#i have a lot of problems with the edgy dudebro side of things and i dont appreciate comics who just punch down all the time

[amygdalae]

i dont really talk abt it on here but i quite enjoy stand up comedy

[raevenlywrites]

Okay, so. The point I wanted to make earlier was something like this:

TL;DR: Not knowing that hyperfixations were a thing hurt me, and cost me not only enjoyment of a thing, but more serious social and emotional growth potential. More kids need access to a broader range of what Normal is, and Normal needs to be opened up and expanded to include things that are perfectly harmless because the harm of excluding those things is immeasurable.

(Did I just put a tldr at the START of my post? why yes I did. why? because i’m about to drop this entire damned ESSAY under a read more because it’s dash destroying (think of it as an abstract on a scientific paper) ... (no, it is nothing like an abstract on a scientific paper. wtf did I say that) ... (anyways))

(Can you tell its an ADHD night? are there enough parenthetical asides in this yet?)

...

(no)

.

ANYWAYS

When I was a teen, I read a book called In The Forests Of The Night. I’m sure you’ve heard me mention it before, but believe it or not, it was only TONIGHT that it occurred to me that this book and its fellows is my hyperfixation. Because, for the first TWO THIRDS OF MY LIFE, I didn’t know to think of myself as someone with hyperfixations. Hell, I didn’t even know what a hyperfixation was. I am one of the countless adults who has self diagnosed as ADHD or autistic or SOMETHING, and this is the story of how not having a diagnosis growing up hurt me.

So. I read this book. My now-wife-then-unbeknownst-crush gave it to me as part of our ignorant teen courtship. You’ll like this, she said, trying to share an interest with me in order to bond. Thank you, I said, not knowing I wanted to smooch her face. Unimportant, but I like reminding myself when I look at back my teen years how queer I already was without knowing. And this story is mostly for my benefit of getting it off my chest, so smoochy thoughts included.

So I read this book. It’s short, 200 pages or so, and if I’m honest with myself as an informed adult, nothing spectacular. It’s not bad, but its not ground breaking. None of the books are. But they broke new ground in Me, and what grew out of them has literally shaped the course of my entire personality.

Raev, I hear you say, it’s not great to base your entire personality on a bit of pop culture.

Shut up, I said, I’m telling this story and anyways insert-edgy-media-here dudebros have been doing it forever. Anyways.

So I read this book. I read it again, and again. I read all the books that went with it, but I stayed especially hung up on Forests. Why? Partially because it was the first one I read. Partially because the MC and I share a name, and therefore in my little teen head a connection. It was the first time “Rachel” felt like an identity, instead of just an identifier, and one that way too many of my classmates shared. Rachel was a badass, stifled by her Christian upbringing and the expectations of the day on women. I was a badass, stifled by my Christian upbringing and the expectations of the day on women. Rachel became a vampire, spiteful and spitfire the entire way. She did it on her own terms (so my teen reading of the text went), spurning every attempt of her kind to show her the ways of the vampire. She had a nemesis, a clear, concrete reason for her pain, and took charge of that pain and overcame it to be a complete and utter badass by the end of the book (again, so my teen reading went. Part of the problem here was my teenness. Part of it was my neurodivergence, which I will get to (you didn’t think this would be a SHORT story, did you? I warned you I have ADHD and that this was my hyperfixation; how did you think this was gonna go?))

So I identified heavily with the protag, and with its shocking author. This lifechanging book was written by a teen, like me! Holy cats, I said to myself, why, if she can do it, so can I! I had just started writing my own first novel (a shameless retelling of Star Wars, hyperfixation of my grade school years), and immediately trashed it to write my own vampire thing. Because vampires were clearly IT and I was gonna be a cool badass author hero, just like the MC of the second book.

Then the shapeshifter books came out, and so did I.

It’s really unrelated, but that was a fun transition, and as previously stated, author-type. Anyways.

So I came out to my girlcrush, angsted about that a lot, and continued to gobble up the books. Did you know there’s a website, she said. There’s like a whole fan community and everything.

Now, part of the problem here was being part of the first generation on the internet. It was relatively new, and so stranger danger and not being entirely comfortable on the internet and all that had its part to play. But this is also where the hyperfixation finally comes into play.

I liked Nyeusigrube A LOT. A lot a lot. So much so that I made my own conlang, my own mythos, my own entire story universe patterned after this one but not exactly this one. For whatever reason, it never occurred to me to self-insert, just to shamelessly copy. That one I can’t explain, but this one I can now understand through the lens of an adult.

