78. The Week in Me
Reading event and Q&A!
Shalom!
I am reading a brand-new poem on Monday in NYC. I would love to see you!
I received some great (and delightfully non fetishistic!) questions, which I will now answer for you. Thank you for asking!
do girls poop Yes and sometimes if it’s a really, really small poop or a really, really large one, like the one in that South Park episode with Bono, you call your husband in to look at it!
whats your favorite hot dog Ketchup. Bun.
what’s the best film you’ve seen recently? Lina Wertmüller’s Seven Beauties, starring Giancarlo Giannini. Every movie I have seen Giancarlo Giannini in posits him as some kind of lout and not even a hot one which is crazy because I would drown myself in that man’s eyes. The love scenes in Seduction of Mimi? GIRL. GIRL!!!! I’d be a screaming Mimi all over that fucking attic.
Anyway, Seven Beauties is in no way an easy watch as a sexual assault survivor but it is the male version of Ti West’s Pearl down to the closing credits scroll, and if I was a smarter woman I would write lengthy film criticism about this. It’s streaming on Metrograph at Home.
Who is your inspiration? Literally any photogenic person. How do you all do it. How do you relinquish control of your neck wrinkles and flabby upper arms to someone else’s hand, someone else’s phone and still look like one of God’s blessed creatures? I look like a melted Troll doll in every photo ever taken of me and I don’t even get a belly button jewel for the trouble.
Would you be open to making a mathcore solo album? Obviously???? Call me whoever this is???
Any dream NJ hardcore/metalcore vocalists that you would want to work with? As far as I’m concerned, Patrick Stickles of Titus Andronicus and Avery Mandeville of Little Hag are more hardcore than any of this dads wearing Hokas mounting reunion tours. So, them.
Got any new original tunes in the works? This is terrifying to say, but I actually started writing a song in the Lincoln Tunnel the other night. There is also one song in a Google doc I’d like to rescue and make reality someday. If you are a cheap, like cheap producer, hit me up.
Not a question but you should be Chappel Roan for Halloween. She looks like you! Oh, I would easily bankrupt myself trying to recreate one of her concert outfits in immaculate and deranged detail. So this is now shortlisted for Halloween 2024.
Favorite 80s band If I don’t see Motley Crüe before Vince Neil croaks, I’mma be pissed. You have no idea how many VH1 soaked adolescent hours I spent listening to this shit:
What television series has had the most impact on your life, and why? Matt would say New Girl, because my Little Tara Voice™ that I do at home is very much my version of Max Greenfield saying “chut-in-EE.” But it’s Fleabag, and Fleabag season two specifically. It’s not simply scratching the surface of me: horny, pale brunette with a drive-in-screen forehead and a foul mouth raised Catholic. It’s everything. The Mary Magdalene complex, the deeply avoidant-attachment love interest, how he sees her, how she sees him, the hole in her heart, her endeavors to fill it. It’s…me.
Sometimes, in my dark, I tell myself this. This confession is belying the thrum of my heart that screams how evil and awful I must be. This is my deepest, darkest secret. And I really mean that.
(Also: if you love the show, cancel your plans and read this Fleabag fanfic, written as a screenplay across seven staggering, surprising chapters and an alternate ending. I had to grab tissues after one line from Fleabag’s dad, and a perfectly, perfectly “well fuck you, then” made me scream and through my hands up in beatific praise. It is one of the best works of fanfiction I have ever read - especially high praise since there is no sex between the leads - in that is hews so closely to the source material and the additional character shades did not feel like betrayals. They were intriguing, and I would have been happy to have more.)
How would you describe yourself in 5 words? Tap-dancing gerbil in a dress.
What makes you smile and what scares you the most? 1. My children, 2. Kangaroos. They have a Lifetime movie ex-boyfriend energy.
What advice would you give to your younger self? Don’t date D***n.
What would be the theme song for your life? The opening verse of the Friends theme song on an ever distorted “How’s Annie?” record-scratch loop.
If you were given a one-minute ad slot during the Super Bowl, what would you fill it with? Gotta go political. Ruthless, Noël Coward takedown of Joe Manchin, a reminder that the LAPD is fully in the pocket of Scientology (#WheresShelly), a formal launch of a campaign to recall Eric Adams, and some information about Mayor Cherelle Parker of Philadelphia unwise deathbeckoning in her refusal to fund safe injection sites. Ending with a little fancam of Mike Gravel’s best insults set to Lily Allen’s “Fuck You.”
Is there a piece of clothing you had the opportunity to buy, but didn’t, which haunts your psyche to this day? I yearn, I pine, I perish for the Moschino heart bag Fran Fine wears in The Nanny, Season 3 Episode 13 “An Offer She Can't Refuse.” I own a ten-dollar Shein heart bag that I have never actually worn, so I can’t say that I’d wear the Moschino literally even once, but knowing I had it would make me feel closer to Mom, yes.
