Lobo is boring. The bros who loved Lobo in the ‘80s: Boring. The bros who loved Lobo in the ‘90s, when he was re-introduced expressly to ridicule the kind of bros who loved him in the ‘80s: Boring and dumb. Expecting people to care about him in 2026: I mean.

YOU (ENTERING A TOY STORE IN 1984): Hi. My kid really liked that movie SUPERGIRL? Do you have like an action figure tied to it? CLERK: Pfft. No. Of course not. Why would they make that? YOU: Oh. Okay. Well thanks anyway. CLERK: HOLD UP.

SUPERGIRL (2026) is fine. Perfectly fine. If suffers from a distinct lack of Brenda Vaccaro, Faye Dunaway and a checked-out Peter O’Toole in a Cosby sweater. But then most films do, nowadays, I find.

Re-upping, now that folks have seen the premiere. Criston Cole: Still the worst!

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON S3 E1 recap! The Battle of the Gullet! Targaryens gettin’ Oedipal, as is their damnable wont! We learn if lions can swim! www.npr.org/2026/06/21/n...

It’s his day.

At the Reflecting Pool and guys

Fire and Blood. And Storylines That Shunt a Major Character Into An Endless Series Of Visionquests For An Entire Goddamn Season.

The fact that Peacock did not serve me — fuckin’ ME - the Culturistas awards immediately upon opening the app, such hat I had to SEARCH it like some dumb lumpen basic heterosexual - guys I think the algorithms is losing

Back on my dragonshit. www.npr.org/2026/06/19/n...

FITNESS APP: You’ve lost the equivalent of a microwave! Congrats! ME: Ok wow cool (later) FITNESS APP: You’ve lost a car tire! Good job! ME: Yes I can really visualize that this is great thanks (later) FITNESS APP: You’ve lost the amount that the largest lobster ever caught weighed! ME: … what

DENTIST: Your teeth look really good. ME: Ahngs DENTIST: You take great care of them. I can tell that you floss. ME: Ah guh DENTIST: Structurally, too. I’ve been X-raying teeth a long time, and yours are some of the prettiest I’ve seen. ME: … ahlp

Oh Spotify. Sure, you changed your icon to a disco ball. But when THIS is your cultural reference for this song, you will never be any ally. “Notably.” That word does not mean what you think it means.

So the Slate Culture Gabfest is ending and that sucks. They are the gold standard. What I measure myself against. I was lucky to go on it once and tried to explain that PCHH felt to me like their annoying, bratty little sister, always stealing their sweaters without asking and stretching them out.

Yes, DISCLOSURE DAY’s Boomer understanding of both how news gets made and consumed is mystifying, and undercuts the climax. But. We stay in that room, at the end. We don’t cut to “ONE YEAR LATER” or whatever. What happens after is left to us to decide.

I mean DISCLOSURE DAY is fine and all but there are no queer people or musical numbers in it. Like, at ALL. Make your weekend box office plans accordingly. www.npr.org/2026/06/12/n...

There’s gall, there’s nerve, there’s temerity, there’s absolute brazen grasping shameless bald-faced hypocrisy, and then there’s AppleTV congratulating SCHMIGADOON! on its Tony win.

The best Batman villain will always be the Riddler, whose whole vibe has always been way more queer than Catwoman’s. Yeah, she’s got a leather catsuit, but he’s a question mark made flesh. The Joker? I’m aware of his work. I can’t not be. Bitch is omnipresent. He’s Gotham’s truffle oil.

Growing up I walked around with this huge secret that I could feel wanting to burst out of my chest. That’s why this Pride Month I’m partnering with the good folks at Weyland-Yutani to -

After so many seasons, not everything about TOP CHEF still hits. But every time the JUDGES’ TABLE chyron comes up? And that apostrophe is correctly placed? A thrill. To this day, a low-level hum in the chest.

Gearing up to recap HOUSE OF THE DRAGON S3 for NPR (and my sins). At one point I described the look of the members of House Targaryen as “Edgar Winter is Coming” and frankly I’m not confident I can top that but that’s not gonna stop me trying.