Nyeusigrube was my especially special interest, and I had no idea that was a normal, healthy thing.

So tangled up in all this was my raised-too-conservative freak out about being Not Straight. I had finally figured out I liked girlfriend, if not that I was incredibly bisexual yet, and that was a Big Deal. Super cool author I hero-worshiped was one of those “Do I want to BE her or just want her?” kind of idolations, but again, didn’t know that at the time either. So these two very normal things that I knew NOTHING about were getting tangled together in a rat king of Issues with a generous slathering of Shame glue to hold them all together. Add to it the paranoia/RSD/general not-great-at-social sides of my neurodivergence, and basically I had decided I was Too Weird and liked this book Too Much and if I so much as LOOKED at the websites/forums/etc, everyone would know and that would be Bad.

Did I have a clear idea of how that would look? Not really? I didn’t need to. Just the thought of checking out the fansites was enough to send me into a panicking guilt/shame spiral about how much I enjoyed the books. Everyone will KNOW, I thought, and it will be BAD. The End. It was Not Normal how much I liked the books and I will freak everyone out.

So.

If I had just KNOWN that hyperfixations were a thing, I might have still felt weird, but I don’t think I would have AGONIZED (and I do mean fucking AGONIZED) over how shockingly Not Normal my level of interest went. I might have still felt bad, because I didn’t have a diagnosis, and therefore probably wouldn’t have given myself permission of admit I had a hyperfixation, but at least I wouldn’t have wallowed in ignorance. Now, if I’d had the knowledge and the diagnosis, I probably would have still been too shy to interact, but I wouldnt’ have wasted hours of my life in panicked/guilt/shame spirals. If I’d have a diagnosis and a support group? If I’d had a diagnosis and been raised with the normalization of being queer? If I’d had medication, role models, a safe place to open up and communicate, so on and so on? Like, you get the idea, right?

I consider myself immeasurably lucky that my love of writing and vampires and high school girlfriend survived all this. (My equally intense boy crush of the time did not (not because I don’t like boys but because I fell down another hyperfixation spiral and no PERSON should ever be subjected to that but I digress)). As I said, this is my especially special hyperfixation. I can’t imagine how many hours of enjoyment I might have gotten out of the forums, the fan arts, the roleplaying groups, the FRIENDSHIPS, my gods, can you imagine the friendships? Anyways, what I’m really saying is that it caused me real emotional Pain and Trauma, thinking something was Wrong with me for my level of interest. A lot of people have regrets about like not trying out for the team or not asking so and so out or whatever, but mine is a stupid fansite. I have deep and palpable regrets about letting my fear and shame keep me from something so harmless and silly, and as I said before I don’t think I have a concise or tidy ending, but this was what I wanted to say on the matter so there it is.

TL;DR: (hey, didn’t you already post this part? Yes, yes I did. I’m doing it again, but this time its the In Conclusion bit instead of the summary bit) ...(abstract. they’re called abstracts)...(this is still FAR from a scientific paper) (ANYWAYS) Not knowing that hyperfixations were a thing hurt me, and cost me not only enjoyment of a thing, but more serious social and emotional growth potential. I was stunted and harmed by this lack of education, and I guess my point is I hope no one else has to go through that. If my stupid little story can fix a thing, I want it to be that. More kids needs access to a broader range of what Normal is, and Normal needs to be opened up and expanded to include things that are perfectly harmless because the harm of excluding those things is immeasurable. Thank you for coming to my TED talk

[weedle-testaburger]

Me again, I'm sure you'll agree but I fucking HATE when armchair morons on YouTube make cynicism, edginess and bitching their whole personality (and nitpicking), like ALL of it, people like the critical drinker (a misogynistic MORON with NO understanding of film theory or criticism, I would know because I've studied that shit!) and their ilk. It's repulsive and sickening. They also all try to copy mr plinkett, I've mentioned that before though.

Oh absolutely, a lot of them don't want good media they want bad media they can bitch about and think complaining makes them critics. Honestly if I had to pin down the problem with YouTube media criticism it'd be that it's all opinion-as-fact. It's never 'I liked/didn't like X' (aside from like Jenny Nicholson's 'I didn't like Joker' video- side note, what is it with dudebros aggressively defending that movie every time someone has a bad word to say about it?), it's always 'X is bad/went bad because I say so'. Like just admit even though you didn't like a thing doesn't mean it's objectively bad and anyone who does like it is stupid or has bad taste, do you really have such a fragile ego you can't do that?

