REID #58

Nov 09, 2021

snl was fun this week - hosted by twinkdyke royalty Kieran Culkin

SHORT:

I am watching this new lesbian reality show called Tampa Baes. I won’t spoil it for all of you, but basically there’s a girl named “Cuppy” on it. And she’s back in town.

In other lesbian news, Kristen Stewart got engaged. Thank you to everyone who sent cards, condolences, and edible arrangements my way.

After taking some time, I can honestly say I am happy for her and her blonde fiance who worked on that Seth Rogen American Pickle movie.

MEDIUM:

Everyone asks what dysphoria feels like, and I always tell them it's like when I was an English tutor and I showed up to the Upper East Side and so did the kid's math tutor because they double booked us and we had to fight to the death.

Starting testosterone at the same time as grad school was sort of one of the dumbest decisions of my life. Turns out puberty + learning = so hard?

*cue every middle schooler in the world at my apartment door with a gun screaming YEAH BITCH WELCOME BACK*

I spent Thursday sobbing about this (and more!) on a leather couch in my therapist’s new office and at the end of the session I stood up and looked around and was like, “wait, this office has an incredible view” and he said, “maybe next time you will be better able to take it in”.

MEAN.

Just kidding.

I love him.

You know this.

He knows this.

We all know this.

Anyway, I left and had another beautiful day feeling personally responsible for the emotions of everyone around me including random strangers!

I got a Starbucks Grilled Cheese, cuz yeah! You guessed it! They’re my new “thing”!

And then I went home and watched more Tampa Baes and took notes on how “Shiva thinks Brianna and Haley see themselves as the top lesbians in Tampa but Summer and Marissa definitely DON’T see things that way!”

The human race is so interesting.

Tonight I watched two more hours of Tampa Baes and still felt atrocious, but then I called my gay senior citizen pen pal and he told me about how he spent the whole week making puppets out of socks so that he could perform a spoken word puppet show to the lyrics of Neil Diamond & Barbra Streisand’s “You Don't Bring Me Flowers Anymore” for one of his 3 acting classes, and it cheered me up.

I walked to Carvel to get an Oreo Milkshake in my Nikes with my hood up looking very cool and emo while BLASTING Sara Bareilles King Of Anything thru my airpods. I am drinking the milkshake now and will have explosive diarrhea from it later.

LONG:

My girlfriend used to be a gymnast, and it was her birthday last week. In honor of both of these things, her mother got us tickets to go see Simone Biles and Co. on tour at the world-famous Barclays Center.

I pregamed the event with two coffees and a Chipotle bowl, because I wanted to explode the Barclays bathrooms. I spent the night making the absolutely hilarious joke of calling myself “Don Chipotle” like “Don Quixote” because I was so full of Chipotle.

Anyway, the tour started like any good gymnastics tour: with 7 different commercials for antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds.

After this stunning assortment of black and white movies, Laurie Hernandez (remember her?) came out and said what I always say at the beginning of a Brooklyn comedy show: “Tonight is not a competition, it’s one ginormous party. During this u will learn what I believe being golden is all about. There is gold in all of us”.

Then Simone walked out in a GOAT costume and people lost their fucking minds.

As the night pressed on, we witnessed a variety of Kenny Ortega-esque choreo routines to hit songs like “Love Myself” by Hailee Steinfeld (which is very much about masturbation, but none of the parents or young children there seemed to notice or care).

When the Hailee song came on, my girlfriend leaned over to me and said, “She dated Niall from One Direction but I don’t remember if she wrote this song before or after dating him”. Neither do I, girl! <3

Finally the flips started.

My main review of the night was: not enough flips.

In the two hour event, with 20+ dance numbers AND an intermission... there were probably like: 12 flips total.

At one point, Simone did an interpretive dance to clips of people talking about her Olympic withdrawal and a bunch of college gymnasts gremlin-crawled around her in sweatshirts that said, “your anxiety is not real”.

Then they welcomed 35 toddlers to the stage to do another dance about “being YOU!”

There was spoken word.

There were veiled references to the Larry Nassar scandal.

There was even a Bar Mitzvah-esque slide show of the gymnasts as young girls set to the hit Coldplay song “Fix You”.

There were a bunch of people onstage throughout, and one little girl in the stands loudly went, “I wanna watch one person at a time it’s getting my mind all confused” - and honey? I gotta say? Same.

I do appreciate that Simone kept repeating that “even the smallest voice can make the biggest impact” (but apparently not my little voice yelling “do more flips!” from the stands).

At one point Laurie graced us with a tumbling pass and flipped too hard and flew off the mat and I said, out loud, “that’s like when I tell a joke that slays so hard people fall over.”

I really should’ve done a tight five at the top of the whole thing to get the crowd going.

The show had about 90 quick changes/ outfits (and here I am worried about the ONE that happens in the show I’m currently directing - get tix!)

After Simone’s anxiety song, she danced to another song with the lyrics “Don’t You Worry Bout A Thing” which felt like confusing messaging.

When the song ended, she walked toward a giant screen with a projection of clouds and light on it, and I decided that it meant “all GOATS go to heaven.”

They REALLY milked the goat thing by the way. I’m talkin’ GOAT merch, GOAT projections, GOAT stuffed animals, GOAT talk all the way THRU.

And look. Was seeing Simone aka The Goat do a tumbling pass worth the price of admission alone? I don’t know because I didn’t pay for the tickets so I don’t know how much they cost, but I’m gonna say YA!?

It was pretty damn incredible to watch her do her thing.

Also one of the women on the tour has TWO children and was still up there backhandspringing on the beam. God bless.

When the girlboss propaganda night came to an end, we left Barclays and agreed that, “in a way, we’re all young gymnasts”. I even did a Shamu-like death drop on the couch when we got back to really drive this point home and everyone loved it (“said oh my god that scared me don’t do that again”).

Anyway, that’s pretty much the week.

Oh also, re: Kristen Stewart… I am ecstatic that Spencer is getting good press, and think Kristen should start practicing her Oscar speech now (because she’s going to win and also because … that girl is not good at talkin’ on the fly - love her! But it’s true!)

Also, did you know that “Winter Song” by Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson is one of the most beautiful things ever written?

Well now you do.

C u next Tuesday.