I love imagining King writing the horror cliche in the It show. “But after young Dotty passed the smiling woman, the woman made her smile even wider, and bent her neck all spooky, like a marionette. If only Dotty had just looked behind to see, but she didn’t. Swing and a miss, Pennywise.”

I just started the IT show, and the first ten minutes might be the most shameless, trashy ten set piece I’ve seen in the history of big budget cable. Its saving grace might be it being more John Waters than Murphy would ever dare.

That’s very kind of you, Fandango.

Drozd’s departure inspired me to make a “double disc” flaming lips intro - 20th century on one, 21st the other - and suggest they might be the weirdest rock band ever. Assuming playing the VMAs twenty years after 90210 while never going platinum is weird. anthony-is-writing.ghost.io/how-i-like-t...

Further to the paywall discourse: Your library system likely offers access to those outlets with your card. It may take a few more clicks to read an article, but if you want to read it & not just be in a snit about a paywall, that shouldn’t be a deterrent. For those without local library resources:

Along with seconding RIP D Boon, I will just note that if you show the “this aint no picnic” to a kid early enough, they will forever know Reagan as the guy attacking the Minutemen, a good place for their cultural awareness of Reagan to start.

Yo La Tengo’s Hanukkah shows are so good, so inspired and unique, that it’s become a treasured holiday tradition to simply READ about them via Jesse on the other side of the country.

*Taps the sign*

Seeing the Beatles Anthology through the eyes of my mom & kid, re-sharing my 40 favorite Top 40s of 1995, and realizing I’d already seen something disappointing on Shudder. Blurbs! anthony-is-writing.ghost.io/still-preocc...

Seeing the Beatles Anthology through the eyes of my mom & kid, re-sharing my 40 favorite Top 40s of 1995, and realizing I’d already seen something disappointing on Shudder. Blurbs! anthony-is-writing.ghost.io/still-preocc...

I just misused the phrase “vibe coding” despite looking it up before posting I just gotta give up on pretending I can hang with the techbro hippie SoundCloud cool yuppies and their elite-speak

I’m sure there’s lots of examples if I think hard enough but what’s comes to mind is how I said “SUB-tle” until discussing the “Jeremy” video with my THEN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL AGED LITTLE SISTER & when I mentioned “the serpent was subtil” she gave me a look and said “it’s SUH-tle.” A fact I still hate.

“Little pieces of trash on MY stage… you belong in the bathroom, GO!” youtu.be/ead_ASIa-OQ?...

Batman ‘89 does kinda sum up my plans for next year: Let my soul be my pilot and work out my trauma, however goofy it looks, while doing my best to confront chaos & corruption where I can, and ideally galavanting with a fascinated lady. If parenthood means I’m actually Alfred, that’s fine too.

The #1 movie when you were 10 years old is how your 2026 is going to go

Coldplay has been doing this ritual since “yellow” and NOW, after 25 years of occult-gained riches and global stardom, it’s a problem, cuz they finally used a rich white woman, that figures

I know there are far more culturally important reasons to hope CBS News changes hands, but personally I can’t wait to not get this song stuck in my head every time I look at this site. www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xkC...

Once you accept Trump is a child hammering nails into the floor and peeing on the walls because he’s daring his parents to stick to their “ignore the tantrum” plan, every absurd “a blow-up doll of me will sit on Lincoln’s lap” move makes sense, and every inert check & balance becomes more shameful.

I spoke to people who are standing up to ICE - from a real estate appraiser chasing ICE on his bike to a fetish shop owner distributing whistles and an undocumented social worker putting money in detainees’ commissary accounts

Shameful.

Tempting to say “people would shit their pants if a critic called ANYONE a dull fellow today” but I bet people always found it offensive. it just used to take writing a note & licking a stamp to let anyone beyond earshot know.

Please please please be about Santa revealing himself to the world as both real and an alien, please please

My favorite albums of 1995! Featuring no indie & alt-rock or the Wu-Tang Clan! Wait, hold on, that can’t be right. Sorry, I meant it’s almost entirely indie & alt-rock or the Wu-Tang Clan. But WHICH! And in which ORDER? anthony-is-writing.ghost.io/my-favorite-...

I was going to type “brb gonna go buy a red beret” but I’d be mistaken for a guardian angel, maybe I just need a shirt that says CO-OPS OR BUST

Oh look, Ethan Hawke has something to say about art.

Tbf the Oscars left cinema for streaming when CODA won best picture - a film so grudgingly barely released to theaters they didn’t even release box office numbers. If tech $$ matters more than the medium they might as well keep it in house.