[autisticlaezel]

bitter questions asks

I wasn’t actually tagged but I saw @fuckbioware do it and I thought I’d give it a shot

I’m doing this for Dragon Age and swtor.

What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get?

Smuggler/Corso. Jedi Knight/Doc. Doc/Quinn

Are there any popular fandom OTPs you only BroTP?

Torian/Bounty Hunter (though only bc my BH is a lesbian and like ten years older than Torian). Vette/Sith Warrior.

Have you ever unfollowed someone over a fandom opinion?

Oh absolutely. The swtor fandom has a lot of “fascism is okay, actually” which is. Not something I want to deal with obviously. The DA fandom has a similar thing with feudalism and blaming oppressed classes for their oppression (mages, elves.)

Do you have a NoTP in your fandom? Are they a popular OTP?

LS Jedi/Lana Beniko (I love Lana but. No. No, no, no). Theron/Lana. Koth/Lana. Doc/Quinn (especially because a lot of the stuff I’ve seen with them has Doc continously flirting with a visibly uncomfortable Quinn which. Is in character for him but still fucking gross).

Cullen/Amell. Cullen/Surana. Cullen/Hawke. Cullen/Mage Inquisitor. Cullen/Dorian. You get the pattern.

Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?

F!Sith Warrior/Pierce, because of the amount of fic there is out there with the SW revenge cheating on Quinn with Pierce which is um. Gross.

Fenris/Anders. It’s not so much that I hate the concept, as it’s that I hate the execution of it. It’s almost always written as emotionally abusive, and on occasion, physically abusive as well. It almost always paints one of them as like the most terribly evil person to ever exist and the other one as a Sweet Innocent Baby Who Can Do No Wrong uwu.

Has fandom ever made you enjoy a pairing you previously hated?

I don’t think so? It’s made me consider pairings that I wasn’t otherwise interested it, but never made me like one that I didn’t.

Is there anything you used to like but can’t stand now?

The Hinterlands. Belsavis. The Deep Roads. The Fade.

Have you received anon hate? What about?

Yeah but rarely about fandom. Usually people are just upset that I hate men lmao.

Most disliked character(s)? Why?

Doc. Corso. DS!Jaesa. Lord Scourge.

Cullen. Aveline. Arl Eamon.

Most disliked arc? Why?

Aveline’s personal quest. Sera’s romance quest (imagine thinking that it’s a good idea to force you to walk around and listen to people talk shit about your girlfriend without being able to defend her to progress in her romance).

Imperial Taris. Most of the Jedi Knight Story. With Warrior Alderaan.

Is there an unpopular character you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why?

Koth Vortena. Satele Shan. Felix Iresso. LS!Jaesa. Ashara Zavros (?? I’ve seen a lot of people calling her whiny and complaining about not being able to seduce her to the Dark Side). Vaylin.

Vivienne. Blackwall (??). Sera. Anders. Merrill. Velanna. Carver Hawke.

Is there an unpopular arc that you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why?

I’m not sure? Not that I know of.

Unpopular opinion about XXX character?

Anders was right. Anders was right. Anders was right. Anders was right.

Unpopular opinion about your fandom?

The swtor fandom is generally pretty horrible. It’s full of fascism apologists, people who think that glorifying abuse is Cool Actually, treats any character that dares challenge them when they do objectively evil shit as absolute crap. And that’s just the Tumblr side of the fandom, because then of course there are the dudebros who dress their female companions in slave outfits.

Also people treat healers like shit in PVP arenas.

The DA fandom has a lot of the same issues. There’s also so much homophobia there.

Both fandoms have a racism problem as well.

Unpopular opinion about the manga/show/game?

Inquisition wasn’t that good.

The Jedi Consular story is one of the best ones, the fandom just doesn’t know how to appreciate something that isn’t Edgy and Dark(TM)

If you could change anything in the show, what would you change?

Let me be nice to Sera! Let me be nice to Sera!

Forcing Fenris back into slavery shouldn’t have been an option. I know that Bioware RPGs are about giving the player the power to make choices and all that, but that was absolutely taking it too far.

Koth deserved better writing and to not randomly disappear. Where is he Bioware??

Does not shipping something ‘popular’ mean you’re in denial and/or biased?

