REID #153

feel free to use this graphic when ppl think u don’t have something but btw? you actually do!

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SHORT:

I love when you’re moving through the stadium of life and spot an old woman with a cane wearing a shirt that says, “I’m not stubborn, I’m just always right”. 

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MEDIUM:

Earlier this week, I carried a table 2 avenues and up 3 flights of stairs to my apartment. When I reached my door, I fished for my keys, and realized that my tongue had been out the entire time. I googled why people stick out their tongues when engaging in focus-heavy activities and learned that “it’s actually highly contested… something about motor overflow… hands and tongues are controlled by overlapping bits of our brains… etc. etc.” I settled on: “sticking out your tongue is your body saying screw you to god for making you do something physically demanding”. 

After getting the table, I went to buy flowers for Jess (they’re finally back from Colorado). Because my life is awesome, every florist I went to was closed (labor day weekend). This resulted in my “checking out the 99 cent store” on my block. I walked up and down every aisle to find that they did not sell flowers. Only succulents and money trees. As I moved to exit the store, the woman at the check-out counter said, “hi”, which launched me into a panic about how I’d just clomped around her establishment without selecting something to purchase. I grabbed a money tree and yelped, “I’ll take this!” It was not 99 cents, but 15 dollars. Every time I walk by it, it looks like it’s dying, and I mutter “not a metaphor” even though it is, in fact, supposed to be a symbol of luck and prosperity.

Jess saw it and thinks “it’s nice”. 

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LONG:

My great-uncle Chris (who reads this, I think! shoutout!) is on a softball team for “old geezers”. He recently posted a stunning mirror-selfie in his uniform. Shortly after the selfie was posted, I was sent a video of him successfully thwacking a softball into mid-field during a game. As he approaches the plate, a commentator with a thick Worcester accent tells us that, “Chris ‘Media Man’ Pope has been improving his game!”. When he makes contact with the ball, electronic music begins and a rock singer belts, “MEDIA MAN! MEE-DEEE-YA MAN!” (referring to Chris’s pre-retirement career as a journalist). A few plays later, Chris makes a killer catch in the outfield and we hear it again: “MEE-DEEE-YA MAN! MEE-DEEE-YA MAN!”

The song has been stuck in my head for days. 

I love that someone took the time to pen original names and hype jingles for each player. I love that older folks take the time to play softball with their friends (and dress up for it). 

I’ve been reading a book called Animal Joy that talks about play being the gateway to the unconscious (and laughter as something that “shakes us out of our deadness”, of course). Side note: I really need to read more fiction because every time I read nonfiction I turn it into a self-help book, scouring the pages for “answers!” and “immediate fixes!”. You know you’re really in deep when the nonfiction book you just read is quoted in the nonfiction book you’re currently reading… 

Nevertheless, Animal Joy has had some great quotes about “making familiar unfamiliar so we can see the defamiliarized social scripts we repeat out if deadened habit and are free to step off the moving walkway” and how “slapstick [humor] spotlights that fundamental vulnerability in all of us — our lack of control over our environment, even over our bodies— and gives us the opportunity to look at ourselves in low stakes contexts from a comfortable distance.” 

It’s inspired me to try and be more physical onstage. To tap into my wiggy, ballistic tendencies. I like how clowning can help shake up the contrived personal narrative that you, perhaps unconsciously, try to maintain. 

According to a crooked poster at my physical therapy place: “if you want something you’ve never had, you must do something you’ve never done!” I love staring at it while I’m getting the shit shocked out of my arm…

(it’s sort of a dumb mantra for the space, as every person comes in and does the same exact exercises weekly. There's an old guy in tight pants who pedals, sloth-like on the recumbent bike and then shouts “FINISHED!” the minute the timer goes off even though we all hear the timer and clearly know he is finished. There’s the woman who always asks everyone, “U HUNGRY?” while picking up marbles with her toes. And another woman who whispers “you got my thingies?” to the front desk lady when the bowl of snacks by the door doesn’t have Pringles. This prompts the front desk lady to make her way to the back room where she retrieves more Pringles. The woman takes them, kisses the front desk lady on the head, and tells everyone to “have a blessed day” as she steps out into the real world. 

BUT! I’m going to try and channel the mantra onstage or whatever. In comedy this month. Try things I’ve never done). 

I’ll leave you with this. A quote from the Animal Joy book that of course is also a quote from Nietzche that I’ve been regurgitating to every friend in the Brooklyn comedy scene who also gets agitated by the rat race:

“‘Joy,’ Nietzche writes, ‘has no need of heirs or children— Joy wants itself, wants eternity…’ Joy, like eroticism, is a ‘psychological quest’ as Bastille has it, ‘independent of the natural goal’: jouissance over procreation.”

Shoutout to my great-uncle Chris, “Amazing” Dave, “Killer” Carlson, Lenny “Legend”, “Go Go” Joe, and the rest of the Worcester geezer softball team for ~committing to joy/play~ in their old age and providing me with inspiration and a wholehearted chuckle. Shoutout to the author of Animal Joy for making me use the word jouissance in every conversation I’ve had this week. And shoutout to you for reading this, as always. 

Wanna help people get what they need?

Support my friend Jess.

Support my friend Jo.

C U Next Tuesday!

MEEDEEEYAHH MAN!

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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, check out the archives.

Sincerely,

Reid Pope

@rpopegram

@rpopetweets

Venmo: @rpope-venmo-26

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Bonus Jonas Zone:

my genius friend before sending something that made me upset for no reason — more people should do this

notes i took furiously while reading nonfiction, of course

they’re back! (and i finally found flowers)