Pop Culture Mondays/8.31.20
The “Wakanda Forever” Edition
Well…happy Monday my pop culture junkies. I am not going to lie, I really didn’t know if I was going to write today. I toyed with just the idea of putting out a Wakanda Forever post with a picture of Chadwick Boseman as T’Challa. So, forgive me if today’s newsletter is a little off…and also, apologies on skipping some things that while may have been captivating in the pop culture world, I just cannot bring myself to cover. Like the VMAs. Like I tried watching and yay on having a weird Dystopian awards show where everyone is performing on a stage with a green screen and no audience and Gaga wearing a mask that didn’t really cover her mouth but her dancers were ok I guess. But really, it was the fake audience for me. ENTIRELY FAKE cheers and applause and it depressed me so much I had to change the channel and watch something more uplifting like The Vow on HBO Max diving into cults and brainwashing and sex slaves.
IN case you want to check out the Gaga performance:
There was a LOT this past week and I MAY have needed a few more days to recover and restart before Monday came but I will give it a go. I normally say, think of PCM like a guilt-free walk thru a candy store where you can eat all the sugar in the world with ZERO negative results. Today, I won’t say that…I mean we all need a break from sugar here and there even if it is the guilt-free kind. Maybe it’s more like sitting in a room with a bottle of wine listening to TSwift’s “Folklore” kind of newsletter this week and there is NOTHING wrong with that unless you don’t drink then please don’t do that…instead like eating an entire tub of full fat ice cream and listening to Taylor Swift’s “Folklore”. So….enjoy?
WHAT DO YOU EVEN SAY?
Friday evening, after making the decision I was not going to have a glass of wine (later I reversed this decision) and instead have a healthy bowl of veggies (also reversed this decision) and plop down to decompress in front of the TV, I first was alerted to something being wrong when I saw my friend Jordan’s tweet simply saying “Damn”. This was unlike Jordan so I was hoping she was ok. Then all of a sudden I saw the news. It stopped me from breathing. I thought NO NO this was not possible. NOPE. No chance.. this has to be a sick joke. He was only 43. He was a super hero. He was just beginning. And then there I was totally and uncontrollably sobbing. For a man I have never met. I was totally and uncontrollably sobbing. It was too much. With all of the seemingly bad news hitting us day in and day out, this is what finally broke me. I remember once Jeremy Clarkson, a very famous personality across the pond, once explained to me, the utter and complete fame he had in the UK when I witnessed people just stopping their cars in the middle of traffic to say hi to him. I had never seen anything like this. He explained it that it simply was because he was in people’s living rooms every night on their screens, he was just a part of the family like they really felt he was part of their crew. They would forget they actually didn’t know him and therefore he was so familiar to them.
But this was NOT the case with Chadwick. He was not a movie star we followed on social media breathlessly and showed us what he was doing each day. He wasn’t someone living in the public eye like so many celebs do whether they want to or not. He was an actor who we all came to admire at the same time, from his roles as important figures whether Jackie Robinson in 42 or Thurgood Marshall in Marshall or T’Challa in Black Panther. He was an actor, a director, a writer. He was an activist, a humanitarian. He was compassionate and thoughtful in everything he said and he made history with being the first Black super hero. And it turns out he was one in real life too.
Before I go on, I think if you haven’t see his graduation speech at Howard University, his alma mater, you should watch that now:
So this was two years ago. He was battling cancer, a very tough diagnosis and fight and this was when he was RIGHT in the middle of it and no one knew. He filmed a movie as a super hero while on chemo. And no one knew. I have had too many losses to cancer in my own life from my mom to several friends. I have had cancer myself and I know that total and complete fear that consumes you when the doctor tells you the diagnosis and that utter disbelief that this body of yours that you have taken care of that is a unified part of YOU has let you down. That fear of whether you can beat it keeping you up at night. I mean there were days I couldn’t get out of bed not because of pain or illness but simply because I was TOO afraid or sad or overwhelmed. And there were days I probably said too many times… “Why me?”
Now I have no idea what Chadwick went thru in his most private and alone times, but we watched him in the midst of a massive battle physically and emotionally and he never showed anything but strength, pride, compassion, humor, endurance, talent and he kept the focus on the power that came from all of it. His humor was infectious and I remember this SNL so well as this was a really incredible moment for so many reasons:
I remember the first time I saw Black Panther. It was a rainy night in NYC and my friend Britt and I went to Union Square movie theatre and I think we ate a large popcorn and downed most of our large Diet Coke we shared before the previews had even ended. And then we were taken to another world. We were transfixed. I remember at one point looking over at Britt who was crying. It wasn’t at a sad part of the movie, she was just in tears and what I found after was that she, as a black woman, and as a mother of black children had never seen anything like this movie and was so moved and so proud but also THIS WAS THE FIRST TIME SHE WAS REPRESENTED LIKE THIS. Her tears brought me to tears and having that chance, to see it in a way as a white woman I would not normally have seen it, was breathtaking. She and I captured those moments we shared after in Instagram stories, where we were arm and arm crying and then crossing our arms saying “Wakanda Forever”. It was a beautiful moment frozen in time in my memory.