Um no.

What is the purest ship in the fandom?

Merrill/Isabela. Josephine/Isabela. Leliana/Warden. Hawke/Merrill. Hawke/Isabela. Inquisitor/Josephine.

What are your thoughts on crack ships?

Oh I’m very pro crackships.

Popular character you hate?

Cullen

Unpopular character you love?

Vivienne, Sera, Anders, Velanna, Carver. Koth. Felix. 

Would you recommend XXX to a friend? Why or why not?

Unfortunately yes.

Most shippable character?

Hawke, Isabela, Merrill, Anders. Varric.

Risha. Theron. Koth. 

Least shippable character?

Cullen. Doc.

And I tag (the usual gang):

@bastilashans @badsithnocookie @theebonhawke @atonerand @codariidoescrimes @micaldisciple @lordmalak @wolfdaddynedstark @sapphicsansas

[ct-hardcase]

me grumping about tlj and fandom under the cut in case anyone’s not into that sort of thing. [d*nt rb].

This isn’t even so much about tlj as much as it is fans who act like they’re oppressed for enjoying tlj--I know a lot of people dislike it too, but I’d say about 50% of the feedback I hear at this point if overwhelmingly positive--when nah, plenty of other big-name star wars fans enjoyed the movie very much and it earned a lot of money, and despite people like me grumping about it, it’s not going to go down as the worst movie in star wars history or anything. I tend to see less hate now, from my side of the fandom, mostly because most of us just stopped giving a shit (or, like me, only occasionally give a shit) and so we moved on to stuff in star wars that we like better, or moved on from star wars altogether. 

However, there are dudebros who do feel the need to shove that disney’s doing diversity badly and pointing out plotholes that are there in every other star wars movie etc etc etc etc etc so yes I get that that’s annoying but it’s bc of those people that others who had a problem with the movie can’t have a productive conversation with the fans rn and it’s just a hellcycle bc now a lot of fans don’t hear criticism about this movie even though frankly there’s a lot of elements that could be done better.

Also, I know I can’t tell them, but to the moviegoers out there who thought the Throne Room scene was the best one, please, please just watch Twilight of the Apprentice, it’s got the dumb edgy aesthetic and the extra lightsaber battles but with more lightsaber and the edgy aesthetic is more pleasing imo

[d*nt rb]

[truemedian]

Even a lesser John Mulaney-hosted Saturday Night Live is pretty funny

John MulaneyScreenshot: Saturday Night Live TV ReviewsAll of our TV reviews in one convenient place. “I mean a lot to a small group of people.” If your third SNL hosting gig is your weakest yet and is still consistently funny, well, you’re probably John Mulaney. The former SNL writer turned award-winning stand-up and almost apologetic actor is just funny. That’s perhaps not an enlightening way to describe the guy, but there’s a certain kind of comedian who just is. That’s Mulaney, taking the mic for his third opening monologue since he left the writers room and slaying with habitual, deceptively effortless ease. Joking about his eccentric career path to date, Mulaney explained that he is the host who’d done the least between his second and third hosting stints, his self-effacing shtick both cheeky and spot-on. (A set-ender about a Make-A-Wish girl confessing that her second choice Mulaney introducing her to that week’s guest Lin Manuel Miranda actually made her wish come true struck exactly the Mulaney sweet spot of potentially edgy and hilariously apt.) Mulaney’s always going to be Mulaney (even as a cartoon pig) his specific, knowingly oversized delivery marking him out as the funniest voice in any room. That doesn’t necessarily make for the most versatile Saturday Night Live host, but, with Mulaney’s intimacy with the show to guide things, tonight’s episode made typically fine use of one of its funniest, if most unlikely, superstar alums. But back to funny. With a sketch veteran like Mulaney in house, jokes just work better. He knows the rhythm of a sketch inside out, and slots himself into a role with the confidence of a guy who simply knows how the machine operates. (A little cue card hesitancy notwithstanding.) Which is a good thing, as the sketches tonight weren’t themselves stellar. The big news any time John Mulaney hosts these days is just whichever aspect of New York culinary-mercantile sketchiness will be the subject of a lavishly produced musical number, and, while tonight’s Broadway ode to LaGuardia Airport sushi is third in line behind (in order of undeniable delightfulness) “Diner Lobster” and “Bodega Bathroom,” it follows the overall theme of the night that third-best Mulaney on SNL is still thoroughly enjoyable SNL. Look, nothing’s ever going to capture the surprise victory of that first sketch—just like any recurring bit, there’s an element of giving the audience what they’re there to expect that saps some of the initial live-wire weirdness from the enterprise. But, apart from the central players in the set-up (Chris Redd and Mulaney as the New Yorkers horrified at Pete Davidson’s unwise choice of NYC convenience amenity), there’s a no-doubt inexhaustible well of petty New York gripes and vomit-worthy eccentricities for Mulaney and his fellow Big Apple veterans to plumb for extravagantly silly numbers whose disproportionate response is part of the gag. Here, we get Kenan as a plane-downing goose Phantom, Cecily Strong as an operatically remorseful, long-ago sushi chef (that spicy tuna is from 2018), Kate McKinnon as pretzel-hawking Auntie Orphan Annie blaming everything on de Blasio, Beck Bennett as the somehow unaccompanied baby on your flight, and—capping things off with a double dose of Mulaney’s Sack Lunch Bunch shenanigans—musical guest David Byrne as a “Road To Nowhere”-singing “baggage handler who throws your luggage into Long Island Sound,” and Jake Gyllenhaal, rigged up to fly as the traveler in pajamas who’s creepily enthusiastic about the TSA pat-down. (“You don’t have to use the backs of your hands!”) Taking the whole show into the audience to end the sketch amidst a shower of loose-wire sparks with Byrne singing the way, the whole thing was delightfully, goofily unnecessary.

