YouTube Obsession

Still balls deep into the Battlefield 6 hype. The multiplayer reveal looks great and I want to play it real bad.

I have not preordered yet so there’s a small victory.

Watching

Happy Gilmore from 1996 is my favorite Adam Sandler comedy. It’s an original film with so much character and is filled to the brim with raucous and irreverent comedy. Even background lines, meant to be throwaways, are still on repeat in my brain 29 years later.

Needless to say, I love this movie. So, does Happy Gilmore 2, the Netflix sequel carry it’s weight?

As a white, cis-male millennial, it's hard for me to outright hate an Adam Sandler movie. His movies were made in a time and place that permanently mutated my brain chemistry in the early 90s. I don’t really care for Billy Madison as a whole but I will never not say “Highschool“ as “Hikeschool”

That is what is possibly the most upsetting part of HG2; every opportunity for there to be a unique extra/actor with some weird Sandler-ian delivery or quirk¹ that will stick in my brain forever is instead played by some wafer-of-a-dude tictok star or comedy podcaster. The movie keeps presenting these people as if I am supposed to know who they are by just seeing them. I may have cameoed in this movie and don’t know it, that’s how obscure these people are. Not to mention that he has his daughters playing different roles in the movie and like, ok great, get your nepo on, but they are the most “sisters who look like sisters” in the world. Seeing them pop up in the movie as unrelated characters is jarring and not in a fun way.

Basically, if the original had been made today, unique comedy moments like the Mista Mista lady would be castrated by casting Bhad Bhabie. It’s just cynical and boring.

It’s also 2 hours long. Most movies should not be 2 hours long but even less so straightforward comedies. I think Bridesmaids broke people’s brains when it came to long-ass comedies and even that movie could be 20 minuets shorter. Part of this run time is showing -almost Simpsons clip show style- scenes from the original Happy Gilmore. committing one of the worst cinema sins (ding!) you can make: Don’t remind the audience of a better movie in your bad movie.

It’s not all bad though, Christopher McDonald is giving 110% to this character. You can tell he really loves playing Shooter McGavin. Lot of fun watching this guy. Ben Stiller is also hilarious, no surprise there and I can tell that Bad Bunny is acting well, I just don’t love the character.

There’s also great little throwaway jokes that will make me giggle every time I think of them. John Daly saying “contooter” instead of “computer”. Bennie Safdie breathing into a breath analyzer and it reading “FART DETECTED“ is making me laugh right now, as I type this out. Happy hiding booze in more and more ridiculous places is really really funny (if not relatable). There are moments of this movie showing true authenticity, but it’s just not enough to make up for it’s overall lack of soul

Also, Nick Swardson is only in this movie for 10 seconds and that’s a crime.

Reading

Considering that I grew up in the middle of nowhere quasi-south Indiana, it should be a surprise to no one that wrestling was a religion in my childhood. So much so that my friends and I made our own backyard wrestling content and put it on a cable access channel.

So WWF/WWE was always, at least, at the fringes of my interest all through my early life. I almost completely fell off in 2014 because it came out that the McMahon family was getting very invested in right wing politics. Then, when WWE rehired Hulk Hogan in 2018. It became very clear to me that WWE just did not care about making anything “good” ya know? They would rather rehire a racist performer instead of making literally anything else.

Now, I will always have a special memory of Hogan’s “Mr. America” bit that lead to my personal favorite Wrestlemania match of all time, but now it is just another example of one of the prevalent dilemmas of living in the death throws of late-stage capitalism: Wrestling (😉) with enjoying art from horrible people.

The most important tool is context. Knowing the full weight of a creator’s shittyness is just another layer to add to the context of the art. SO, for context, here is a breakdown of just how shitty Hulk Hogan was.

Also, let’s pay homage to one of the most unintentionally funny tweets of all time that also doubles as one of the most awkward.

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When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s by John Ganz attempts to pin-point the origins of the modern GOP starting with David Duke and the proliferation of mass media. The book highlights a few characters of the era; Rush Limbaugh, Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot to name a few and the common theme between all of these men is that they are overcompensating for some perceived lacking in their private lives.

What also becomes clear is that the democratic party has always been the party of concessions but it was the 90s where the GOP dropped the ritual masquerade of American politics and returned to being openly fascist. The dems have never put up an adequate fight, it’s just more obvious when the other party is literally nazis.

I haven’t quite finished the book yet but I can help but feel that’s it a bit libby in the sense that it feels like a lecturing. Like it’s saying “How could you, the American people let this happen to your country?” Maybe it balances out in the back half but otherwise I am enjoying the history lesson.

Playing

I got the urge to start up another play through of Baldur’s Gate 3 and this time as a necromancer wizard freak hellbent on making everyone’s life suck. It’s fun! And though I have slipped a few times and done some nice things (I adopted a dog) I am currently enjoying going against my usual gaming habit of being the bestest boy in the world.

I stalled out my last playthrough because (and tend to do this a lot with RPGs) I tell myself I should play a less mechanically complex character like barbarian first and then I’ll play the more diverse class like wizard. Ultimately, I end up getting bored and burned out.

This time I made a cute wizard and he is truly the demon-twink of the Sword Coast with asperations to mind control the world.

Other Notables

** I pass this monstrosity on the bus all the time. All athleisure wear and Fear of God chuds.

** The Forbidden Grindr Tribe

** Turns out I signed up for a account with a fake name like 3 years ago, this is the renewal email I just got.

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1  Hell, Steve Buscemi basically owes his career to Sandler’s penchant to casting odd people as extras.