Okay I am only writing this because the 7:30 Ritual Hot Yoga Y2K/Millenium Mix class is fully booked. I could humble myself and join the waitlist but it is cold out and I would hate to be turned away. I am writing this and then taking a hot shower, and I encourage you to read this and then follow it with a hot shower. To get the STINK off you. 

Okay that above paragraph is like two weeks old…..I got distracted……for real………it can be hard for me to focus…..some times……..but now I am only writing this because my beautiful love is out of town and my friends are BUllyIng me in the group chat. We all aspire today to have a group chat of friends who are nice to us, it’s not easy. 

Things I have been Watching: (spoilers for The Curse finale)

The Curse: Finale edition

I loved the first ten minutes then I got distracted and turned it off. LOL JK, but the Rachel Ray opening is truly perfect in the encapsulation of the entertainment PR borg the Curse’s couple are so eager to be consumed by. 

• It’s sort of a nega-The Other Two. Instead of the characters being perfect fits for this life a la Chase Dreams, this has taken everything from them to produce. Still, they aren’t getting the real recognition they hoped and dreamed of, like their artist pal Cara in the NYT talking about quitting art. 
• Of course, with money comes comfort (moral too) and a big gift of the house to Abshir and his family is a milestone moment. At least it should be, but there is no celebration, Abshir and his family are still desperate to build some foothold in this country, and as uncomfortable with Asher and Whitney as ever.

Then it all gets flipped. By now you may have seen the tweet that spoils the curse by posting the family guy clip where Peter gets stuck in the air. I don’t want to go on a big spiel but here are things I thought this episode did a fun job exploring. 

• Dealing with a world we don’t understand that rips us away from our loved ones (by gravity reversal or worse) is the unfortunate fate we all face. I saw Nathan Fielder’s world being flipped upside down as his “world being flipped upside down” in the same way as a heart attack, a car accident, cancer diagnosis, etc. We go, often crying, screaming, and pleading. Often sent into the beyond by those trying to save us, doctor’s or first responders, unable to communicate or rationalize a way out of our fate, our departure mythologized by those around us. 
  • The pathetic ways in which Nathan rejects help, commits to a hypothesis of what is happening to him despite evidence otherwise, scares the people around him and is unable to save himself frightens me as a young man hooked on a vape.
• In contrast, giving birth is some other end of the human experience spectrum. Emma Stone rushes herself to the hospital to give birth, smiling in elation when she is handed her babe. Or is she smiling as she once again slips on the mask of happiness. She has just given birth, her husband is nowhere to be found but she knows he is in danger, but the show must go on. And that is what birth is, the show going on, a new act beginning. 

Iron Claw: 

Kinda sucked. I did not love it but I did love the POPCORN 

I think when I saw it I had something to say about how now THIS is a curse. 

This guy who snuck into Bohemian Grove: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reHm2F-CBxY&t=1385s

I love the Bohemain Club and their Grove. If I were a trust fund manager in San Francisco, or otherwise big wigged, I would love to join and jerk off in the woods with the other old guys or whatever. I think this place should unquestionably be torn open to the public and em-parkened. 

If you are unfamiliar with the Bohemians, the story is a bunch of NOT GAY GUYS from san francisco (tee hee) started a secret club for BOYS ONLY where they go in the WOODS to do PLAYS together. No one who has been in it has ever been gay (fact). 

The secret clubhouse in SF is a giant building with huge bars and libraries with a big private art collection, and the Grove is their secret summer camp (the program is two whole weeks, every summer, just for PLAYS and NO WIFE :)) happy happy) with big cabins all the guys share (bunk beds question mark). 

The whole thing is very hush hush for obvious reasons. You could even say it is DL. ba dum tiss

Alex Jones and a pal infiltrated the summer high jinks with a camera years ago, filming the cumulative ceremony wherein Care itself personified is cremated. This marked the Grove’s first big secret-bubble-popping, along with earlier leaks of membership rosters.

But I’ve always thought - how cool is this. A big camp with all your boys in the redwoods, and it’s secret and you make up secret rituals around a giant owl statue? You burn your cares in effigy then party til dawn because you don’t care, you love it? How sick is that??? why don’t they want me? 

In college I would scour the library collection for Bohemian mentions, finding some, but few pictures beyond some of the clubhouse’s bar and library among old play scripts. Then Instagram and Google Maps came about, and it TURNS OUT - the clubhouse is just rented out to whomever's class ascendent young millionaire net worth DINKFIRE couple with a fancy, Bohemian, coincidentally lifelong bachelor uncle who can cajole the Marriage Committee into allowing Brayson and Alyssa to do their reception in its hallowed halls, and accordingly allow whomever Brayson and Alyssa have dragged along from college at USC and Pomona Pitzer to take selfies in the bathrooms and on the ground floor and snap pics of bronze owl sculptures and big paintings of Men and post them and geo tag them. So some of the charm has been worn off by these cretins. 

The workers at both the clubhouse and the campsite have struck (further charm worn off). And in years past a drone overflew the Grove at low heights, capturing rooftops and clearings. But never has the Grove been infiltrated like this!!! I can’t express how excited I was when my periodic search on youtube of “bohemian grove” sorted by upload date turned this up among the usual new batches of AI generated conspiracy junk videos. 

This young ruffian did it, he scooted up inside past all defenses rumored, imagined, and real. He made it to the giant owl statue and FILMED the INSIDE. He found JOSH PECK’s NAME on a whiteboard!!! Dreams come true stuff for me. Until I join later. I just have to prove I am not gay…..

Things I have been Reading:

USA Mega Jackpot Analysis https://www.usamega.com/mega-millions/jackpot

I think about this all the time. If I won I think I could join any club I wanted. And I am only six numbers away. Beats a finance degree.

The Hardest Place by Wesley Morgan https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/227894/the-hardest-place-by-wesley-morgan/

Weirdly I return to this book to fall asleep often. It is a truly excellent account of America’s involvement in one corner of Afghanistan over basically the full course of the US war there. The telling is compassionate to all sides. There was no point to the US war there, and some of the worst fighting experienced was in this small district of steep mountain river valleys. The author embedded there during college and went back later and maintains a great twitter account writing about ongoing US military operations in Africa and elsewhere. 

Things I have been Hearing:

Asianometry https://www.youtube.com/@Asianometry

Youtube essays on the little bits of electronics that make the world go around and where they came from and come from now. The insanity of chip production is crazy to learn about, and a huge force in the world today. I like to listen to these while I do my little chores.

Ok love you bye!!!!! Thanks for reading (maybe again). I hope there’s something in here you liked!!!!!!