Best/Worst Sketch Of The Night

So, apart from that one, I thought Mulaney’s stand-up persona found its truest home in the Sound Of Music sketch, a musical dissection of just how creepy that whole “I am 16, going on 17" romance subplot is. With Cecily’s Liesl (in ridiculously fine voice as ever) beginning to question her beloved sort-of Nazi suitor Kurt’s blond, Aryan suitability, Mulaney keeps slipping in the sort of wise-ass asides his comedy is built around, as Kurt keeps confessing to being more like “17, going on 47" as the song goes on. (Oh, and he’s planning to move them into an apartment with a lot of suspiciously Aryan roommates, including one named Goebbels.) With Mulaney’s Kurt alternating between snarking about his beloved’s growing number of reservations (“Wow, she’s got a list.”), and smoothly crooning away her reservations about the whole Nazi thing (“Focus on the age stuff.”), the piece was a perfect use of Mulaney. Him assuring Liesl, “This is Austria, nineteen-thirty-bad: In a few weeks this will be the least of your worries,” was the ideal synthesis of host, delivery, and premise. Any sketch matching Kate and Aidy at its center is an automatic contender, and the return of their melodramatically feuding 1950s sisters in the classic Say, These Two Don’t Seem To Like Each Other gave the ever-delightful duo a chance to outdo each other with bitchy period skullduggery in advance of their shared suitor’s arrival. The joke is, once again, that their Davis-Crawford (pretty much literal) back-stabbing proves helpless against the unwitting charms of a much more conventionally attractive family member (here, Mulaney’s returning sailor and “pass-around party bottom”). Having the joke that Beck Bennett’s Admiral (somehow being promoted from Corporal last time) is in a closeted frenzy at Mulaney’s oblivious nautical sexiness (shades of Kimmy Schmidt’s “Daddy’s Boy” and Hail, Caesar!’s “No Dames”) is hacky but funny, with Beck, Kate, and Aidy all doing absurdly over-the-top mugging (including a straight-up “Ha-ga-goo-ga-goo-ga-gaaa!”) while maintaining their 1950s film noir demeanor, and I laughed at pretty much all of it. Mulaney’s gift for straight-manning (as opposed to party-bottoming) was used to fine effect again in the meme sketch, where his suburban uncle angrily whips up a slide show of college-age nephew Pete Davidson’s reddit jokes at his expense. Mulaney makes the uncle’s outrage at being the internet’s #whitecollarvirgin simultaneously righteous and comically out-of-touch, as the memes keep coming. (His awkwardly grinning Facebook profile picture overlaid with “When ya’ll kissing and she say, ‘That’ll be $200'” is introduced with Mulaney’s hilariously perplexed, “This next one was tweeted by rapper Ice-T!”) There’s not much more to the sketch but watching Mulaney flesh out a portrait of out-of-touch suburban dudgeon, but’s just so great at it. Like more than a few sketches tonight, there were some pacing/timing issues, here mainly at the expense of an ending. Beck Bennett and Kyle Mooney got to do their behind-the-scenes thing with a filmed sketch about Mooney—tired of all the “geek” roles coming his way—deciding to turn their shared office into a gym in order to get cast in Mulaney’s proposed male stripper sketch. The pair’s signature self-parody here clanks alongside the admirable monstrousness of Mooney’s post-transformation prosthetics, as he immediately becomes a smugly buff, absurdly pumped-up dudebro (thanks to, among other things, the absurdist delight that is guest trainer Justin Theroux as himself), scooping a muscles-smitten Chloe Fineman into an offhand sex-date and allowing a bashful Lorne Michaels to pet his newfound bulges. Good Neighbor pals Mooney and Bennett’s humor traffics in such light cringe comedy, as clueless strivers inevitably find their lowest level, as, here, the horrifying, gravel-voiced, ’roid-gremlin version of Kyle, having made himself “less interesting” for glory, is summarily fired from the show by an unimpressed Mulaney. Lurking at the heart of most of these sketches is a mingled affection/contempt for the bottom-dwellers of the entertainment industry, pitiable losers whose lifelong consumption of TV and movies has left them convinced that they are just one big break (or Tupperware full of lean, broiled chicken breasts and a 5 p.m. bedtime) away from the stardom they just know is their birthright, and Mooney, especially, is most comfortable playing around there. (Also, filming schedules being what they are, it’s unlikely this sketch is in response to Pete Davidson’s off-weeks�� interview about being typecast on the show, but there’s a harsh but essential truth about living or dying on SNL that’s resonant throughout the bit.)

