Don't you have a slanket somewhere to feel with your farts? She's sheen am me? No me not my name? Yo? No? What is your childe Rada?
I am a cook chok Yo. Life's going down before like und Welcome to like a Virgin, the show where we give yesterday's pop culture today's takes.
I'mra's DomU and I'm fran Torado. And I believe this fruit fly that has followed me from home to the studio because I know it's not from the studio. I am where right here on this mic? Oh there it just left. I'm just noticing that because okay, this is virgins, this is the state I'm coming to you today. I have a kind of fucked up foot from something that happened on Fire Island that was probably I don't know, I don't even know why. But I was on the boardwalk.
I was barefoot, and the rest is her story. Not a place you ever want to be barefoot. That's the whole, the whole thing. You can't walk around Fire Island barefoot. No, okay, there it is. Oh, I got it. Did you see that?
I got it?
That was some jiu jitsu fly catching right for all of.
Our vegan virgins out there. Don't come for FRANSA.
Be on my ass. Okay, I promising likeness on the hunger Why must you always bring it back to the Hunger Games? Okay?
So everything it just works.
I'm rounding to a point basically, on Fireland, do you feel like you're invited to kill it? It's still I on Fireland.
Do you think you're in security?
You think you're invincible? Plan you're not lo and behold. I, you know, fucked up my foot and I was like, my foot is fine, and so I only stayed off of it for three days and then started walking on it again and that made it worse. And now I have to stay off my foot indefinitely until it feels better. So I'm coming to you today having just barely left an ram cycle. I'm feeling a little zomkeed. I'm feeling a little down. I'm also on a medication tolerance brank.
So I, Oh, there's a fly. I saw you seeing it?
Do you have it?
The fly is our guest. Yes, this fly is sorry in the upcoming film, Yeah, Red White and Royal Blue.
This fly is gonna is gonna share. You know some formative culture with us.
This The Fly is actually the first out gay fly in the next season Survivor.
So you are going through it, You're struggling.
I'm going through it. I'm struggling. I overslept and so I'm feeling a little zomkeed. I have to lay in bed indefinitely for probably the whole week, which sounds like a really great thing.
But it's not.
But it's not if you are someone who already spends a lot of time laying around in bed, which I do. And so my my point to all of this and why it all comes back to the fruit Fly is I am on a medication tolerance break, so my brain is like, really really not in its best.
What are you what are you refraining from taking so you can tolerate it?
I mean my antidepressants, and I took out it all this morning, but I haven't been on adderall. And then I'm also not doing Estra Doll for a minute. I'm just like taking a break from it all for like five days, because I'm like, if I have to be home, why not. But then that means that my house is discussed.
Do you take estradile, you take pills? I do every day.
Yeah, I don't do the shots, but oh my god, wait, this is something I can talk to you about.
Okay.
So the my first I've now had two doctor visits for my foot. My first doctor visit, you know, I went to Apacha and she basically sat down, looked at my phone. She was like, you should see a derm and I was like, well, that's helpful. She was like, is there anything else that can help you with and I was like, no, that's okay. I'm just I'm just gonna go figure out another appointment and get some help or whatever. And she goes, well, how's the hormone therapy going?
And I was like, I'm not I just talked about this with my doctor, Like you're not my doctor, like whatever.
She was just like a.
Random doctor that they had slotted in that was available. And she goes, well, I assume you're not trying to like fully feminize, but are you considering blockers? And I was like and like, I assume I'm gonna assume the best of this doctor because she actually seemed really nice. I assumed that she like maybe looked at my record, which had like information about me not being like a binary trans.
Person still a weird thing to say.
It felt like she clocked my tea. I was like, call me a brick mom, like I know, like I mean maybe I had more facial her that day or something like that.
But I was just might well have walked in saying it. She was up brick house, which she's like like her phone and that's the ringtone.
Like when she said have you considered going out on blockers? I heard like the drag race like rattlesnake, Like I was like, whoa.
But so I just want to say, Spiro is evil. Spiro is evil. I will say this until the end of time. Spiro is the most evil thing you can put in your body.
In my experience, and in my experience, I feel like a lot of girls, though have that experience.
Yeah I don't. I don't know any trans women who were on Spiral actin.
Well wait at all, or they were on it momentarily and then who are currently on Oh yeah, yeah.
Yeah yeah.
I feel like the girls try it and then so let me tell you. This woman convinced me to like, you know, get a prescription for blockers, which I will maybe try. Well, I don't think I'm gonna use it if.
You want to lose all your body hair, which is a good thing, give yourself more hair, and I'm saying the possibility. If you want to lose all your body hair, make the hair on your head grow thicker and like less male pattern. If you want your like skin to soften and your fat to distribute in more womanly ways, yes, But if you want to piss every five to seven minutes, if you want to be horrifically irritable at all times and like super sensitive and want to kill yourself.
And potentially never coming.
I never had a problem coming ever. Well, I mean I mean like physically coming, physically noticing. Oh yeah. For for years I had no ji yeah, and led me. That's what women, and it led me to seek jes out in others. Right, Like Spiro is directly responsible for my cum fetish. Like I liked come before I transitioned, but then once I had none, I was like, give me, come give me, Come give me, com give me, come give me, come give me, come give me. Come.
