Odds & ends #8

Gatorade was invented at the University of Florida.

Just as a reminder, make sure that when you get my newsletter (usually on Tuesdays and Fridays), you mark it as “not spam” so it’ll stand out from the rest of the useless garbage you find in your inbox and never bother looking at, because who even reads email anymore?

Anyway, so I got a notification earlier this week letting me know that I surpassed 100 subscribers here, and I wanted to take the opportunity to thank you all, from the bottom of my heart, for supporting this endeavor, even if it’s just subscribing and not actually reading it (though you should, I’m doing some good stuff here). I hemmed and hawed for months about whether to go through with this, and so any sign that it wasn’t a bad decision is deeply appreciated.

Though I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember¹, I’ve only seriously been writing for an audience for maybe twenty years. I wasted much of my young adult life talking myself out of taking my writing seriously, and if I hadn’t, I firmly believe I would have been able to make a steady career out of it, at least for a little while, before the whole thing went bust for everyone. I have LiveJournal to thank for giving me my first real platform, and the first intoxicating taste of entertaining people, making them laugh, or emotionally moving them. Granted, the writing I did there wasn’t very good, but it got enough of a positive response to keep me coming back, to get better, and to keep that machine churning.

I’ve bounced around from blog to blog, from Blogspot to Wordpress to Tumblr to my own paid site at Squarespace, trying to find that perfect combination of outlet and audience. I got my first actual gig writing for The Spool, and then getting promoted to an editorial position, which did wonders for my confidence. But, beyond Spool assignments, I lacked focus, motivation to make time, and, still, a lot of confidence. I really shouldn’t think about how many opportunities I’ve let go, even just in the past few years, solely because I didn’t have the confidence to pursue it. No one ever told me not to do it, I just made any number of excuses: I was too old, I didn’t have time, I wasn’t talented enough, I just didn’t want to hear “no.” The irony of it is that I probably spent more time making excuses to not write than I did actually writing.

But now I’m here, and you’re here, and I have a reason to keep doing this, and I spend a pretty good amount of my day thinking about what I’m going to write here, and I guess that’s a good sign. I have ideas for different rotating series I’m going to introduce going forward (including a truly grueling task: watching and reading the entire 21st century output of one Diane Keaton), so I guess I mean to stick with this thing for a while, which is also good. I wouldn’t if it felt like I was talking to an empty room, but I’m not, and I thank you for that. I might not anymore after writing about the fifteenth Diane Keaton movie, either way you’ll (probably) be entertained.

And as a gift for you, finally, I’m back to some links:

The week in Gena:

• On Kill by Kill, we had a very enthusiastic talk about Barbarian, which I wrote about in this very newsletter back in September.

• On my side project White Ladies in Crisis, we talked about the mostly forgotten 90s female empowerment “good for her” flick Double Jeopardy.

• I guested on the Good for Her podcast, where we had a pretty intense discussion about surviving sexual abuse, in relation to the underrated Stephen King adaptations Dolores Claiborne and Gerald’s Game.

• Over at le Spool, I reviewed Triangle of Sadness and Something in the Dirt.

The week in links:

• The vampire boys in the TV adaptation of Salem’s Lot were instrumental in both scaring the crap out of a young Gena, and making her a born horror fan. Vanity Fair writes about their scenes here.

• A pretty fascinating look at the cinematography of Nope, one of my favorite movies of the year.

• I haven’t written about it, but if you’re looking for a true crime docudrama without the stink of Ryan Murphy hanging around it, give Netflix’s The Good Nurse a try, it’s creepy without the camp and luridness.

• I saw Weird Al in concert, and it was great, even though Carnegie Hall has the narrowest and steepest seating I’ve ever seen, and I have no idea how old people manage it to see the classical musical shows that usually play there. Anyway, here’s an interview with him in The New Yorker, and if you haven’t seen Weird: the Al Yankovic Story, stop what you’re doing right now and watch it. Here, I’ll make it easy for you and stop here.

1. The very first thing I can remember writing is a fake newspaper called The Daily Tomato, when I was around 7 years old, and evidently thought “tomato” was the funniest word I ever heard.