Weekend Update update

Che continues to successfully play around with his role on Update, here breaking from a joke about the growing coronavirus threat to muse about his fears that they’ll play an Update clip of him mocking the typically lame and self-serving Trump administration response to the crisis at his funeral. In what former SNL-er Al Franken would call “kidding on the square,” Che confessed to “sitting here pretending to care about politics,” before whipping off his clip-on tie, whipping out a tumbler of something brown (“Why am I hiding my drinking problem?”), and, finally, donning a crooked baseball cap as he essayed the role of a Michael Che who’s finally been broken by all the world’s unrelenting horseshit. It’s a blessedly funny move, carried out through the rest of Update (“You know, I just found out I might have a kid?,” he’s heard mumbling after the camera cuts back to the straight-faced Colin Jost), and it adds a frisson of reckless abandon to his side of the proceedings that’s sloppily energizing. “I feel free,” he exclaims at one point, and his story about his beloved grandma telling him, “We are living in our last days,” lands satisfyingly, before Che rambles on to rebut granny’s “no white girls” rule. (“I work in show business, that’s unrealistic.”) Joining in on the cold open’s queasy mockery of the prospect of noted fundamentalist and science skeptic Mike Pence leading the uninspiring cadre of sycophants, yes-men, and non-doctors Trump put in charge of fighting a potentially deadly outbreak of disease, Che did resort to yet another SNL “Mike Pence is secretly gay” joke. And I could have done without the “Chinese people eating dogs” joke when supposedly defending the virus hotspot, too, although, for Che, loosening up seems to come yoked to being sort of an asshole. Otherwise, Update’s cracks at the news of the day went as usual. Jost let Trump hang himself with his own slurred nonsense (Thank god we have “different elements of medical” on the coronavirus front), and—echoing Trump’s rhetorical gambit of using supposedly overheard chatter to disseminate patently absurd nonsense to the world—deftly managed to get the hashtag #TrumpSlump trending during the show when talking about what he’s definitely heard people calling the precipitous stock market losses since Trump started babbling incoherently about the “hoax” outbreak of a rapidly accelerating infectious disease outbreak. Hey, if that’s the world of public discourse we live in at this point, then fighting hashtag with hashtag is fair game, so good on you, Jost. Chris Redd, taking the well-known SNL path of making yourself a showcase on Update when you’re being underused elsewhere, put together a solid few minutes as himself, commenting on the just-concluding Black History Month. As with most such pieces, the jokes sprayed all over the place, although nominally anchored to the central premise that, as Redd put it, black people “took too many Ls” for Black History Month this year. Straying into politics while keeping his eyes on the joke, he ably described SC primary winner Joe Biden as Joe “I have a black friend” Biden, and noted how watching the garrulously long-winded Biden give a speech is like “watching an old man parallel park his thoughts for 20 minutes.” On Trump’s hastily disseminated photo of himself surrounded by the handful of black Trump supporters he could get to pray over him, Redd, in his best turn of phrase, described the gathered worshipful as “White House negroes,” and ran down some of the more egregiously misguided corporate appropriations of Black History Month, including that credit card that makes it look like Harriet Tubman is either saluting Wakanda or “she got recaptured.” Weekend Update has long been a place for cast members to present their own, individualized versions of the newsreader gig, and, should Jost follow through on his suggested post-election departure, this is about as good a tryout as Redd could give.

