Bowen Yang on letting go, Katie Holmes and other favs, Lady Whistledown is a bad gossip, hugs from Jin and a Coldplay collab (?), and authentic celebs (but only the right kind of authentic)
i remember being 10 years old and seeing a "celebrities they're just like us, they pump gas" photograph and it's like...what's even the POINT of being a celebrity if you still have to get your own gas, the world's worst task
Let me invite you to move to the state of Oregon where they preserved the gas jockey job by enshrining into law that you cannot pump your own gas. I find that worse. It's an easy task I can carry out myself, I feel awful making someone do it for me. Driving through Oregon is so awkward.
40+ years of living in Oregon and let me tell you, it's a blessing not to get out of your car and pump gas when it's 37 degrees and raining. Yes, I tipped the attendant when they were outside in that sort of weather. Now I live in Minnesota and I'm pumping my own gas during the hellacious winter--WTF? No!
I actually recently ran out of gas in New Jersey because I was too afraid to let them pump gas for me because it feels too weird. Do you tip?? I don't know?? (You know what's weirder is explaining to the AAA guy what happened). But again, not a task I personally enjoy.
I'm from NJ and never tipped when they pumped my gas...hopefully I wasn't supposed to lol. I liked it except when it was crowded so they took forever to get to you. In those moments I was like "I wish I could get out and do this myself"
It's not that I like pumping gas. It's that I love the smell of gasoline and standing outside while pumping gas is basically the only socially acceptable way to enjoy that scent. :)
The smell of gasoline gives me an instant migraine and makes me nauseous, but I do have two other toxic, petroleum-related smells I enjoy, each concerning one of my parents. When I was a kid we would drive to St. Louis to visit my mother's sister, and we would go downtown to eat at Pope's Cafeteria and the go watch some fantastic movie at the Fox Theater. It's where i saw The Sound of Music when I was about 6 years old. Anyway, one of the things i loved was the smell of bus fumes. I don't know why, but the smell of those bus fumes delighted me.
The other smell that I loved, and still do, came to me because i was Daddy's little helper on the farm and went with him everywhere. One of the places we went often was Orscheln's, a chain store that caters to the various needs of farmers. At the back of the store were two huge racks filled with new tires, and daddy would let me run back there and sniff all the tires I wanted while he took care of business. Tires do not smell the same as they did back in the day, you can occasionally find a place that has tires that have that smell, but not very often.
Anyway. Thanks for coming to my TED talk on beloved toxic fumes.
Omg Sarah. I also love that smell and used to like INHALE it in the garage as a kid until my mom got worried about me and thought I was trying to self harm.
One of my guilty pleasures is old school episodes of Roseanne (I know, I know). But I do sometimes watch old favorite eps (The "DJ got caught playing with his instrument in band class" one, for instance), and Dan Conner is one of those great sitcom dads. John Goodman is a lovable dude, and it came through in that role.
Has he ever pulled a Robin Williams and played someone scary/evil? He'd be a great movie serial killer - like an old school seventies trucker in Washington state or something.
I do agree about Nicholas and Julia and the other people listed who can't really turn off the personality switch. Is Sarah Jessica Parker always a little Sarah Jessica Parker-y? I feel like she might be. It's not as if the woman lacks range, and she doesn't carry Carrie Bradshaw with her everywhere, but it's like some actors have a certain effervescence that they can't just turn off no matter how much they weep on camera. And the cadence of her voice generally stays the same.
Julie Andrews is one of those unimpeachable celebs who's universally loved a bunch, right? She's been famous for decades before I was born, she's associated with beloved film and theater, and I've never read anything negative about her - just how kind, professional, and generous she is.
And Willie Nelson too, I think. I feel like everyone adores Willie. And Stevie (both of them). I'm kind of afraid to say more names because I don't want to hear wretched things about them from people who know better, but I feel like these people are pretty intact, rep-wise.
Growing up I was OBSESSED with The Fonz. So I am thrilled that Henry Winkler seems to have the same "always a good and kind man" rep. I met him once traveling and he was so nice, even when I was borderline weird bc I was so excited to meet him in real life.
I was scared stupid by that movie, once I realized that I'd seen all the scenes used in the trailer by the 20 min mark. I woke up at 5 the next morning still thinking about the movie, still extremely frightened.
