EVERY WEEK THESE GET WORSE: REID #165

Tinder, Saltburn, Matt Rife, Leaf Blower, Short Film

Nov 28, 2023

saw Saltburn and didn’t love it but thot this actor who kinda looks like Mike Birbiglia did a rly good job

SHORT:

Just tried a HelloFresh meal “sponsored by Tinder*”… won’t know if it’s a good/bad “match” until a few hours later when i'm on tha can — heyo!

*we live in hell

MEDIUM:

Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrated.

Jess and I took a standing-room-only train out to Long Island to visit their 91-year-old grandma who kept forgetting it was Thanksgiving.

Before dinner, we played Monopoly with Jess’s 11-year-old cousin Harry and Jess’s i’m-not-sure-how-old aunt Sue. Sue chose a shoe as her token, and Harry yelled “Sue the shoe!” and started cracking up uncontrollably.

May your week be filled with simple joy of that sort.

*I could not, for the life of me, remember the word “token”, so I googled “what is thing called that you move on the board for Monopoly?” and found this article if anyone wants to learn “The Story Behind Each of the Most Popular Monopoly Pieces, Past and Present”.

LONG:

It’s winter, which means it’s hard to leave the house to do the things that I supposedly love like stand-up comedy, but I’m trucking along.

As a gay guy of lesbian experience, I try to remind myself that stand-up is cool cuz I get to hold a microphone like Dua Lipa while telling jokes like Ellen… (say what you want about El, but she took the idea of “gays scare people” and turned it into a decade-long recurring bit on her show, which I think is incredible. “Who needs progress, when you can terrify Brad Pitt by jumpin outta trashcan*?!” — proverb).

*i know ellen actually did a lot for gays, don’t cancel me

Speaking of frights, I want to give a shoutout to my friend Brandon, who joined me in a shared witnessing of a man who was not prepared for the strength of a gardening tool this past weekend (don’t read that sentence back if ur into grammar). We were sitting outside Clementine bakery, when all of a sudden, an older gentleman strolled by holding a small-but-later-to-be-revealed-quite-mighty leaf blower. I nodded hello to him and thought nothing of it, returning to my business (deep-throating a vegan donut).

Moments after the man passed, there was a loud VROOM that sent me and Brandon flying up out of our seats. We turned to see the leaf-blower man, staring wide eyed at his machine. According to Brandon (who had a clear view down the street), the blower-man had also jumped a foot in the air upon pressing the button. We spent the rest of our coffee meeting pondering whether or not human beings were meant to hold such power. Comment below with your thoughts.

And now, to wrap things up, Jess would like me to tell you all that they’re “getting into Tarot” and they’ve pulled a card for this newsletter (after 20 minutes of googling “how to pull one right” cuz they think “they’ve been pulling it wrong” — that’s what she said!!!! — sorry, I watched the Matt Rife special at the dentist and hated it so much that I turned it off and just listened to the sound of the tooth-scraper instead, but I think the first 10 minutes still managed to chemically alter my brain).

Tarot from Jess: “3 Of Wands — it’s time to expand your horizons, there’s not a shortcut to your destination… something something… life being about the journey… Reid you’re not listening to me… are you writing all of this down word-for-word?… ugh I know you’re not… REID, take this seriously, set your sights on heartfelt goals… and know that you can safely share them with allies… don’t make a joke about allies and lgbt, Reid, this is SERIOUS!”

Beautiful!

Speaking of goals (in earnest), I’m here to plug ANOTHER THING I’m doing:

Today, a Seed&Spark crowdfunding campaign for a short film that I wrote and am directing GOES LIVE. If you can, please donate. We have to raise so much money to properly compensate our phenomenal cast & crew, and have a little over a month to raise it! If you can’t donate, no worries! You can spread the word by posting about it on social and/or send it directly to a person in your life who wants 2 follow in the footsteps of esteemed producers like Marc Platt and all those guys in the movie The Producers.

Here is an exclusive BTS photo of when we were shot-listing and I had to stand in for the actors.