“What do you call that act?” “The Californians!”—Recurring sketch report

The John Mulaney “I hate New York” Musical Showcase; the Kate-and-Aidy 1940s Femmes Fatale Extravaganza.

“It was my understanding there would be no math”—Political comedy report

Hey, everyone’s going to get super-sick! So that’s funny. Or it could be, I suppose, if the cold open didn’t shy away from the aforementioned flop-sweat generator that is Mike (“condoms don’t work, pray away AIDS, smoking doesn’t kill, climate change is a myth, intelligent design”) Pence is in charge of mustering the nation’s medical defenses to wheeze into another underwhelming Democratic slate sketch. Again, the joke that noted frothing gay-basher Pence is in the closet is (whatever the truth may be) beyond played out at this point, although at least Beck Bennett’s strident Pence nodding toward his willful disregard of scientific truth by calling the coronavirus a test of his faith “like dinosaur bones, or Timothée Chalamet” was half-smart. And Kenan Thompson coming out as Ben Carson (“the brain surgeon that they put in charge of house development”) was the usual hoot, with Kenan’s approximation of Carson’s singsong cadence making his dire predictions about the toll of the virus extra alarming, especially to Pence, who hurriedly shoves Carson aside for straying from the administration’s sweaty “All is well!” public stance on the topic. That things veered suddenly into a another stealth Dem candidate sketch could have served to hammer on the theme, I suppose (although simply following through on the premise might have been an idea, too.) But things quickly turned into the same unsatisfying quick-hit impressions and internecine sniping among the candidates, an exercise that’s seeming more and more like a slightly unimpressive audition process for who’s going to be the eventual nominee. (Sort of like the much of the actual remaining Democratic field, but I digress.) Honestly, only the (increasingly unlikely looking) prospect of a four-year Elizabeth Warren-Kate McKinnon reign holds any interest for me at this point, McKinnon’s spot-on impression the only one to go much beyond the surface into something more substantive. (You know, like the actual Warren, but I digress.) As for the rest, we have ringers like Larry David’s Bernie Sanders and Fred Armisen’s Mike Bloomberg. And while who doesn’t like David’s gabbling, kvetchy Sanders, there are some issues. Namely that SNL can’t think of much to do besides grumpy old candidate jokes with the surging potential nominee (although a passing reference to Bernie’s “Castro wasn’t all bad” remarks this week at least nodded toward actual engagement). Also, as much fun as Larry seems to be having coming back to 30 Rock every other week, it’s unclear if he’s on board for a theoretical Alec Baldwin-style regular gig should Sanders win. As for Bloomberg—meh. He’s not going anywhere politically, and, as primly humorous as is Armisen’s shrugging rich guy approach to this whole “let the poor people decide” thing is, it’s yet another role whose farming out to a higher profile outsider continues to signal the show’s lack of confidence in its in-house talent. Same goes for Rachel Dratch’s Amy Klobuchar, whose best hope at this point is a Vice Presidential gig (on both fronts). There’s nothing wrong with any of these funny people or what they’re doing per se. It’s more that there’s no reason for them to be there, and that these sketches remain irritatingly shallow. On the in-house side, that seeming lack of confidence appears not so much borne out in these openers as untested. Sure, Colin Jost barely tries to conceal how unsuited he is to play college chum Pete Buttigieg, and the absence of other ringer (and other Dem impersonation I could stand to see more of) Jason Sudeikis saw the Joe Biden spot going to Mulaney (who would likely be the first to admit that celebrity impressions aren’t in his wheelhouse). But, what with SNL’s proven disregard for gender-appropriate political casting of late, the fact that able mimics Melissa Villaseñor and Chloe Fineman and nimble actresses Heidi Gardner and Ego Nwodim remain on the bench is increasingly vexing. As for the actual sketch, it was the same too-glib drive-by, with only Warren’s gloating over her debate trouncing of Bloomberg registering, in McKinnon’s lived-in performance, with any juice. Meh.

