WAP
“WAP” featuring Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion, and Kylie Jenner. The video is lit.
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Sweatpants Nation
A brilliant cover. The New York Times Magazine. Hard pants are the enemy of good.
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Black & White
Love the architecture in Burbank. This is a dingbat, isn’t it? From my Instagram.
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The Fake Tweet
Check out this fascinating app. It creates a fake tweet based on your writing style. Mine is: “The helm at the nation’s ennui through energy and lived the soul aquarium.” Very cool!
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10 Things
My latest Valleywood newsletter is hot off the presses, featuring “10 Things.” Those things include a handbag made out of a blowup doll, a cock that had a spiritual experience, and the adult industry’s hot mess approach to the coronavirus pandemic. Oh, and there’s a writing tip, too, from someone who’s been doing it long enough to know (me). Subscribe!
An excerpt:
4. This morning, I saw the famous wild parrots of Burbank. In total, I spotted maybe a dozen in two different areas. They are brilliant green and noisy as hell. They made me feel like anything was possible if I could figure out how to fly.
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The Last Plague
Image via Wikimedia Commons
Awhile back, an audio producer friend of mine asked me to write up a pitch for an original fiction podcast series inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic. The series I pitched wasn’t picked up, but here’s an excerpt from the pitch:
What if you thought you were the last person left alive in the world? What would you do? And what if one day you discovered you weren’t the only one? “The Last Plague” is a two-part, 70-minute, fictional oral history of what happened after The Last Plague (as it’s known) leaves one lone virus-immune survivor on each continent. Narratively framed through interviews conducted by a researcher in Singapore, this original fiction podcast series examines the power of our will to survive and the determination to connect with others in the wake of a global catastrophe.
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Earthquake!
I grew up in California, so I’m used to earthquakes. This one was close and strong. It was enough to have me sit up in bed and grab my phone. A few smaller ones followed. The world shook and then stilled.
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That Thing
One thing that’s been challenging lately is that I have a project that I’ve been working on, but the stage it’s at currently, I can’t discuss it. That’s been hard. Most of the time, I can write about whatever I want, and I prize myself on being able to write in an unfettered way. In any case, eventually I’ll be able to share it.
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#mood
A recent snap from my Instagram feed.
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The Interrupters
Image via Wikipedia
Great piece by Betty Márquez Rosales for The New York Times, featuring “the Interrupters” in Stockton, where “Covid-19 and the issue of police brutality have intertwined with the existing problems of gun violence and unemployment to create fresh ways of ensnaring young Black and Latino men.”
An excerpt:
“Stockton sits in the vast agricultural flatlands of central California, about 80 miles east of San Francisco. It is a working-class community that fell into steep decline after the Great Recession. A universal basic income project, investments in its downtown, and the election of its youngest and first Black mayor have generated optimism in the city. But violence remains a challenge. A 2018 F.B.I. report found that Stockton’s violent crime rate was the highest of 70 California cities with more than 100,000 residents. ‘A lot of folks in our community were in a crisis before the coronavirus crisis,’ Michael Tubbs, Stockton’s mayor, said.”
Read it here.
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The Last Dance
The ESPN Michael Jordan documentary “The Last Dance” is fantastic. On Netflix.
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Burbank
As seen in Burbank’s Magnolia Park neighborhood. Follow me on Instagram here.
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Toni
I’ll read anything by Hilton Als, and this 2003 profile of Toni Morrison is why.
“‘I know it seems like a lot,’ Morrison said. ‘But I really only do one thing. I read books. I teach books. I write books. I think about books. It’s one job.’ What Morrison has managed to do with that job—and the criticism, pro and con, she has received for doing it—has made her one of the most widely written-about American authors of the past fifty years. (The latest study of her work, she told me, is a comparison of the vernacular in her novels and William Faulkner’s. ‘'I don’t believe it,’ I said. ‘Believe it,’ she said, emphatically.) Morrison—required reading in high schools across the country—is almost always treated as a spokeswoman for her gender and her race. In a review of “Paradise,” Patricia Storace wrote, ‘Toni Morrison is relighting the angles from which we view American history, changing the very color of its shadows, showing whites what they look like in black mirrors. To read her work is to witness something unprecedented, an invitation to a literature to become what it has claimed to be, a truly American literature.’ It’s a claim that her detractors would also make, to opposite effect.”
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Blow Me
On my Forbes blog, I wrote about a woman who’s turning blowup dolls into fashion designs.
An excerpt:
Breslin: Why did you choose this model of blowup doll?
Friday: Judy's the one! Out of all the blowup dolls out in the world, she's the most iconic. She has a classic design that's been around for decades, so she has a warm nostalgic feeling about her. I like that she plays it classy with her closed mouth, but we all know what she's really got on her mind.
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Pussy Valley
I’m watching “P-Valley.” That’s Pussy Valley. A strip club in the Mississippi Delta.
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All I Need Is A Miracle
I’m embarrassed to admit that I’m reading this book. Please don’t tell anyone.
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Outcry
“Outcry” on Showtime is fantastic. Watch the whole thing. It’s worth the journey.
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High Anxiety
I’m back to posting my #pandemicfiction on my Instagram feed. Check out the Pandemic Highlight folder for the archives and a complete version of this one.
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10 Years Ago
A decade ago, I had the delight of viewing this bespoke video for the first time.
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Once Upon a Time ... in Burbank
A recent shot from my Instagram feed.
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