It is an insult to an artist to praise his bad work along with his good; it indicates that you are incapable of judging either. (1963)

Thank God I have a kid to dignify my not moving heaven & earth to be at the SCRAWL, GARY GULMAN and YO LA TENGO show

Someone at a press conference with Trump should jocularly say “I bet you could slap congressmen’s wives and they’d let you, they’d say thank you.” his ego would force him to laugh & agree, maybe go into weird detail re specific people. let’s make his pathology as awkward for them as possible.

In 1984 Olympics organizers created a series of celebrity PSAs to help Los Angeles get ready for the games, with messages about hospitality, shuttle services, avoiding creating unnecessary traffic, etc. Then there was Lou Rawls' PSA, which seems to be about getting your international fuck on.

Sleaford Mods song: GUVNAH I CANT WINGE IT PIGDIN ECONOMICS Me: We have that at home! (referring to a dozen Fall albums and such) Cool woman on Sleaford Mods song: *literally anything, could just belch* Me: more please

The best thing I've ever read about LCD/Murphy remains this, thought it misses one thing - by succeeding at being the incredibly hip bleeding edge instead of the multiplatinum guy crying all the way to the bank against it, it made the comedown so much worse www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/st...

Kills me how this band griped about encroaching cringe on album 1, realized the issue was mortality on 2, realized they were spinning wheels on 3 & broke up before musical inspiration flagged. Then he realized he liked stardom more than producing bands & wine bars, and…here we are. Not dead yet.

While I “like” Goodfellas, I’ll admit a core memory is renting Bill & Ted’s while my mom & her friend got Goodfellas, them seeing the end of Bill & Ted’s & enjoying it before I went off to bed. The next morning they said they wished they’d watched Bill & Ted’s with me, validating my smug.

YAAAS PROBLEMATIC QUEEEEN

AGI is not about the democratization of anything. It’s about control. Who’s running all these servers that generate the slop? The tech companies don’t like that anybody can pick up a pen or a guitar and create something, so they decided to gatekeep the means of art production.

“I disagree with you, but I’ll defend til death your right to say it…unless the fascists promise to cut my taxes, and stick to dehumanizing those not like me

Forgive my jump into a silly conversation, but I genuinely believe I’d be dicking around more if I was making little videos instead of blog posts, not the least because of the opportunity to wear funny hats.

There was never going to be a good day to lose a Flatlander, but jfc. At least they taught me how to be zen. RIP Joe Ely. www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMIW...

This is some Eric Stoltz in Back To The Future biz. Proof of Joe Don Baker’s glory. Whether it’s a blond moppet or Chevy Chase, that man took no shit, took nothing that looked like it would become shit, even when he looked like a human hangover. MITCHELL!!!!!

I saw an interview where Glenn H said he pointedly gave Dennis a different name cuz he wanted to be clear it was a character but Charlie was like “no it rules, whether people know my real name or not they can yell Charlie! and im like, hell yeah!”

Nostalgia is pointless. There’s always people trying harder than they need to, and times where the money-centric let their good works get out there. Seek examples out, let them inspire you, but don’t bother mourning when it felt EASIER, or when you just assume it did.

Realized I have no idea what the history of that “Hawaii’s way to say Christmas” song is beyond Lampoon’s Xmas. If I told my kid at the store it’s from a 35 year old movie would some really old guy pause and go “it’s from red Skelton’s Oatmeal Hour!”? I have no idea.

A political apparatus exploiting corruption & inertia to keep a duck in charge of the country would have more dignity. A literal pile of shit on the Oval Office desk would be less humiliating to spend your days protecting from consequence. What absurd, misguided husks are keeping him in our lives.

A Few Good Men. Best in Show. A Mighty Wind. Miss Congeniality. Barcelona. All three movies in Linklater's "Before" trilogy. Music & Lyrics. Michael Clayton. All films that were able to be made because of the production company Reiner co-founded in order to give talented filmmakers creative freedom.

“Are you ready for…*looks left and right to see who’s around*…SHIT?!”

lettuce, tomato, lettuce, meat, meat, meat, meat, meat, cheese, lettuce.

Omg I forgot about this. Loved this performance so much, had no idea he was going to be in it either.

When I lived in LA 97-99 (and you may recall this @davidjroth.bsky.social), Rob Reiner led the smoking ban in bars. I couldn’t believe bars could exist without cigs. And I don’t even smoke. He kickstarted all of it. I still go to bars. I never have to Febreez my clothes. So, also that.

Honestly, between All In The Family, his 80s run, and the stories about his good works fundraising for causes, you could make me watch the decades of films we shan’t share from Wikipedia front-to-back clockwork Orange style and I’d still be truly bummed he’s gone.