Happy Friday. Someone in the F&L chat suggested this 5 things round-up as a type of post and I am here to serve. I’m also too worn out and brain dead from weeks of being in Madonna jail to do a big new music round-up (I promise to do this soon though). If you haven’t yet, check out (all 3 and a half hours of) part 1 of Bandsplain’s Madonna series, with my excellent guest, Interview Magazine Editor-In-Chief Mel Ottenberg. I developed psychosis for you so I hope you like it.
Also I’ll be in conversation (love to converse) with my longtime, brilliant friend Mary H.K. Choi for the LA stop on her book tour for her excellent new book Pool House. It’s at Skylight Books on 6/11 and you can get advance tickets HERE.
What else? Did some Madonna cosplay (need hospital), spent an undisclosed sum on The Real Real in a fugue state, and was in a Weezer promo video “playing” a massive bitch (see below).
I’m sure you know by now that tasbeeh herwees has the best newsletter about Los Angeles, and this week she interviewed the owner of one of my favorite LA eateries (half the year anyway) with one of the best vibes in the city, Sal’s Place.
Speaking of gay interests, I like the new Charli XCX song “Rock Music.” I like the glitchy guitars and the 90s alterna-pop sensibility put through the Charli prism, I like how short it is, and I really like the video. And yeah I love power chords. Sue me! Shaad D’Souza’s review in Pitchfork is a great read though in general, I feel like a lot of you guys are overthinking it.
It’s not the song I love this week though. But I do like it. Anyway, enough edging. Let’s get to it:
SONG
In “We Are So Back” news, Ceremony put out a new song called “Other Hells” and it fucking rips. It’s got like an 80s hardcore punk feel (return not to form per se, but next door to form?) with some tastefully places synths and a real slam your body down and wind it all around energy. It’s two minutes long and I have listened 200 times? I love it, I love it, I love it.
A FILM
I was lucky enough to attend the premiere of the new film Backrooms, directed by 20 year old (!!!) Kane Parsons and starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, and Mark Duplass. It’s a horror film (sort of). I wasn’t super familiar with the very popular web series Parsons did under the same name, but I had seen the original creepypasta image floating around the internet and was definitely into those liminal spaces memes (were they memes?) that were a thing for a while.1 Probably because, much like the film, they echoed something chilling and nauseous about the world we live in. The film is excellent - it has just enough plot to create a cohesive and engaging experience but not so much that you’re not able to let your mind spin out all kinds of meaning from the incredibly rich metaphor of an endless series of antiseptic but increasingly uncanny and bizarre rooms. I love a movie that doesn’t hit you over the fucking head with what it’s about. To quote my own Letterboxd review (calm down Roger Ebert), it’s: “a real Rorschach test of modern misery and dread, both personally and socioculturally, with measured deployment of levity and blood pressure blows.” A kink of mine is when my thoughts are provoked. The sound design is AMAZING and there’s a brand new, fucking sick Boards of Canada song over the credits. It it officially out in theaters May 28th.
SKINCARE PRODUCT
A litany of ills and indignities have befallen me as I age (let’s not get into it) but one that is really pissing me off is skin redness. I’m just trying to live a good life over here and I simply can’t when I catch a glimpse of the Kool-Aid man’s visage every time I look in the mirror. Someone recommended TiZO3 tinted sunscreen, and though I usually run everything I put on my face past beauty genius Alexis Page (I’m sorry about that Alexis) I was so desperate to not look like I had downed four margaritas and fallen asleep in direct sunlight that I ordered it from Jeff Bezos’ shop immediately. It’s incredible: a beautiful texture, covers up almost all of the red but looks completely skin-like, and does not make me, a person whose pores clog at the drop of a hat, break out. And it works under make-up for days I have to put on my clown face and head down to the podcast factory. 10/10.
A VINTAGE STORE
I was looking for a specific Madonna t-shirt on my trust Gem app (if you don’t already know about this I hesitate to lure you into a world your wallet will never recover from) and in a beautiful twist of fate the first listing for exactly what I wanted was well-priced AND local - from a shop in Westwood I wasn’t familiar with called Klactus Vintage. I stopped into pick it up and was devastated (though again, my wallet rejoiced) that I didn’t have more time to look through what seemed like a great selection of tees and clothing.
HILLSTONE MARTINI
I know this sounds like exaggeration, but I think the dirty vodka martini with three goat cheese olives I had last night at Hillstone in Santa Monica is the best martini I’ve ever had? It had some special secret flavor, like a hint of bite (onion?) that really pushed it over the edge for me. At the very least it’s now on the same level as my previous favorite dirty martini in Los Angeles, the one at JAR.
Okay that’s it, until next week xx
This is a good explainer of the original image and web series
Enjoyed this and *really* enjoying Madonna pt 1. Like you, Madonna has basically been a presence in my life since birth* but there is so much I did not know about her life. I appreciate your emphasis on how she not only crafted her image and personal but also her own damn songs! (*One of the first childhood memories hat I recall with any clarity is 4 yr old me watching the inaugural VMAs with my mom. Core!)