I spoke to a lot of friends this weekend and we all shared this same thing…we all sobbed for a man we did not know (though some friends did know him and sobbed even more so). We were all brought together in this grief, in this unbelievable moment…this “what does it all mean??” sort of thinking. I think it is not a fascination with celebrity that did that…it was way more meaningful and impactful than that. We cry for the children who lost their king, their hero, their inspiration. We cry for a family that was split apart too soon. We cry for what will never be. And we cry for the awe and shock we all had in his private battle. And we cry for another unexplainable and unfair loss.
NBA STRIKE:
Yes, this was only last week. So much has happened in such a short period of time and while I really try not to touch on Trump and that whole destructive, dangerous, crazy administration…we are very much where we are in many ways because of it. From the handling of a pandemic to the just blatant racism permeating that administration and the permission it GIVES to people to be racist and giving ZERO fucks. Have the police been violating the rights of Black people always? Yes. Has it escalated? I am not sure. As Will Smith said, “Racism is not getting worse, it’s getting filmed.” And we had that again with the police shooting of Jacob Blake who we watched being shot 6 times IN THE BACK while unarmed in his car in front of his children leaving him paralyzed in Kenosha, Wisconsin. We have seen the PR spin on it from the police side that he HAD A KNIFE in his car (I have a big ole Swiss Army knife in my car fyi) and then this led to protests that led to an armed teenager vigilante being given water and encouragement from the cops and then went and shot people dead and then was not arrested until after he was able to leave the state and go home.
The Milwaukee Bucks were scheduled to play a playoff game in the Disney World bubble where the NBA has been for months. And they refused come out of their locker room to play and this led to a PLAYER DRIVEN NBA-Strike (NOT A BOYCOTT as others described it while a technical distinction, an important one). Some of my friends in the Black community were frustrated that this had to be led by players…some of them with everything to lose and not big long term careers but ones starting out…VERSUS the leadership. But the players got the entire NBA on board and it was powerful. And they collectively came back to play a few days later, but everyone seemingly empowered now with even more purpose and even more passion and it just may be the thing to help get us to a new place in this country. And beyond.
I was moved by so many of the moments but this one from Clippers coach Doc Rivers stuck with me:
And the Lincoln Project released this video they made from it and it is all too much:
And then there was this…Jamal Murray who plays for the Denver Nuggets who wore sneakers honoring Breonna Taylor and George Floyd and then gave this emotional interview that makes the hairs stand up all over your body. Take a deep breath:
And then I will end with this as it sums it up in ways I never ever could. But former NBA player and on-air analyst Chris Webber…
AND THESE ARE A FEW OF MY FAVORITE THINGS….
I didn’t think anything else could really follow these posts so it’s a short PCM this week and maybe sobering but I did want to have some light and fun things included. So maybe I am not in the zone to write at length about the other things that popped up this week (and LORD NO I am not including crazy pants screaming speeches from the RNC NOPE NO SIR) but I have a few of the lighter moments from the week below so we can end on a different note.
- A lot of people either didn’t know or forgot that Democrat heartthrob and current governor of California, Gavin Newsom (ONE DAY I will tell the old party days of SF in the ‘90s and the Balboa…ONE day) was married to current CRAZY PANTS Trump Jr. girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle. People forget she was the first lady of San Francisco when Gavin was Mayor. People forget Kimberly, pre-tons of plastic surgery, looked different and was seemingly more liberal. BUT THEY POSED FOR THIS PICTURE. The Gov didn’t grow up rich…but he grew up with very rich besties aka The Gettys who lent them their home for this very ill-advised photo shoot in 2004 billed as the NEW KENNEDY (NO, Jackie would never have sprawled across the floor with JFK NO CHANCE) and this spread around Twitter as a blast from the past to remind people of what used to be. #NEVERFORGET
- This is one of my favorite stories for the quotes alone, never mind the entire subject matter which is brilliant and nuts. “I AM JUST LIKE AOC” is everything especially as described by writer Katie Rosman, that the person saying that was driving her kids around the Hamps.
- If you grew up in the ‘80s in the Tri-State area there was nothing you wanted more than to go to Action Park. NOTHING MATTERED MORE. I remember the ads like yesterday. “PLEASE MOM!!!!!” I would beg, and she would laugh at me that I even thought for one second this was within the realm of possibility. No one would be more smug with this documentary than my mother. IT IS EVERYTHING and horrifying.
- There was a story the other week I forgot to post that is everything. It’s about single people that were taken in by families during lockdown and now won’t leave their fancy digs in places like the Hamptons. READ THE ROOM people…and in the article is YOURS truly…and 🥔 the dog gets a call out. WE ARE EXAMPLES of knowing when to leave…after THREE months! HAHAHAH BUT seriously, thank you to my Lock-down Wifey, Deborah and her incredible kids Sydney (yo, bro) and Ben for putting up with us for so long. ❤️
- And lastly, I love me some TikTok. Obviously a lot of talk on the business side about who is buying TikTok which I shall not touch with a ten foot pole which for some will be obvious as to why. BUT I do love a trend and there were few recently but nothing is funnier to me than the “Its the…for me” trend you may see and not even know what you are seeing. It pops up in Twitter and Insta comments too and I love it so much. I even referenced it at the top of this newsletter. Have fun:
Until next week, my Pop Culture Junkies. I hope this week is better I truly do. I hope we see progress. I hope we all find joy and laughter and in these final few days of summer get to disconnect a bit. Have an amazing and safe and wonderful short week and Labor Day WEEKEND everyone. PCM will come out NEXT TUESDAY!
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