Do you want to talk about both the sordid inspiration and ultimately unprecedented box office returns of the movie Look Who’s Talking? Sean absolutely gooped and gagged me Monday night by sharing the Harold Ramisized inspiration for this trilogy, one I have seen in all its thirds multiple times.
What’s something I can do to make you laugh Lena ;) Matt Williams, you son of a bitch. Come visit!!!!
What’s next? Looking to shop around a chapbook of lyrics to songs I wrote but will never sing, hoping to finish my novel manuscript, looking to strengthen my fiction-writing voice. I intend to be on one of the Really Big Podcasts. I want to collab with people like
Favorite dipping sauce ? Honey mustard, man. Come on.
How do I stop myself falling in love with you? Be 97% of the men who have ever dated me girl, I don’t know.
what do you do for fun? Karaoke and NOT NEARLY ENOUGH OF IT. Spending too much money on little hats. Kissing Simone’s small, soft head. This.
No question, but I haven’t seen you since HS however I find you so attractive. I know who submitted this for sure for sure and we absolutely ran into each other that one time at Toys R Us! But thank you?? Also didn’t you have a baby?? Congratulations!!
Being that you’re a Fran Drescher fan, have you ever considered pursuing acting before you did music? My first dream was to act! I have rehearsed my Oscars speech through every reading proficiency milestone. I attended acting classes at Broadway Bound in Lyndhurst as a kid! I also wrote about my big acting break here:
52. The Week in Me
“If you can’t be an athlete, be an athletic supporter.” This line from Grease has always stuck with me. I was an artistic kid: I took dance classes, I drew, I collaged, I studied acting at Broadway Bound in Lyndhurst, I read all the time, I was the photo editor for my college paper and photographed half of the bands to blow through Bergen County.
What are your views on ai I fucking hate it, man. No sumptuous photos of diaphanous 1950’s Polly Pocket looking bathrooms will full jacuzzi tubs will mitigate my hatred. I don’t even really know what ChatGPT is or why anyone would WANT to not write and work on their ability to communicate. Words!!! I love words!!! Why would you want counterfeit words?!?!!
Has dm sliding ever been effective method at scoring a date? God yes lmao. I can think of at least 7 people I have made out with thanks to Instagram.
In order, who do you think KNOWINGLY caused the most chaos in the Sopranos? Paulie, Olivia Soprano, Johnny Sack, Phil or Vito Oh my GOD, how could it be ANYONE but Phil Leotardo? Livia is just That Fucking Way ask me and my childhood how I know. Paulie is an agent of chaos but not a malicious one. He truly abides by a wonked-up but stringent moral code. He is no Loki. Johnny Sac, my king, just wants to get home to his wife and who can blame him. Vito should, like all 27-year-old girls, be at the club. Let the man have his leather. It’s Phil, that devildare motherfucker. Bless.
How are you the cutest ever!
And on with the show…
To read:
From
:
“I’m so grateful to Seth MacFarlane” - Martin ass Scorsese?!! (Seth MacFarlane Foundation Teams With Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation To Restore Its First-Ever Collection Of Animated Pics)
From
:One of my favorite pieces of cultural dissection of all time, my buddy Mike Duquette on the novelization of Gremlins 2.
The art piece this depicts is beautiful. I do not possess the wherewithal to recreate this project at any length, because I to paraphrase Lin-Manuel Miranda have to read everything like I’m running out of time. I rarely re-read and have a psychological shame aversion to rewriting it. (from
)
“At the Britney Spears House Museum,” by
.I would give my left nut to brunch with
:
“I am gentler now because I lived past the need to be ungentle. It remains to be seen if this is a blessing or a curse.” - Amelia K’s “Dowsing”
Fuck a Bill Maher! (by
)
Sarah Miller’s “The Hockey Sister,” in The New Yorker.
To watch:
From
, who read last week’s newsletter about Donna Murphy in Hello, Dolly!: the entire fucking show on YouTube oh my god????From Lea:
This is literally just Simone:
This is literally just Lugosi:
Actually my babies:
Various and sundry:
I’ve got jewels on, I’ve got pancakes, I’ve got short legs who could ask for anything mooooore! 🎶
Me after Matt finally lets me take the children to work:
Weird!!
Matt LOVES when a dog is walking around holding their favorite toy in their mouth. He gets deeply emotional. So this was an immediate, immediate share to him:
Buy me this painting.
Girl.
I hope this is how the next week finds you: gently lifted, immaculately hairscaped, and battling the shit out of your allergies (if I’m going down you’re all fucking going down with me!!!!)
Love you bitches,
TG
You always make me laugh. I need that! Also everyone used to think my dad looked like Giancarlo Giannini.
Soooo, what exactly is mathcore? I'm stumped on that one. Also, not a big fan of the MC guys, but I do have "Home Sweet Home" on my iPod. That's basically the only song I like from them. LOL I guess I preferred Poison over his crue. I listened a little bit to the song you posted and one the comments was that he'd never heard Vince sing in this lower register. I haven't either! It reminded me of Jon Bon Jovi.