 episodes felt like something I had to do. It's from such a different time in sitcoms and the episodes go down like water. There’s something so satisfying about the by-the-numbers storylines, that seemingly every sitcom has a version of, and the premise-set up-punchline nature of every joke. Rebecca began to joke that Cheers was my go-to “happy show” that I would put on whenever I had a shitty day or needed something to pick me up. Sam and Diane forever.
In all eight years of going through it, I never skipped the theme once. The build up to the chorus gets me every time.
Tuesday, June 23, 2020
Maybe Today Will Be Curious
This evening I was supposed to meet up with a friend to have a hang at a park downtown. Because of a miscommunication, he didn't end up making it to the hang. It was a pretty big hike downtown for me and since COVID is still roaring, though everyone in Montreal seems content to ignore that, I did the journey across town on my skateboard. The skies opened up about five minutes after I left the house and by the time I got to Parc LaFontaine I was already soaked. The rain somehow continued to increase and eventually I got to the point where I didn't care about being wet anymore. Fortunately, out of all the things I had brought with me, the only things that stayed dry were the two joints that I had with me in my cigarette case. Smoked both, put on another album, and decided to take a moment.
Being in a hot rainstorm was comforting. The storm cleared out most of the people from the park, but a surprising amount of people hang around. There were pockets of people in cutoffs and tank tops just standing in the rain drinking beers, not caring because it was still hot out. Those types of things make me enjoy the city I live in. "Nothing will stop me from having a beer in the park. Not anything."
The skate home was much easier, since I was moving downhill away from the mountain. While I was smoking at the park, I had put on Daniel Romano's latest release Dandelion, as the psych-folk seemed like the best fit for the situation. Wearing completely soaked-through clothes with the rain clearing was euphoric.
A quick rating of Daniel Romano's insane quarantine output:
1. Dandelion
2. Visions of the Higher Dream
3. Content to Point the Way
4. Super Pollen
5. Daniel Romano's Outfit Do (What Could Have Been) Infidels By Bob Dylan & the Plugz
6. Spider Bite
7. Forever Love's Fool
Once Dan (yes, Duff and I have now ascended to the level of Romano Head where we've turned him into a mononym), ended I put on In the City by the Jam and that was an equally enjoyable thing. As much as I could, I danced on a skateboard.
Other recent enthusiasms:
Being in a hot rainstorm was comforting. The storm cleared out most of the people from the park, but a surprising amount of people hang around. There were pockets of people in cutoffs and tank tops just standing in the rain drinking beers, not caring because it was still hot out. Those types of things make me enjoy the city I live in. "Nothing will stop me from having a beer in the park. Not anything."
The skate home was much easier, since I was moving downhill away from the mountain. While I was smoking at the park, I had put on Daniel Romano's latest release Dandelion, as the psych-folk seemed like the best fit for the situation. Wearing completely soaked-through clothes with the rain clearing was euphoric.
A quick rating of Daniel Romano's insane quarantine output:
1. Dandelion
2. Visions of the Higher Dream
3. Content to Point the Way
4. Super Pollen
5. Daniel Romano's Outfit Do (What Could Have Been) Infidels By Bob Dylan & the Plugz
6. Spider Bite
7. Forever Love's Fool
Once Dan (yes, Duff and I have now ascended to the level of Romano Head where we've turned him into a mononym), ended I put on In the City by the Jam and that was an equally enjoyable thing. As much as I could, I danced on a skateboard.
Other recent enthusiasms:
Rebecca bought this book at the Drawn and Quarterly story in Montreal and immediately recommended it to me. A white guy having an interest in Jamaican culture is the most basic shit in history, but I must admit that I fall pray to it as well. My longstanding love of ska, rocksteady, and reggae was an avenue for me to learn about the vital contributions of Jamaicans to Toronto's history and culture and this book continues that. The story is about a teen aged girl balancing her overbearing relationship with her mother with her friendships and the weight of her family's needs. Great stuff.
Becks and I have used quarantine to dive into Veep and it is so insanely good. With the world falling apart at the seams around us, it's been oddly comforting to watch a show that focuses on just that. Turns out that laughing at how shitty the human race is is a good way to deal with how shitty the human race is.
My friends and I used to wonder how long it would take for Me Too to get to wrestling and it got there last week. I would say "Good riddance dicknose", but the sad reality is that most of these pricks will end up working again and the worst shit (LOOKING AT YOU JERRY LAWLER AND SHAWN MICHAELS AND VINCE MCMAHON) won't even come to light. It honestly makes it pretty hard for me to continue to watch wrestling. I stopped watching and supporting WWE years ago, but more and more it looks like the industry as a whole is just fucked and should go away. Even the voices who I really valued for bringing more progressive and inclusive views into wrestling, like Brandon Stroud and Joey Ryan, turned out to be predatory pieces of horseshit themselves. If even the good eggs turn out to be insidious creeps, then who even is worth supporting?
Speaking with white friends, it seems like most people have gotten burnt out reading the news and trying to find ways to help against systemic racism and police brutality. It's tough reading bad news, but the reality is that everyone needs to take a breath, dig in harder, and get back to it. Never stop reevaluating yourself, what you've said and what you've done. If you are white, you are part of the problem. You have to be strongly committed to anti-racism and it has to be a thing you think about constantly, especially in regards to what you do. There's never a hurdle where a white person is finally "good". Keep it up your whole life.
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