Oh my god.
But you know, in the in the time, since now that I'm only on estradal, I don't come as much as I used to. But I come now, Okay, oh that's great. Yeah. Sometimes I even shoot, oh.
Wait, you can get it back, because sometimes it's like, oh you can get it back. Okay, that's amazing. Okay. I have to say you momentarily invoked Carlie Ray Jefson with give Me Come.
Yeah.
I really like that. You didn't listen to the new album, did you?
I did not.
I gave it one listen through. And I and I we've already talked a bit at length about Carli Ray and perhaps the youth not the problem with carl Ray, but there's like a kind of lass. There's a lack of like something to grip onto with her, Like it's like, where's the personality, where's the show womanship? Yeah? Yes, what's anchoring all of this together other than like like lovely pop music? And it's the same problem. She just writes too many songs.
Yeah, I did prolific. Well did you see those videos of her performing in New York last week where she like cut the train of her dress off on stage and then it got rained out and so she did a show I think at Le Puissan Rouge after and like people seem to be living that's cool. I don't know that I would go see her in concert, like, I'd rather just listen to the songs Kiki. I much more enjoyed when Charlene and the folks over at Casa
Dieva used to do carly Fest. That was to me the best way to see quote unque Carli rad Jebson live, which is Charlene through drag well Yes, through Charlene well Y and on a lot of acid. The carly Fest was probably during her Emotion era, which was the best. It was emotion and like the Emotion B side.
I just like she writes such lovely pop songs, but she just I just think she writes too many. And at this point we have an A side and a B site to every single album, and I do feel like at least a third of them, if not more, could just never exist in no really remember when Yes spend time honing the songs that do work really really well, the songs that say something. Because with her, I've seen her in concert two or three times, and she has a great show and she's a lovely vocalist, but she
there's nothing anchoring the performance together. She just kind of like runs around on stage and is cute and like, you know, maybe a little damn she diva.
She's not a diva diva, she's a Betty Who. I wouldn't say that. That's kind of rude to Carly, No, that is, and also rude to Betty who she she fulfilled. No, I'm okay with who. But speaking of B sides, I saw a movie yesterday that is basically like a B side of Dracula.
Oh oh wait, you kind of mentioned this to me on the phone. Yeah.
So I saw this movie called The Last Voyage of the Demeter, and it is based on this part in the novel Dracula bram Stoker's Dracula, where Dracula is coming over to London from Transylvania on board this ship named to the Demeter, named the Demeter, and in the book, well, because a lot of Dracula is an epistolatory novel and
it's told through letters and journals and stuff. Yeah, and so this part of the novel is the captain's log on the ship talking about how there's weird stuff going on board and then the crew members are dying and blah blah blah. So this movie is about that and uses those captain's logs as the framework of the story. So it's like this small part of the Dracula story that we've never really seen in any of the adaptations before.
It was.
It was good. I think it was.
It was actually good. They say it.
Wasn't scary at all, Like they this Dracula is very monstrous, Like it's sort of, you know, different adaptations of Dracula play around with like how much of a monster he is versus how much of a man he is and like something like you know, Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula kind of does both, and in this one it's almost like he's we're catching him at the in between state when he's like kind of getting ready to pose as a human again and like be the more seductive Dracula that
we kind of know as a culture. But he's basically like a like a sort of no Swaratu vibe, like bat creature on this ship, picking the sailors off one by one, and you just see too much of him for it to be effectively scary. There was only one moment in the movie where I sort of was like, huh, I was in the theater with two other people. We were the only ones seeing it.
Wait, what theater was it?
Regal Essex. Okay, and yeah, I mean it was a good time. I think if you like Dracula, if you like spooky movies, you would enjoy It's a good sort of you know, slow entree into spooky season. And funnily enough, this time last year we had another sort of off brand Dracula movie, which was The Invitation, which was a more romantic vampire movie that ended up weirdly being a dract movie.
Did you like that better? I?
Uh, probably, Okay, I need to rewatch it.
The Demeter is it? Demeter is like the goddess of spring.
Demeter, Demeter is mother. She is the goddess of Spring and the harvest.
Did that have a thematic link nor? Not really? Okay? Second question, do you have like a favorite adaptation of Dracula?
Is it the Well, it's either Guy. It's either the Buffy episode Buffy Versus Dracula, or but no, it's Francis Ford Coppola is Dracula. It is Guy. What's his name? Gary Oldman, Gary Oldman, Gary Oldman. It's the most the guy, you know, it's the most romantic telling of Dracula. It's so lurid and outrageous, and it plays very fast and loose with the Dracula mythology. It's so visually arresting. I only saw it for the first time a couple years ago, but now it's one of my things that I have
to watch every Spooky season. Maybe I'll host like a Dracula Night at my house soon and watch it. As you were saying, I was thinking to myself, time for a Dracula episode, Like I think we did a vampire did a vampire episode, but maybe specifically Dracula.
Yeah, because I mean, according to your TikTok algorithm, Spooky Season is coming out Spookie.
Season, even though it's literally it's absolutely already here.
Okay, you saw a second movie.