I am hip to the musics of today

Goddamn, that was great, as David Byrne (late of the aforementioned Sack Lunch Bunch), joined Mulaney and delivered a pair of electric live performances. He did “One In A Lifetime” first, and it’s striking just how Byrne keeps that well-trod Talking Heads song from receding into classic hits predictability in performance. That song is as weird and satirically biting as ever, as much as its ubiquity threatens to turn it into just another toothless oldie, and, with his identically grey-suited backup musicians all channeling that old Stop Making Sense spirit with their non-stop individualized choreography and musicianship, the song—with the 67-year-old Byrne holding center stage, as deceptively limber as ever—was a showstopper. So, too, the rousing second number, the Byrne-penned “Toe Jam,” where Byrne ceded even more time for each member of his expansive musical team to shake their stuff in the individual spotlight. Easily one of the most enjoyable musical guests in years, Byrne remains a one-man show unafraid to let others steal the show. Just bottomless fun.

Most/Least Valuable Not Ready For Prime Time Player

Not building sketches around the proven talents of performers like Nwodim, Fineman, Villaseñor, and Gardner just seems perverse at this point. SNL’s second line looks thin in the talent department because nobody’s making use of them. The LaGuardia extravaganza gave Cecily, Kenan, Kate, and Beck plenty to sink their teeth into, but Cecily’s second singing showcase of the night puts her on top.

“What the hell is that thing?”—The Ten-To-Oneland Report

Well, at least we got Chris Redd’s welcome and funny comic tribute to Black History Month on Update, so the muddled mush of the Jackie Robinson sketch can stay the ten-to-one oddity it is. Kenan is delightful, don’t get me wrong. As the lone black man to boo color-line-busting legend Robinson, his Dodgers fan Terrence “The Enlarged Heart” Washington was a funny construction, his petty jealousies trumping any sense of racial pride or loyalty. As the 1940s white fans around him look on puzzled at Washington’s animosity toward the first black MLB player, Kenan makes his frustrated non-ballplayer’s grudge almost but never quite hilarious, although the way his bewildering heckling keeps igniting pockets of revealing racism beneath the white fans’ sporting loyalties is fairly pointed. Beck Bennett’s loudmouth fan immediately starts an “Oh, so it’s all right to boo white guys?!” side-argument that ultimately and inevitably sees him getting carried away by telling Robinson to go back to the Negro Leagues where he belongs. Still, the funniest joke is when Kenan, berated by bleacher-mate Mulaney for talking that way in front of his kid, notices the young black child sitting next to him and exclaims, “I don’t know this kid!” Stray observations Kate, as The Sound Of Music’s Maria, sings her own reassurance concerning her relationship with the Captain, “I’m old enough, but it’s still kind of dicey.” Jost, on Joe Biden’s resurgent Democratic primary win in South Carolina: “But, in keeping with South Carolina tradition, the losers will get the statues.” (In front of photo of a Confederate monument.) Mulaney’s monologue has me scanning the internet to see if he’s scored another Netflix special yet. (Not yet, apparently.) From going as close to the edge as he gets with jokes about Jesus forgetting to do magic on the one occasion he could really have used it, to that Make-A-Wish anecdote, to a great run about how crappy the Founding Fathers really were, to a straight-up joke about Trump being stabbed to death Caesar-style by some senators, it was tight and focused and very, very funny. On that assassination joke, Mulaney reassured everyone, “I asked my lawyer if I could make that joke, and he said, ‘Let me call another lawyer,’ and that lawyer said yes.” Mulaney’s Kurt, to Liesl: “Oh, age is just a number that the government keeps track of.” Redd kids on the square that the withdrawal of all black candidates for president has meant less airtime for him. After Che—still in booze-swilling carefree mode—jokes that Ash Wednesday is the one day a year when Catholics can indulge in “a little bit of blackface,” Jost signs off, laughing, “For Weekend Update, I’m Catholic . . .” All welcome Che’s proposed new Houston Astros mascot, Cheatie the Camera. Before Davidson’s customer makes his ill-gated sushi purchase, he and Redd buy “a Chobani yogurt with no spoon to eat it with” and “a $15 dollar Dasani, extra plastic.” Once more the show ended awfully abruptly, so here are the full goodnights again. Good night! Daniel Craig and The Weeknd next week! Read More Read the full article