MAY WE ALL GET SOME PEACE: REID #169
Dick Van Dyke, Marinara, Penguin With Tits
SHORT:
Happy day-after-Christmas to all who celebrate.
MEDIUM:
I write to you from snowy Louisville, CO where I’m watching the 2003 masterpiece Elf with Jess and their family (and trying to forget about the time I projectile vomited in the town’s small-but-mighty downtown space after eating a breakfast burrito too fast).
Earlier this morning, I was in Anna Maria Florida, asleep next to a home that chose to display a huge inflatable penguin in a coconut bra as their only holiday decor.
Two days before that, I was in Brooklyn watching YouTube videos of Dick Van Dyke’s 98th birthday party. Rita Ora performed Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
This is all a long way of saying “wherever you go, there you are” — I think.
LONG:
In every interview Dick Van Dyke1 has done, he emphasizes that he’s “never worked” [because he’s loved each of his jobs so much], so I guess it’s time for me to learn how to tapdiddledeedoo and StepInTime! Because I’m desperate to feel that way!
I felt a similar pang of panic-envy this week in Florida whenever I’d see a cocktail napkin that had a phrase like “Legalize Marinara” or “Jingle Bells & Seashells” printed in breathtaking calligraphy across the front.
I want to spiritually (and maybe actually) be a person who writes “Let’s Get Nauti” in nautical font on a dishtowel, sends it off to be mass-produced, and feels incredible about it. No sarcasm. No snark. Just unbridled joie de vivre.
Maybe 2024 will be about that…
I sprang out of my seat to try and catch a glimpse of a manatee in a ravine this past weekend, so I feel like… that’s a promising start?!
(Then a family member made a joke about how the manatee was actually just one of our old white family members who fell in the water and I laughed out loud, so… one step forward… two steps back…)
My computer is dying and Elf is ending, so I need to wrap up, but before I do, I want to give a special shoutout to my youngest cousin Bennett who I found outside family Christmas on a lawn chair by himself “getting some peace”.
Snack Of The Week: tie between the 16 pieces of airport Sushi I had at Newark before boarding my plane and the delicious lemon tart my partner’s gay brother Ben made for Colorado Christmas dinner. Both were electric in different ways.
Comment Of The Week: “I can’t wait for this to be over” — my grandfather, (understandably!), during dinner with two-dozen of his kids and grandkids.
Runner-up, Comment Of The Week: “Your boarding pass says 1966 not 1996. You have to go downstairs and get it fixed” — Tampa airport TSA lady to me at 5am today.
May we all “get some peace” as soon as possible.
C U Next Tuesday
Thank you for subscribing. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s not – it’s a lot like when people slip on ice. If this is your first time reading, please god check out the archives, they’re better than this iteration, probably.
Sincerely,
Reid Pope
Bonus Jonas Zone:
Did you know you can’t search ‘Dick Van Dyke’ in TikTok because it thinks you’re looking up something lewd/gay? I finally ran his name together without spaces and found what I was looking for (63 clips of him, at age 98, singing with his a cappella group*)
*was tempted to say something along the lines of “which is lewd/sexy to me” but that would be a lie… I was actually deeply moved by his lasting zest for life and musical expression in each video and nearly cried watching them
Bennett’s life goal of being funny enough to be in your newsletter has been achieved. I wonder what he’ll aim for next…