Yes, So the other movie I saw was Passages, which is a new sort of sexy gay film about a gay couple. One of them is Ben Wishaw, who was cute in the the Daniel Craig Bond movies.
Right, this is the iris Ax movie I remember.
And they're this gay couple. One of them is an artist of some kind, the other one is a director. And the director meets this woman on one of his films, fucks her because they have an open relationship, and then falls in love with her and basically like destroys, like, you know, like ruins his whole life to be with her. But you know, it's like funny and like they're like going back and forth, and I didn't like it. I also was in the midst of a mental breakdown when
I saw it, so I don't know. I still think I wouldn't have liked it had that not been true. I don't think it was very sexy. I think a lot of the sort of tricks the director tried to use to you know, frame the movie and make it
visually interesting, I did not really appreciate. Like there was one scene where the couple's talking to each other and like one of them his backs to the camera and his body is covering the other ones, so you can't see either of their faces, and they're having this very intense conversation, and like I get what they were trying to do with that, but then like the dialogue is not written well to justify not being able to see
their faces, and I just thought that was bad. And the sex scenes were not very sexy, even though like they're all very pretty attractive, and I didn't think it was funny, but everyone else seemed to, so I think that was just so, that was a that was a me thing. So yeah, you know, I might go see it.
Wait, will it be streaming somewhere eventually?
Probably soon because it's it's a movie movie, so it'll be streaming immediate. It'll be streaming very soon.
I was just gonna say, I have some very very sad news as I've been making budget cuts.
No, don't say it, frand.
Did I did discontinue my AMC stubs for warning? No, friend, I am sorry to call. I'm sorry. It's like twenty bucks a month and there are no good movies coming out for the rest of the year.
Like, I just can't well, there might be no movies coming out for the rest of the year, because that's.
What I'm trying, That's what I'm saying. So it's like, why would I pay for this? Like I saw Barbie and I will see Barbie one more time before my membership goes out.
Yeah, I can't believe that.
It's really sad. I'm not going to see Oppenheimer period.
It's okay. I don't think you would like it. I almost saw it again this weekend, but it's just three hours is very very long. Yeah, I wonder when we're just going to run out of movies. But you know what we're not going to run out of is takes. So let's talk about whatever our main episode is about, because I'm not sure which which episode this will.
Far it out.
Yeah, okay, So this week, this past week, I was in the grips of a truly horrifying, depressive episode. I'm doing a little better now, but.
Yes, the eyes closed like gripping like yes, yes.
But one of the things I share that to say that one of the ways that I coped with that was looking for things in my life that were comforting, and I was very lucky to have friends that were
thinking the same thing. So last week, when I was just totally like in the eye of a tornado, bottoming out, bottoming out, like truly bottoming out, like in the in the in the in the worst way, Fran invited me over to her house and took very lovely care of me, and one of the things she suggested was that we watch a couple episodes of Buffy because she knows it's my favorite TV show and it was such a good tool to get me outside of myself a little bit,
and like remind myself that there are things my life that I love and also like get to share them with someone, And so I continued the premise of this show. Yes, I continued to do that throughout the week. I also watched Twister starring Helen Hunt, which is another like very comforting movie from my child.
One of your favorites. I've never seen it.
And then the other night I watched Garden State, which is one of one of my favorite movies, and I find it so soothing and comforting. It's like a warm hug. But yeah, I mean that's we're talking about comfort watches today. This. I feel like this is something that is really being talked about in culture over the past couple of years, like and definitely in the age of streaming Netflix post years and years now. Yes, because you know, a lot of people want to just watch the same things over
and over again. I'm not really that type of person. I have things that I return to annually, Like I'm a big When it's spooky season, I watch these movies. I watch these episodes of my favorite TV shows. When it's the second it's November, I am watching the first two and a half seasons of Gilmore Girls, and then moving on. That's but I don't really do like and
always on comfort watch. Same, but there are moments when it is very necessary when the white noise of a TV show or a movie that you know so well and love so much episode just like wraps around you like a blanket and lulls you to sleep, or like a slanket.
Don't you have a slanket somewhere to feel with your farts? That's that's my Salama Hiah compression. Thirty Rock is definitely a comfort watch. I think when Rose and I were kind of thinking about the topic of this episode, you know, I, like Rose, also don't really have like an always on show that I will just watch whenever I don't know
what to watch. I have like a few kind of things like that, But for the most part, you and I can definitely identify ones that are on the macro level, something that everybody returns to, which are like Friends, the Office, thirty Rock. Those are things that people will just there's billions of minutes that have been streamed of those things. Side that, yes that the writers, well I mean the pre I mean the sitcom writers. Maybe I don't know, but like the writers are not getting residuals for that
is my point. But I am not like a friend's girly. I'm not really an off fisk curly. I used to be a thirty rock curly and therefore an arrested development, really, and so I would have those shows quote unquote always on in the boom of streaming in college.
I did that with Parks and Rec.
Parks and Rec is also another one of those comfort watches. But personally so you mentioned Buffy, you also mentioned a few films. For me. My comfort watches are like Freaks and Geeks. Currently it's Malcolm the Middle, which now I've watched seven seasons in you know, a few weeks. I love that fucking show.
And then I've never watched it.
Oh, I don't know if you'll I mean, you would like No, I wouldn't, but I would so violent. It's really violent.
Malcolm in the Middle, Yes, No, but it has kids in it. No, but the.
Kids are played by adults. Ah, well, maybe maybe we'll we'll do a little another comfort watch trade zuse moment.
Maybe.
But Deep is also one of the the next time you're depressed, which will be like you know, in two days probably Veep is also I think a comfort watch for a lot of people. That is another one where it's like, if I don't know what to watch, I'll watch that.
Oh I I did realize, Like the closest thing I have to and always on comfort watch is Sex and the City. I'm basically always watching Sex and the City. Like I'm not I'm not really ever doing like a full beginning to end watch through because at any at any no, no, no, it's more just that at any given moment, I'm like, let me watch that run of episodes in season Let like, let me watch Carrie's Affair with Big, Let me watch you know, Carrie and Aiden part two. Let me watch Carrie and Petrowski.
Let me watch that string of episodes where they do a bunch of problematic things like four episodes.
Yeah, Or like I'm gonna watch when Samantha was a lesbian, or I'm going to watch a couple of random episodes from last season one.
Sex and the City is it for me as well?
Sex and the City. It's just it's if I don't know what to watch, you better believe I'm turning on.
Sex and the City. One that is I didn't even write that down, but that is an always on watch for me. Yeah, there's something about comfort shows that I think, as you said, it has a kind of numbing quality or kind of like I need to shut my brain off and fall asleep kind of quality. But that's not necessarily am that's not reflective of like the quality of the thing we're watching. It's reflective of the number of times we've watched it, which is like, I don't know,
a commendment, you know. That's like, I think something that's really effective, even about something like Friends, which we've talked about before with Tommy Dorfman, Like even that show, a show that feels so excruciatingly normal and basic and overdone, still has a lasting, rewatchable power that most shows don't have, and so we have to give it to them. But I don't know what Like, So Buffy is like one
of your like kind of comfort watches. Do you do you have like a memory of to like returning to one of these things at a time where you really needed it. I mean you kind of started it off with that. I feel like personally, in terms of movies, it's like Moonstruck or Catstone Dance or Hercules.
Those are the.
Three, the Holy Trinity and I have Moonstruck has found me at my darkest times, like I will. I have purchased it on Amazon or whatever the fuck, so I can watch it whenever I need. And I will watch that movie or Catstone Dance whenever I'm like I'm feeling down and I don't know what to do with my life. The power of film.
Maybe the power of film. Yeah, I there definitely are movies that like, there are some movies that I love that if I'm too sad, I don't want to watch them because I don't want them to be sort of tinged by that sadness. Like there are some comforting things that I only want, like when I'm in a good mood, Like Marie Antoinette is one of my favorite movies, But I never want to watch it if I'm feeling too down because I don't want that to like ruin the experience.
I only want to watch that when I'm sort of like lazy but feeling good and or like sort of like feeling on wee but in a sort of like melancholy, like lovely.
Like nostalgic way. Yeah, yeah, I think that there, it is nostalgic. I think comfort watches are at the end of the day nostalgic. You don't. Comfort watches can't exist out of like a contemporary cannon. They have to come from like five or ten or fifteen years ago. Yeah, are there Do you have a comfort watch that like I really don't know about because I you know, I mentioned Malkoe in the middle, but like, is there something where it's like I would totally I mean, Buffy honestly
was one of them. Yeah, you kind of inducted me.
What did you think of the Buffy episodes that we watched? So, so we watched Halloween from season two, which I usually only watch in October, but since Spooky season has started so early this year, it felt appropriate, and I also thought it was good for you to see like an episode that is was almost like cartoonish in its distilling of the essence of what Buffy as a TV show was during the high school years, specifically like very Monster of the Week, everyone is sort of giving like the
most like caricature version of themselves. And then we also watched on the other hand, we watched one of the best episodes of the show and one of the one of the most artful episodes, which was Hush from four amazing. Are you gag?
I was gag? Can you describe that episode? Okay?
So Hush is an episode of Buffy. It takes place during season four when Buffy is in college, in which a group of demons come to town. Really scary, really scary, really well done, come to town. They're definitely gay, and they steal everyone's voices so that because hearing a human voice will kill them. And while everyone is voiceless, they go around at night and cut people's hearts out, and they need seven hearts and they need to take seven,
and they might take yours. I know the whole rhyme by heart.
I was gagged. That was an extremely artful episode of TV. And honestly, I could have watched Buffy with you all day.
I think I love that though, so happy truly, And I will be honest and say, like, if you weren't sitting there, the experience of watching it is not really the same, which is kind of why our show exists, right, Like things are enriched by way of your ability to see them through someone else's eyes, especially in a time of need or a time of ward, Like this is exactly what we both want to watch right now.
Niss, you know. What I noticed was that you are a very on your phone at all times person when when TV is on. But when we were watching Hush, you were glued to the screen. I think away, Well, I think part of it is that because no one was talking, you like had to pay attention too. But you seemed very engrossed in the episode.
I was, I really was, And I also just wanted to give it devoted attention because I haven't really consumed Buffy. I don't know, honestly if I like lied in our episode with Evan Ruskatz, but I think I said I watched the whole first season. I didn't. I knew it was I watched, like I think I told you before the record, but I lied on Mike, But I definitely did not watch the whole first season, like I still have thought. And you are not a kind of season one Stan, You're you're you think.
No, it's kind of something that you have to get through to the good stuff.
Yeah, but you need the anchor of what is developed in season one to enjoy some of the payoffs when you maybe feel it really finds its groove in season two.
Yeah, I mean there are some iconic moments in season one, but it is more foundational than anything. Very similar to another comfort watch that we've talked about, Parks and Rec. Because the first season of Parks and Rec is bad, and they very clearly it's not funny. They very clearly just had it. I figured out what the tone of the show was yet, and they really figured it out in season two, and then I think, especially in season three, once they ditched that guy who Anne dated at the beginning,
that straight guy. I haven't. I used to watch Parks and rec All the time, and I never watch it anymore. Actually I did watch it recently when I was home
and it was on TV. I mean, that's another very specific kind of comfort watch, is just on if you're at your parents' house and you're watching their cable on a huge TV, and it's like, oh, six episodes of Parks and Recreation are on right now, or oh when when I was home this most recent time, my mom and I had gotten home from dinner and were laying in bed and Golden Girls was on. Gold We watched
like four episodes of Golden Girls. I think that honestly, after our Golden Girls episode, it definitely became a comfort watch for me. I think it also for you, Like we talked a lot about the actual feeling of watching that show and how it just immediately feels comforting or nostalgic, as if you've already watched every episode, even though I hadn't. Girls it is a comfort watch for me. But Girls is one where I'm still at the stage where I'm like,
I don't watch isolated episodes of it. I have only now watched it through a couple times in them in a couple of recent years. There are a few episodes that I can pick out, like the beach House episode. Rewatch the episode where they do coke, you know, like those are fun to watch like with people like on vacation. But yeah, that can be very comforting, sort of in the same way that that Sex and the City can.
I am almost done with my Malcolm in the Middle rewatch a show that I have like seen every episode zillions of time, and I'm trying to think of what I'm going to rewatch next because I am going to binge something since I am I have to stay off my foot and at home.
I really think with fall coming up, you should watch Gilmore Girls because you haven't.
I don't know if I could watch that without you, though, I think I would need you to doula the experience.
I don't think so. I think you need to just you need to just jump in.
Well, the other ones on my docket were Wanda Vision, which I have never rewatched. I also was thinking about rewatching Breaking Bad.
No Babe, but no, no, no, no, no, you're you're you're you're an radial No no sorry.
Yeah, no, you're right, and then I will yeah no, And then now I'm considering rewatching Girls. That's actually sounds
really enticing to me. I've never watched it a second time all the way through, but uh, look, I I love I think that there's something I'm about comfort watches where at a certain point you've watched so many hours of this show or of this movie, where the characters their belief systems, they're like desires, what they go through is like in your bloodstream, and so when you're watching this, you understand the stakes more than the average viewer because
you're just like, I'm so in this. I felt like that when I was rewatching Malcolm in the Middle, because at the end of the day, it's a show about
the widest possible suburban family. You know, that's like dysfunctional sitcom hijinks like teenage like you know, hood lamentous and like it's it's so average, and yet I became emotional and reactive and like so invested in what are really really you know, nondescript characters and plotlines because I've watched it seventeen times and I understand innately they're the character's desires more because.
Of that, well, I think that these these comfort watches almost become like fairy tales or like bedtime stories. You know, it's like these these like tropy, well trodden, well worn fables that we know by heart, but we still want to hear again and again.
Wait, have you ever watched maccol in the Middle? Never? Never, Never? Never? Maybe I will make you watch it.
I don't, I don't know.
I feel like there's something about it, about its violence and about Lois the mom that really appeal to you, because it's so absurdist and extreme, like the characters, and the characters are all like godless heathens and beholden to their like supreme id, like they just make decisions based on what they want in exactly that moment, instead of thinking about the ramifications or whether it affects anybody else,
and that's so fun to watch. I love watching characters that just like fuck up over and over and over again and never get what they want.
I mean saying, that's why I love Sex and the City.
Yeah yeah, no, yeah, exactly, yeah yeah, and that's why I hate and just like that and just like that will never be a comfort watch. No, even though you haven't you rewatched the first I.
Rewatched the first season in the lead up to season two, but it was in no way comforting. It actually was discomforting. We do, yeah, really discomforting. I mean they're obviously, you know, seasonal comfort watches, like I was saying, like the things
that I have to watch every Halloween, every Thanksgiving. Like we've talked about this before the way, I think that Coyote Ugly is a Thanksgiving movie and I watch it every year on Thanksgiving along with Blair Waldorf Must Pie, which I think is the superior Gossip Girl Thanksgiving episode. I know everyone loves the one with what You Say song, but I think Blair Waldorf Must Pie.
Outsold Blair Waldorf Must Pie.
In the summer, I love watching Mamma Mia Okay because it just amazing.
It's a summer movie.
It is. It is a summer movie.
What are my seasonal watches?
Are you like a Charlie Brown girl? Were you ever? Did you ever do that? I did? I mean I grew a great pumpkin.
Charlie Brown grew up Christian and therefore, yeah, we watched all of those every We watch all the Charlie Brown movies, like every year for Christmas and Thanksgiving, and I think there's an Easter one and there's I don't know, but not so much anymore.
Do you have any do you have any comforting things that are like disturbing but like you find them comforting.
I'm hearing an answer from you in there somewhere. That's I mean, I think Malcolm in the Middle is sometimes very disturbing, Like sometimes the actual plot of Malcolm in the Middle is like what the fuck? But that is just like I think in a late nineties early hots sitcom thing like honestly, actually with a lot of comfort watches early aughtsness is a cultural thing that all of
these are beholden to. We're in. It's just like you see through or you have to just like not see the stuff that's like problematic or weird or doesn't make sense in like twenty twenty three or like whatever, because that's just the time. But also it's just like those shows are operating on a whole different plane of reality.
Like if if we launched Sex, and if we launched Not Second, if we launch like Malcolm in the Middle today in twenty twenty three, people would be like what, you know what I mean, Like it wouldn't make esthetic sense in conversation with the rest of things right now. And I think what I'm getting out, honestly is like
I miss sitcoms. I miss situational irony sitcoms where it's like truly slapstick, all physical comedy and all of like the plot rounding out to this like perfect resolution where like the thing that was not supposed to happen happened, and it's exactly you know, stopping the character from getting the thing, you know what I mean.
Well, that's why they're perfect as a comfort watch, because that's why sitcoms are great and why they exist in syndication is because you can just tune in for half an hour and the entire storyline will be resolved within thirty minutes and you don't really have to know much going into it, and you don't really have to think about much coming out of it, right, Okay, wait, so what's your disturbing humfort watch? I well, you know, I like horror, so there are some scary movies that I
do find very comforting. I rewatched The Ring recently. That was one that I used to watch a lot as a teenager. And what I've only watched that once. It's so good, we should maybe do a Ring episode for Halloween. I have since so uh, I experienced some trauma like seven years ago, and in the aftermath, my friend and I watched the Sweeney Todd movie with Johnny Depp, So
I like, weirdly find that. I mean, I love I find Sweeney Todd comforting in general, and it's like, you know, obviously very dark, but like that movie specifically is very soothing to me because it was at that time. You know, what's really soothing to me that is reminiscent of Sweeney Todd is things.
That are anchored by little I sticking it to the man, like unlikely hero circumnavigating all the things to get to where they are, usually in some sort of kind of revenge plotline. I think are very satisfying, which is why I loves me. You taught oh revenge, Revenge. We were talking about this last night.
Kill Bill. Yes, I watched it this week. Big comfort movie for me, and it's so bloody.
I'll watch kill Bill.
Two with you. Let's do that this week. Yeah, let's do it.
Let's do it right now, Let's.
Do it because. Oh and maybe we should do a kill Bill episode.
Yeah, I would love virgins.
Let us know if you want that, I said.
To you on the phone yesterday. I feel like I need to do some sort of actual crystal clear hierarchy. But I do feel like kill Bill one and two is in my favorite films of all time top ten lists.
I do think we should maybe on Instagram or maybe this could be a Patreon thing release or release ju job. We should we should put out like our top ten movies TV show Lisa.
Maybe that'll be a Patriotics pat exclusive. Okay, okay, yeah, we should do that. I love lists.
Oh wait, what about comfort books?
Do you? Oh?
Are you a big rereader?
Not anymore, but I have read the Wizard of Oz many times throughout my childhood and teenage years, Like the original Frank album Wizard of Oz.
I was like that with the movie The Wizard of Oz. I actually just watched it recently.
What about you.
I mean, i'vey read every Harry Potter books so many times. Oh, I didn't know that, and I used to be a big rereader. I've re read American Gods by Neil Gaiman, which is one of my favorite books many times. Actually most of his books. I've reread, American Gods, the entirety of Sandman Never Wear Like. Those are kind of the three that I've reread a lot. And American Gods. Have actually listened to the audiobook twice.
It was it was a book.
I used to read it once a year and it was like very ritualistic and I always got something new from it every time I read it.
Didn't they make a TV show or something?
It kind of I only watched the first season. I've heard that it fell off as American Gods is about the sort of pantheon of gods from a bunch of different cultures and religions who are falling out of power because new gods of sort of technology and industrialization have risen up and there is a war between them over sort of the energy and attention of humans and there's this ex Khan who is caught in the middle of
this battle. That sounds amazing, it's incredible, it's you know, it's there's a reason why I read it so many times.
And it's a it's an actual book. It's not a graphic novel. No.
Sandman is a graphic novel and is like similar. It's it's like was Sandman was came before American Gods, and you can see Neil Gaiman working up to a lot of the stuff that he explored in American Gods through Sandman. H Oh, what about comfort music? What? What's the album? What are the albums that you listen to when you need like a good cry, or you need to feel good or like to feel in your body or whatever.
Oh, tegn in Sarah, maybe teaken in Sarah. I have a seasonal comfort music listen, which is the album Metals by Feist, which is so love. Metals is so good and it's singed in my brain in memory association with like the most probably one of my darkest depressive episodes and periods in college when it came out, and it's so imbued with a lot of that Actually around this around the same time, you'd be like that year. The year before Kanye West, my Beautiful Dark Twist Fantasy also
came out. That was something that I have like core memory association with, Like if any song from that album played, I would be shot back in time to exactly where I was when it came out, in the emotional state I was in. I like music that makes me feel like that, But I feel like no, in terms of like things that I'll actually really revisit these days, I don't know, do you? What would your answer be?
Yeah? Mine are like horses by Patti Smith in Rainbows, the Radiohead album, the Into the Woods Broadway revival recording with Vanessa Williams.
Oh, that's a that is a very you answer.
And the Garden State soundtrack. Oh, and the Marie Antoinette soundtrack, which I am dying to own on vinyl, but it's so rare that I can only find it for like five hundred dollars on eBay.
That's crazy because it used to be stocked down at the Urban Outfitters coffee table.
Like, it's so hard to find out, and I have come so close to just going for it a couple of times, but it's really hard to justify spending that much on a record, but it is like my favorite soundtrack of all time.
Okay, now, okay, I'm I'm. I opened a playlist on my phone that has like kind of my personal list of like no skip albums, of which Metals is on there. In terms of like music that shoots me back to a certain period in time, it's definitely Frank Ocean's Channel Orange, my first boyfriend in Chicago, my first job living in the city alone, like I have every time any song from that album clicks on, That's where I'm sent. Casey Musgrave's Golden Hour a very specific period of my life.
The Miseducation of Lauren Hill, I think feels like nostalgia, feels like this warmth is something that I could flip on at any moment and I will feel home or comforted or like good in the music. But yeah, no, those I think like I have like a kind of it is about memory. It's it's literally only about memory. You Know. What's a kind of recent one that is now definitely ingrained in my mind for ever is Fetch the Bolt Cutters.
Oh so good, but it's also so triggering early COVID.
Yes, it's exactly where it sends me.
Oh, what about comfort food? What are your comfort food?
Oh? I love that. My comfort foods are a rotisserie chicken sandwich with cheddar, cheese, avocado, and lime on a two dollars bagette which used to be a one dollar bagette. But pious are crazy these days, Am I right? Ladies? Yeah? And I would say a burrito, but there's there are no good burritos in New York. There's the fruit fly again. She's coming back for the comfort food conversation.
Current comfort food is our blood?
Yeah, I yah know, I definitely. I don't know that. That's the first thing came to mind.
What about you McDonald's two cheeseburger meal and a four piece chicken nugget? Uh, spaghetti and meatballs okay? Uh low maine and an egg roll?
Loa, maee, that's a really good one.
My mom's mac and cheese from when I was a kid that was baked in the oven with ground beef in it and breadcrumbs on top.
Any Thanksgiving food? Oh yeah, I love Thanksgiving.
Yeah, I mean stuffing. I love stuffing, string being castrole, very comforting.
Sweet potato like no colonialism, but like Thanksgiving food yea.
Honestly, for me, I think comforting food. Comfort food is like all savory, like I love sweets, but I am more of a savory person. And yeah, like a like a starchy savory food is the most comforting.
I need starch, I need bread, I need glucose. Sorry, glucose, goddess. I don't find cheese very comforting. I love cheese.
I love cheese, but it's comfort and liking something wait are different.
Things, duh. In actuality, since I was a kid, one of my number one foods, if not the number one comfort food that I will eat for dinner all the time, is like an extravagant cheese board. I will put together multiple cheeses, meats like fresh fruit, like dried fruits, like nuts, three different kinds of crackers for myself and eat it for dinner.
Girl dinner, see girl dinner. See. For me, comfort food has to be something that someone else made for me or I purchased, so it can't. The only exception is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. There are some nights when I'm feeling some type of way and all I want to eat is just a peanut, butter and jelly sandwich.
I will eat it standing up in my kitchen and it will just take me back to this like childhood place where everything is simple and safe and I don't cut the crust off, and it has to be grape jelly okay, and it has to be whole we bread. I also am and creamy peanut butter. I'm also like a whole weet bread purists. I'm also creamy peanut butter purist. I did not grow up on grape jelly. We were in apricot and strawberry family. We were big on preserves.
A PBNJ is also something where it's just like if it hits, if that's my craving, if that's what's in the fridge. It's so satisfying and I personally, please, this is a safe space. I know to say this, I must dunk it in milk. I must dunk Yeah, no, I get the milk. I don't not the dunking so much, but but having a glass of milk to go with it, yes, nice. What to you is the most comforting place in the world. It could be like a city, It could be like
a piece of furniture. It could be like a location like where is where do you feel the most like swaddled by comfort.
I don't know. I'm sure a lot of people's answers is like my mom's couch and like blah blah blah, and it's like that's just not my tar like home,
like Chicago home does not bring me comfort in any way. Sorry, parents, they already know this, but I will say, because it's the only thing I can think of, a vacation share on Fire Island, and that's only like this is only our second annual time doing it, but that will be I think true for me through my adulthood, is like I will always want like a beach house vacation share with a bunch of my friends, and honestly, it doesn't have to be Fire Island, but I think it is
Fire Island because we're doing this every year now.
Yeah, forever forever. But I think mine is kind of a Mine is probably my grandparents country club, the buffet there. That's good. That's good, and then also my mom's bed, okay, but then also the backseat of a car that's full of people I love, Like it doesn't matter what car like where we're going, but that is very comforting.
M that's very Teamovie. That's very freaking geeks.
Slide into our dms on Instagram at Like a Virgin four twenty sixty nine. Also become a patron at Patreon dot com, slash like a Virgin for weekly bonus episodes, and buy our merch at Like a Virgin four twenty sixty nine dot com and follow us. You can follow me anywhere you want at Rose Damu.
And you can follow me at France Wishko anywhere you like.
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Let's start with So I.
Read this, you know, during like peak COVID in LA, because I had heard it was basically fan fiction if it was a novel, and I'd heard people be like, oh, it's definitely Harry Potter fan fiction with the names changed, or like, it's definitely this fan fiction with the name change. What it actually is the girls seem to have concluded, is it is Andrew Garfield, Jesse whatever, social network, Jesse
Eisenberg social network, real person fan fiction. No, because Casey mcquinston was apparently very involved in that fandom on Tumblr, and so that is the that is the lore. That is.
I hate that it also like doesn't there's nothing. As someone who read the book and watched the movie, I see zero connection really other than the fact there that they're like two guys. Yeah, anyway, but that's fine.
So I liked the book a.
Lot, and you prostlytized it to your two best friends. I did.
I made you read it. I made Ryan read it. One of you I won't say who found it very sexually excited.
I also thought, oh I just gave it away. I also found it very sexy. I thought the sex scenes were written so well, even though they were eclipsey ya, they were still good eclipsey y A sex scenes.
Yes. And then you know Casey mcquinston's second novel, One Last Stop, I did not like. I didn't read their young adult book.
Didn't read Sarah Wheeler.
I did not read Sarah Wheeler. And then the news of this movie came out and I was. I thought that was great, because you know, there is absolutely right now a cottage industry of big screen romance novel adaptations, because we are in this huge boom of romance novels thanks to TikTok, thanks to e readers, thanks to book Tube and books to gram. You know, romance thanks to Rose Codpiece Reppers. Romance rules right now in the book world,
and that's what everyone wants. And that's why when you, like, a couple of months ago, I went to the Barnes and Noble in the town where I grew up, and they have totally reorganized the store, and like the pride of place is the romance section. You know, it's like the Colleen Hoover of it all and like that kind of shit. So I was not surprised that this movie was going to get made. I was, I guess, not surprised when it was gonna be an Amazon movie.
When you read it, it's like a movie. It's cinematic, very cinematic, reads like a movie. It was destined to be a film. I'm I was, yeah, so excited, still was excited.
And so so Fran and I actually saw a very early screening of the movie back in a.
Brol May a while.
Ago, a while ago, so it it's been a while for Frans since we saw it. I did watch it again last night because we've been we've been embargoed. I watched it again last night because A I wanted to see it again, like I had just planned on watching it again anyway, and also I wanted to see if anything had changed from our first viewing of it, which I don't even know if i'd be allowed to say if anything had changed, but nothing really did, and I.
Was like, they were like placeholders.
Yeah, and I just wanted to kind of refresh my memory for this conversation. So top line from when we saw the movie a couple months ago. I think we both liked it.
Yeah. Yeah, I walked out of it. Let me tell you, Okay, let's let's be real, Rose. We walked out of this theater and I had a lot of thoughts and I just kind of, without really getting much of your take, like outside in the middle of midtown, just started like rattling them all off to you. Yeah, and you were like, girl, it's not that deep. And then you kind of pushed me a little back about some things that I was feeling that were maybe negative, and just like also being like,
what what about this? Why wasn't this this and this and this? And I felt like a lot of what I was actually feeling was a supremely fan based attachment to the text of the book and how good that book felt, and me expecting the film to not. I'm not, I don't. I'm not one of those girls that needs like a very accurate book adaptation, but I do need
the movie to feel as good as the book. I want to come out of the theater feeling some of the same things, which I know is not a very realistic expectation.
The book is both comforting and exciting.
Sexy and cute. Yeah, comfort ance is so many different things.
I think comforting because it relies on so many well trodden tropes that we love, because it feels like fan fiction of something, like there's something about it that feels familiar, and yet it is a very exciting love story. It's like a love story that feels like what would have been about straight people ten years ago, and it's about queer people and that's great. Like there's a very diverse
cast of characters. It like the stuff that happens in it is kind of thrilling, like seeing a storyline about like public outing about famous queer people. It's interesting. Top line. I really liked it, Yeah, but I do have problems with it, and a lot of those problems are about Those problems kind of fall into two categories. They're about either the things that were changed or just completely cut
from adapting the novel. And then they're about the quality of the movie, not really about the performances so much or the writing. Really it's more technical than that.
And top line, for me, it was kind of some it was some of the reverse, Like I felt like I walked out of it being like I don't love how a lot of the writing was adapted. I don't know if the right jokes were picked, I don't know if the tone was totally nailed, And I also took issue with some of the acting. But I all in all was like, this movie delivers what it promises, and I have to accept it for what it is, which is very determinedly in what I would refer to as a love Simon genre of media.