JG played a dirty cop in something back in the day (Sea of Love? The Big Easy?) and was pretty menacing. I watched it post-Roseanne so I was all "noooooo Mr. Conner!"
John Goodman does good work. When Roseanne was booted as a consequence of her own actions he took up for her. He said she wasn't racist. Unsurprising that he thought his opinion was necessary rather than keeping it to what he feels for her. One movie playing someone in the KKK does not make him an expert on the spectrum of bigotry. So he's obtuse, but not a horrible person.
Have you seen a movie with SJP has been in where she's not a version of herself? I enjoy her, but your description had me thinking about what I remember of her films. However, her she was good in Divorce so maybe TV is her lane. She makes sure it's known that she's from a very big family and not from money.
I should explain that I love Katie's style for her, but not for me. For my style I prefer Gemma's actually (not to say that I'm anywhere near her stratosphere!!) but I like what Katie does for jeans, norm core, and her general attention to detail with shoes, bags, etc. I will say I was very disappointed with her APC collaboration...they could have done less basic pieces. Though the quilt is cute af.
I hhhaaaaaaaated Katie's style when she was with Tom Cruise - even the fuckass bob that everyone went bonkers over. I felt most everything was try-hard and she was shooting for avant garde, almost Blanchetty looks that were awkward and never came together for me. But now I wonder how much of that was Tom revamping her wardrobe, Kanye-style, just for the fun/control freak aspect of it.
You know that Nicole Kidman would have been like, "yeah. Naur" if anyone tried to get her to wear anything she wasn't enamored with, even if it was David Miscavige and his goons themselves. That woman takes fashion seriously, and she knows her shit.
Anyway. I love Katie's street style, and am so-so on the red carpet stuff, but when she looks good, she looks very, VERY good.
Agree with you on her TomKat style. Now, her red carpet style (not that she does many!) leaves something to be desired. It's her appearances...like going to The Today Show, or showing up to some store or brand event...that I always notice. And her street style, which she often does with little to no makeup. I find it fascinating as I mentioned...not covetable, just interesting!!
As much as I really like Bowen Yang, I found his unhinged defense of Ariana Grande's messiness on Las Culturistas very off-putting. No matter how many different ways he tried to spin the situation positively (you have to listen to the universe/ people are only upset because of puritanical norms/it doesn't matter if innocent people get hurt as long as you speak your truth/etc) it was still gross (IMO).
Maybe he 100% believes all that, but it also kind of made me think about Tina Faye's comment to him, that authenticity is expensive. He's in a movie with Ariana. It's not like he could express his true feelings if they were negative.
That's very true, but he could have just left it at praising her new album or her SNL performance the week before, but he chose a full-throttle defense of infidelity.
So I took the time on a recent solo long car ride day to listen and assess if I liked the new Ariana Grande album. Its the purest music environment for me listening from start to finish. There was a lot of exposition songs for the first third and last few songs and the middle meat was the pop singles. Sorry to Lainey and Jacek but except for 'we can't be friends' an undeniable earworm, I cannot fuck with this album. Theres so much dodgy we grew apart but maybe he also cheated subtext to muddy up the husbandy songs. I did NOT need to hear someone sing the actual word 'situationship' -this might be due to being an old millenial. But the squickiest part was picturing the spongebob face from The Spongebob the Musical when she's singing about The Boy Is Mine. My brain won't separate the character from the actor, their faces have too many similar features. Seems I could never get even slightly horny for Spongebob.
Not an album on repeat for me despite the Max Martin of it all. Color me shocked to see he wrote/produced almost every single track. Ariana wrote all the lyrics so I didnt even get to enjoy some nonsensical Swedish translation.
Are Gemma and Simone working in any way in the UK? Stage? UK actors seems to vacillate between the stage, TV and film. Conversely, the UK seems to be behind on the small/big things like the recent hair and makeup (it's awful, and I can't believe it's gone this long without remedy...except it's very UK) on POC. Gemma has Chanel energy. KiKi Layne is another one that's missing. I think that's why Emma Stone sucking up all the oxygen is tiring. There's so much talent going around, but very little real estate is broad. Maybe there will be good work coming soon. THR roundtables for dramatic actresses was top heavy with out of touch actresses vs. those with depth. Sofia Vergara was giving very real experiences and Kidman and Aniston were not in any way understanding her plight. They also missed her jokes. Jodie, Naomi and Brie felt more on level with Anna and Sofia when they were expressing their perspective.