The existence of Evil-Lyn implies the existence of Good-Lyn

I regret to report that the best thing about MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE is (resigned sigh) Jared Goddamn Leto. No, I know. But the man has made the choice to go Full Gay Disney Villain™️ Replete with Rolled Rs and Plummy British Vowels and I’m not made of stone here people.

It’s June.

Listening to Judy at Carnegie Hall with F, who insists he’s never heard it before. He has. He very has. Is this what aging is? Because I might have unlocked an upside. At some point I could watch Lord of the Rings with him again. Imagine.

When I reviewed theater for WCP, the one-man Lord of the Rings guy came to Woolly Mammoth and complained onstage, three times(!) about getting reviewed by critics who didn’t know Tolkien. Gauntlet: THROWN bitch “THREE, which is also, coincidentally …”

Don’t blame straight actors for taking gay roles. Gays, this one's on us. Look I KNOW we love our rewarding careers in STEM, and employment law, and metalworking. But goddammit SOME of us should consider going into acting.

How they gonna take his name off it? It can’t be done!

This boss is easy to take down because his moves are so predictable

Look a lot of my favorite artists have withdrawn from the Freedom 250 celebration and I just rolled with it but this one? This one is a blow.

If they had any marketing savvy, the collectible popcorn bucket for PRESSURE would be made to look like the green of a golf course and every time you reached into the hole to get more popcorn it would send a signal to your phone to ask your adult child how that car of theirs was runnin’.

Ok but you have to respect Jeremey Allen White’s process

Yesterday I was like unto a GOD

Oldest dearest friend in the world regularly combs the internet and sends me the worst things he can find people saying about me. He think it’s funny; I can take it. This morning he sent me some random dude sexually objectifying me.

In the new Star Wars movie Mando has a flash card depicting the bad guy he’s looking for only they don’t know who he is so it’s just the outline of a head but he keeps showing to folk like “Seen this guy” and my dude unless you’re searching the planet Mii Maker in 2006 the answer is no.

In the new Star Wars film Mando keeps telling people he works for the New Republic and I can’t be the only one who kept imagining the Condé Nast building as the Death Star.

Susan Stamberg’s annual NPR tradition was her cranberry relish recipe. My annual NPR tradition is … this thing. www.npr.org/2026/05/14/n...

The nation’s dads, sensing that a movie about both WWII history and meteorology is about to drop:

In 1977 I wanted to be Rex Reed not because I wanted to be a gay film critic because I wanted to hang out with Lois Lane and work in a building with a giant globe in the lobby.

It’s her day

May the fierce be with you bitches

Here once again: Vanessa Redgrave assiduously chewing her yoemanlike way through a Leowe lyric. youtu.be/cg4YrOlAkds?...

The King of England is coming to my town tomorrow for no reason I can fathom except that its name is Front Royal and someone in the protocol office thought it would be cute. I mean, fine, I guess. But the Chamber of Commerce down in Chinless Knob, VA must be seething. SEETHING.

The only middlebrow worth talking about

Back on the fitness horse. (It is a proud, diffident horse that throws me off every few years and snorts at me derisively, daring me to try again.) Starting mornings with an admixture of Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, frozen fruit, oatmeal, chia seeds & whey protein. I call it Breakfast Spackle.

Lee Pace as a drag queen elf was, alongside Freeman’s performance, the two bits of good to come out of the Hobbit movies, so it’s great he’s coming back in Hunt for Gollum. He best bring the haughty gay elk tho. The look’s not complete without it.

Gather round grandpappy’s knee, children, as I tell you of a forgotten, sepia-toned, mist-shrouded time known as 2009 when those of us who wrote on the internet strived to craft a punchy lede and then wrote a preview of what would follow if readers clicked to read more. The “After the Jump” era.

Reading some BIG MISTAKES reviews that find it too mean and lacks heart. Don’t threaten me with a good time. My take, for what it’s worth: www.npr.org/2026/04/09/n...

My favorite part of a Silver Age Fantastic Four comic is when Galactus “issues a sternly-worded statement” about eating the world and annihilating puny humans

And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre. And they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus. And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments: