blast-o-rama. • issue 049 • 2021-05-02
blast-o-rama.
issue 049 • 2021-05-02
Wait a minute, its May?
It’s hard enough to believe that we’re finally out of March 2020, let alone nearly half way through 2021, but sure enough, we’ve arrived in May.
I — like many of you reading this — am starting to finally plot out a possible Summer where I go out and do things.
What’s on your Summer bucket list?
For me, I’m looking at…
- Finally hugging my parents, scheduled for this Tuesday, as we will all be in the clear post vaccination
- Trying to book a private theater for a screening of F9: The Fast Saga for myself and my friends in Super Art Fight #family
- Eating at a restaurant, outdoors
- Doing some minor traveling — weekend + day trips and such
- Taking a week’s stay away in Bethany Beach, DE to stay with my in-laws
- Seeing and hugging my adorable niece, as she’s rapidly approaching that age where adults are boring
- Watching some of the sport of kings with my podcast cohort, Chris, in person
Sure, there are things I wanted to do in Summer 2020 which are still on hold (finally going to the Disney family of parks, performing again at conventions and live shows), but it’s a sweet realization of being able to embrace again that which was lost.
What’s on your bucket list, dear reader?
Now, onto the things…
Thing #1: In a world of Zuckerbergs, Be a Tom
As someone who both works in the tech industry, and follows it as a hobby, you might think, is there anyone in tech who I admire?
While I’ve always loved the work coming out Apple, opinionated as it is, I never completely admired its leaders. Jobs, too demanding, too harsh. Ive, too cold, too inaccessible. Cook, while focused on some amazing social issues, is more a numbers man. I clearly don’t like Mark Zuckerberg. But who do I like? Tom. From MySpace.
And Luke Winkie at The Verge absolutely nailed as to why.
Industry analysts have long regarded the downfall of Myspace to be one of the greatest missed opportunities of the last decade, but frankly, I think it’s becoming increasingly clear that Anderson got off easy. It is true that Twitter and Facebook are more influential, and possess wealthier executives, than anything in Myspace Tom’s estate. If you are an entrepreneur in the psycho Silicon Valley tradition — that is to say, you are capable of perceiving a functional, quality-of-life difference between net worths of $100 million and $100 billion — then perhaps you too envy the lives of Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg. But just consider how those two weathered the events of January 6th: panicked, agitated, staring down at the chaos that they helped wrought, considering some truly arcane, dystopian-fiction solutions like perma-banning the president from their websites. What was Anderson doing while the great networks crashed and burned? Jumping back online for a quick dig, completely at peace that these questions are firmly Not His Problem Anymore.
Thing 2: Guy Fieri - Good, Actually
One of the greatest redemption stories in terms of social tact has to be that of Food Network host and restauranteur Guy Fieri.
His career was first seen as a joke, a huckster schilling bacon and donkey sauce while looking like the bassist of a late 90’s pop punk band. Then he became a meme. And now, in 2021, he might be one of the greatest hopes of the entire restaurant industry today.
Mikey O’Connell at The Hollywood Reporter takes a look at the man and his amazing work in this time of the pandemic.
Where Fieri, a volcano of enthusiasm on camera, subverts expectation is in his almost subdued hospitality. Not a nacho, battered chicken thigh or jalapeno popper in sight, the man synonymous with on-camera caloric intake instead pulls me a double shot of espresso. “I got really good at this over the last year,” he says, nodding to the coffee machine.
Fieri sharpened this skill while also in the past year raising more than $25 million for food workers left unemployed by COVID-19 closures. He is now devoting most of his energy and, under a landmark new TV deal, his creative output into rebuilding the industry that once poked fun at his unrefined aesthetic and bacon-bedazzled menus. These days, it’s hard to not take Fieri seriously. As he plans to beat the drum for restaurant relief even louder — and as those hardest hit by America’s selective recession start to fall out of the news cycle — the goateed gastronomist’s sense of purpose may be the thing to finally eclipse his brash persona.
“Nothing can replace what this kind of recognition, appearing on TV, can do for these people and their businesses … for their lives,” he says, taking a sip of coffee. “I need to keep doing this because it just needs to be done.”
Thing #3: Pokemon Cards are Back, And The Card Collecting Hobby May Never Be the Same
With everyone stuck in their homes, we’ve all been facing the time and ability to indulge in new hobbies, or revisiting old ones.
I got into using my Peloton, and really got back into playing video games. (My backlog has been in a great state!) I know some got back into building Gundam models. Some learned languages.
But what many did? They went back to their childhood, and an idle hobby from yesteryear: Collecting and playing Pokemon cards. And it’s absolutely broken the industry.
From Jason Koebler at Vice:
It is possible, maybe even likely, that sometime during the pandemic you have heard that Pokémon card collecting is undergoing a sort of renaissance. Having large swaths of the world largely confined to their homes sends people searching for new hobbies, rediscovering old ones, and searching their closets for old collectibles. All of this has led to a scorching hot Pokémon card market.
As I said, you have maybe heard about this already. But I need to explain to you how out of hand things have gotten. The story here is not “Pokémon cards are kind of popular again.” The resurgent interest in Pokémon cards has brought multiple major, well-respected companies to their knees, has caused Target stores to consider calling the cops, and has led to shortages and/or price increases of basically anything even remotely attached to the hobby of collecting cards. However wild you might think any of this is, it is wilder than that.
Until next time…
It’s a jam packed week, the unofficially official Star Wars holiday May the 4th (Be With You) on Tuesday, Cinco de Mayo on the 5th, and who knows what else could be thrown at us between now and next week! Enjoy every moment that you can.
Have a great week!
-Marty