Tiffany Haddish told an absolute fucking hilarious story about Nicolas Cage on Conan‘s podcast recently. That whole episode is cheeks hurt from laughing good!
Making the mailbag was such a highlight to my week after being deliriously sick with a sinus infection this last week. I can't remember how hopped up on OTC meds I was when I clicked send on my question. Thanks for the in depth answer. And I died cackling when Sarah brought it all home with 'murder'. Thank god Nicholas Cage doesn't do murder. Where could you find a jury that would convict Nic fucking Cage.
And I am having an off day and have had a migraine all day, I'm sure that's why this reference escapes me, but what do you mean by "I would love to recruit you too!" I assumed it was a typo or something?
oh....in terms of rooting for Simone and Gemma. Yes. Give them all the flowers, they deserve it. The roles that Gemma is in feel too polished too, too reserved, I don't know if that's her persona or what not. I'd love to see her as a cutthroat lawyer if she was in law!!!
I don't use a ton of emojis, but I'm a lot more understanding of them now since I met someone who designs them and they're really trying to create a language without an alphabet. They want emojis to be like music and math, a universal system of expression. That's kind of neat.
Thank you very much for the explanation. I'm a native Chinese speaker, but left China before emojis came around and don't follow most Chinese online discourse so never came across this set of emojis before. I personally really love some Asian emojis that we don't see much in the west, especially the ones for flipping over tables. (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻ Or some of the very literal looking ones when people want to convey they are fucked. lol
I had to google xswl! Never seen it before. I don't watch a lot of c-drama--I actually don't watch a ton of anything, but I tend to feel hesitant about c-drama because they tend to be so long. Like everything is 40 episodes. There's something about the pacing in general that's a little off for me, maybe because they need it to be that long to fulfill time requirements on Chinese television? You Are My Glory might be the best paced one I've seen in recent years.
Since Chinese characters have at least some origin in pictographs (at least the traditional characters), it’s not a crazy statement to me that emojis are intended to be essentially a universal language. The problem is they are currently too limited in number and still differently interpreted to be universal. Like I always thought 🙏 meant praying but some people think it means a high five. But they can be helpful to cross language barriers.
Oh yes I know, my statement was extremely simplified (I used to be fluent in mandarin speaking and reading although have been lacking in practice, and was mainly fluent in simplified although I grew up with traditional characters). I mainly meant that I can see why the originators of emojis have this sense that emojis could become a universal language. And while I can see that being possible to some extent, human feeling is just too complex to boil down to pictures, which is why like you say Chinese characters aren’t just pictographs even if some characters have an original image as inspiration (I always think of 口 as a basic example and then the traditional character for 听 as taking those components plus a deeper understanding of what it means to actually listen to form the character). And the move to change from traditional to simplified was fascinating to me, due to the amount of thoughtfulness and nuance that went into characters and trying to boil that down to something easier. The process of language formation and communication generally is endlessly fascinating to me and I feel like Chinese characters in particular is such a good case study for language formation, due to inherent structural limitations around forming new words to describe new tech for example. But yet there’s always a way, even if you have to combine existing characters to form new compounds instead of just stringing together random letters like you can do in English. Am I rambling yet lol
I’m sure partly too you see nuances in languages that you study sometimes more than when it’s your native language. Although also studying other languages makes me notice interesting things about English too, like how words are combined together. But much easier to see roots/compounds/find word fragments fascinating when you are studying another language that is not your native tongue.
John Goodman is an international treasure and I am truly baffled that he's never been nominated for an Oscar. Coen brothers, fix that already.
Yes to Gemma and Simone! Cast them in all the things.
i remember being 10 years old and seeing a "celebrities they're just like us, they pump gas" photograph and it's like...what's even the POINT of being a celebrity if you still have to get your own gas, the world's worst task
Let me invite you to move to the state of Oregon where they preserved the gas jockey job by enshrining into law that you cannot pump your own gas. I find that worse. It's an easy task I can carry out myself, I feel awful making someone do it for me. Driving through Oregon is so awkward.
40+ years of living in Oregon and let me tell you, it's a blessing not to get out of your car and pump gas when it's 37 degrees and raining. Yes, I tipped the attendant when they were outside in that sort of weather. Now I live in Minnesota and I'm pumping my own gas during the hellacious winter--WTF? No!
I actually recently ran out of gas in New Jersey because I was too afraid to let them pump gas for me because it feels too weird. Do you tip?? I don't know?? (You know what's weirder is explaining to the AAA guy what happened). But again, not a task I personally enjoy.
they just passed a law allowing you to pump 😊 i think jersey is maybe still full though
I'm from NJ and never tipped when they pumped my gas...hopefully I wasn't supposed to lol. I liked it except when it was crowded so they took forever to get to you. In those moments I was like "I wish I could get out and do this myself"
Cleaning the bathroom is the world’s worst task, you cannot convince me otherwise.
I love pumping gas. Maybe that's telling
It's not that I like pumping gas. It's that I love the smell of gasoline and standing outside while pumping gas is basically the only socially acceptable way to enjoy that scent. :)
The smell of gasoline gives me an instant migraine and makes me nauseous, but I do have two other toxic, petroleum-related smells I enjoy, each concerning one of my parents. When I was a kid we would drive to St. Louis to visit my mother's sister, and we would go downtown to eat at Pope's Cafeteria and the go watch some fantastic movie at the Fox Theater. It's where i saw The Sound of Music when I was about 6 years old. Anyway, one of the things i loved was the smell of bus fumes. I don't know why, but the smell of those bus fumes delighted me.
The other smell that I loved, and still do, came to me because i was Daddy's little helper on the farm and went with him everywhere. One of the places we went often was Orscheln's, a chain store that caters to the various needs of farmers. At the back of the store were two huge racks filled with new tires, and daddy would let me run back there and sniff all the tires I wanted while he took care of business. Tires do not smell the same as they did back in the day, you can occasionally find a place that has tires that have that smell, but not very often.
Anyway. Thanks for coming to my TED talk on beloved toxic fumes.
OMG, I loved the exhaust fumes of my distant childhood in China when maybe gas was still leaded
Tire smell is a GREAT smell. I also love gas fumes and hate visiting my brother in New Jersey because it feels too weird to not pump my own gas.
Omg Sarah. I also love that smell and used to like INHALE it in the garage as a kid until my mom got worried about me and thought I was trying to self harm.
💯 on Bowen. Love love love. And team emoji here. Non emoji folks are monsters 😁
One of my guilty pleasures is old school episodes of Roseanne (I know, I know). But I do sometimes watch old favorite eps (The "DJ got caught playing with his instrument in band class" one, for instance), and Dan Conner is one of those great sitcom dads. John Goodman is a lovable dude, and it came through in that role.
Has he ever pulled a Robin Williams and played someone scary/evil? He'd be a great movie serial killer - like an old school seventies trucker in Washington state or something.
I do agree about Nicholas and Julia and the other people listed who can't really turn off the personality switch. Is Sarah Jessica Parker always a little Sarah Jessica Parker-y? I feel like she might be. It's not as if the woman lacks range, and she doesn't carry Carrie Bradshaw with her everywhere, but it's like some actors have a certain effervescence that they can't just turn off no matter how much they weep on camera. And the cadence of her voice generally stays the same.
Julie Andrews is one of those unimpeachable celebs who's universally loved a bunch, right? She's been famous for decades before I was born, she's associated with beloved film and theater, and I've never read anything negative about her - just how kind, professional, and generous she is.
And Willie Nelson too, I think. I feel like everyone adores Willie. And Stevie (both of them). I'm kind of afraid to say more names because I don't want to hear wretched things about them from people who know better, but I feel like these people are pretty intact, rep-wise.
Growing up I was OBSESSED with The Fonz. So I am thrilled that Henry Winkler seems to have the same "always a good and kind man" rep. I met him once traveling and he was so nice, even when I was borderline weird bc I was so excited to meet him in real life.
John Goodman in 10 Cloverfield Lane is something you should check out if you haven’t seen it!
I was scared stupid by that movie, once I realized that I'd seen all the scenes used in the trailer by the 20 min mark. I woke up at 5 the next morning still thinking about the movie, still extremely frightened.
JG played a dirty cop in something back in the day (Sea of Love? The Big Easy?) and was pretty menacing. I watched it post-Roseanne so I was all "noooooo Mr. Conner!"
John Goodman does good work. When Roseanne was booted as a consequence of her own actions he took up for her. He said she wasn't racist. Unsurprising that he thought his opinion was necessary rather than keeping it to what he feels for her. One movie playing someone in the KKK does not make him an expert on the spectrum of bigotry. So he's obtuse, but not a horrible person.
Have you seen a movie with SJP has been in where she's not a version of herself? I enjoy her, but your description had me thinking about what I remember of her films. However, her she was good in Divorce so maybe TV is her lane. She makes sure it's known that she's from a very big family and not from money.
He's not a great dude in the Born Yesterday remake with Melanie Griffth. But he's still so delightful to watch in the role.
He's also Babe Ruth and not great. He has range.
I should explain that I love Katie's style for her, but not for me. For my style I prefer Gemma's actually (not to say that I'm anywhere near her stratosphere!!) but I like what Katie does for jeans, norm core, and her general attention to detail with shoes, bags, etc. I will say I was very disappointed with her APC collaboration...they could have done less basic pieces. Though the quilt is cute af.
I hhhaaaaaaaated Katie's style when she was with Tom Cruise - even the fuckass bob that everyone went bonkers over. I felt most everything was try-hard and she was shooting for avant garde, almost Blanchetty looks that were awkward and never came together for me. But now I wonder how much of that was Tom revamping her wardrobe, Kanye-style, just for the fun/control freak aspect of it.
You know that Nicole Kidman would have been like, "yeah. Naur" if anyone tried to get her to wear anything she wasn't enamored with, even if it was David Miscavige and his goons themselves. That woman takes fashion seriously, and she knows her shit.
Anyway. I love Katie's street style, and am so-so on the red carpet stuff, but when she looks good, she looks very, VERY good.
Naur
Agree with you on her TomKat style. Now, her red carpet style (not that she does many!) leaves something to be desired. It's her appearances...like going to The Today Show, or showing up to some store or brand event...that I always notice. And her street style, which she often does with little to no makeup. I find it fascinating as I mentioned...not covetable, just interesting!!
As much as I really like Bowen Yang, I found his unhinged defense of Ariana Grande's messiness on Las Culturistas very off-putting. No matter how many different ways he tried to spin the situation positively (you have to listen to the universe/ people are only upset because of puritanical norms/it doesn't matter if innocent people get hurt as long as you speak your truth/etc) it was still gross (IMO).
Maybe he 100% believes all that, but it also kind of made me think about Tina Faye's comment to him, that authenticity is expensive. He's in a movie with Ariana. It's not like he could express his true feelings if they were negative.
I just heard him say that on a different podcast this morning!
Yikes!
That's very true, but he could have just left it at praising her new album or her SNL performance the week before, but he chose a full-throttle defense of infidelity.
So I took the time on a recent solo long car ride day to listen and assess if I liked the new Ariana Grande album. Its the purest music environment for me listening from start to finish. There was a lot of exposition songs for the first third and last few songs and the middle meat was the pop singles. Sorry to Lainey and Jacek but except for 'we can't be friends' an undeniable earworm, I cannot fuck with this album. Theres so much dodgy we grew apart but maybe he also cheated subtext to muddy up the husbandy songs. I did NOT need to hear someone sing the actual word 'situationship' -this might be due to being an old millenial. But the squickiest part was picturing the spongebob face from The Spongebob the Musical when she's singing about The Boy Is Mine. My brain won't separate the character from the actor, their faces have too many similar features. Seems I could never get even slightly horny for Spongebob.
Not an album on repeat for me despite the Max Martin of it all. Color me shocked to see he wrote/produced almost every single track. Ariana wrote all the lyrics so I didnt even get to enjoy some nonsensical Swedish translation.
This right here. I do love Bowen but I find his stanning of Ariana annoying although I'm discovering that Ariana might be my "bitch eating crackers aka BEC" person (for those who don't know it's this meme: https://www.reddit.com/r/thebachelor/comments/9otbeu/for_all_those_who_dont_know_what_bec_btch_eating/
Are Gemma and Simone working in any way in the UK? Stage? UK actors seems to vacillate between the stage, TV and film. Conversely, the UK seems to be behind on the small/big things like the recent hair and makeup (it's awful, and I can't believe it's gone this long without remedy...except it's very UK) on POC. Gemma has Chanel energy. KiKi Layne is another one that's missing. I think that's why Emma Stone sucking up all the oxygen is tiring. There's so much talent going around, but very little real estate is broad. Maybe there will be good work coming soon. THR roundtables for dramatic actresses was top heavy with out of touch actresses vs. those with depth. Sofia Vergara was giving very real experiences and Kidman and Aniston were not in any way understanding her plight. They also missed her jokes. Jodie, Naomi and Brie felt more on level with Anna and Sofia when they were expressing their perspective.
Tiffany Haddish told an absolute fucking hilarious story about Nicolas Cage on Conan‘s podcast recently. That whole episode is cheeks hurt from laughing good!
Would definitely be nice to see more of Gemma Chan.
Also I wonder if the murderer who followed LG is Karen Reed!!!!?????🤯🤯😫 I think thats the only woman on trial rn
Making the mailbag was such a highlight to my week after being deliriously sick with a sinus infection this last week. I can't remember how hopped up on OTC meds I was when I clicked send on my question. Thanks for the in depth answer. And I died cackling when Sarah brought it all home with 'murder'. Thank god Nicholas Cage doesn't do murder. Where could you find a jury that would convict Nic fucking Cage.
And I am having an off day and have had a migraine all day, I'm sure that's why this reference escapes me, but what do you mean by "I would love to recruit you too!" I assumed it was a typo or something?
oh....in terms of rooting for Simone and Gemma. Yes. Give them all the flowers, they deserve it. The roles that Gemma is in feel too polished too, too reserved, I don't know if that's her persona or what not. I'd love to see her as a cutthroat lawyer if she was in law!!!
Yes, make her a terrible character! She's got range!!!
I don't use a ton of emojis, but I'm a lot more understanding of them now since I met someone who designs them and they're really trying to create a language without an alphabet. They want emojis to be like music and math, a universal system of expression. That's kind of neat.
Thank you very much for the explanation. I'm a native Chinese speaker, but left China before emojis came around and don't follow most Chinese online discourse so never came across this set of emojis before. I personally really love some Asian emojis that we don't see much in the west, especially the ones for flipping over tables. (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻ Or some of the very literal looking ones when people want to convey they are fucked. lol
I had to google xswl! Never seen it before. I don't watch a lot of c-drama--I actually don't watch a ton of anything, but I tend to feel hesitant about c-drama because they tend to be so long. Like everything is 40 episodes. There's something about the pacing in general that's a little off for me, maybe because they need it to be that long to fulfill time requirements on Chinese television? You Are My Glory might be the best paced one I've seen in recent years.
Since Chinese characters have at least some origin in pictographs (at least the traditional characters), it’s not a crazy statement to me that emojis are intended to be essentially a universal language. The problem is they are currently too limited in number and still differently interpreted to be universal. Like I always thought 🙏 meant praying but some people think it means a high five. But they can be helpful to cross language barriers.
Oh yes I know, my statement was extremely simplified (I used to be fluent in mandarin speaking and reading although have been lacking in practice, and was mainly fluent in simplified although I grew up with traditional characters). I mainly meant that I can see why the originators of emojis have this sense that emojis could become a universal language. And while I can see that being possible to some extent, human feeling is just too complex to boil down to pictures, which is why like you say Chinese characters aren’t just pictographs even if some characters have an original image as inspiration (I always think of 口 as a basic example and then the traditional character for 听 as taking those components plus a deeper understanding of what it means to actually listen to form the character). And the move to change from traditional to simplified was fascinating to me, due to the amount of thoughtfulness and nuance that went into characters and trying to boil that down to something easier. The process of language formation and communication generally is endlessly fascinating to me and I feel like Chinese characters in particular is such a good case study for language formation, due to inherent structural limitations around forming new words to describe new tech for example. But yet there’s always a way, even if you have to combine existing characters to form new compounds instead of just stringing together random letters like you can do in English. Am I rambling yet lol
I’m sure partly too you see nuances in languages that you study sometimes more than when it’s your native language. Although also studying other languages makes me notice interesting things about English too, like how words are combined together. But much easier to see roots/compounds/find word fragments fascinating when you are studying another language that is not your native tongue.