Imagine There's No Landlords
Today’s cold open will be brief, and only exists to say that jazzcentric t-shirts should find more appropriate things to sub in for the letter ‘A’, or maybe even consider subbing some of the other letters if you’re looking to add a little bit of flavor to the shirt, because COME ON.
I know, phrasing, but really, even with the saxophone, you’re a liar if you’re telling me jazz is the first thing you thought of. Unless you’re thinking of Figrin D’an and Max Rebo and their respective STAR WARS bands, who did specialize in that type of music.
Insatiable.
Watch This: JOHN MULANEY & THE SACK LUNCH BUNCH - via Netflix - I mentioned this the other night while highlighting David Byrne, but he featured in this special that came out Christmas Eve 2019, or fifteen years ago at the rate we currently measure time. Featuring John Mulaney, responsible for some of the funniest stand-up specials in recent memory (NEW IN TOWN, also on Netflix, is an all-timer, and his more recent specials COMEBACK KID and KID GORGEOUS are both excellent), the special is framed as a children’s television show, complete with educational segments, song/dance numbers and some truly inspired guest appearances.
Tokyo Disney Resort has made a full performance of Fantasmic! the end-of-night show at the Tokyo Disneysea park, available for your viewing until the end of April. The show, which ran for 9 years, was scheduled for its final performance tonight, but of course the park is closed for the time being, so this will have to be the swan song for the show.
6 Feet Covers reimagines classic album covers if everyone observed the principles of social distancing, and very good Photoshop work like this is always close to magic to me.
In other music news I’ve had to watch that video of the celebrities singing “Imagine” together in segments because viewing it in full would likely kill me or at least alter my cells in an undesirable way, so I won’t link it here but know that it’s out there if you hate yourself in a very particular way. It just seems very tone-deaf in contrast with news like Rihanna actually doing something to help people that the song isn’t meant to do anything beyond exist, especially given that the production values are a step down from YouTube beheading livestreams. Just throw a few bucks to a charity and call it a day. Anyways, all of that is to set up a bunch of comedians doing the same thing, but with Toni Collette’s freakout from the film HEREDITARY, which is infinitely more desirable, to me at least.
In case the actual news doesn’t have you taking things seriously enough, Waffle Houses around the country are now starting to shut down as a precaution against the pandemic. Waffle House, oddly, is a restaurant chain that is renowned for its emergency preparedness, to the point where they have different menus for when they have to operate without power, so closing completely indicates a pretty high level of danger, in many ways infinitely more legitimate than that terror chart that used to spook everyone every once in awhile.
This series of images chronicles an owner of a whole-ass apartment building finding out that his 32 tenants will not be paying any rent for month due to the…everything and doing the most fiscally sound thing and asking Reddit for advice. Sure it’s one side of the argument but I think it’s clear to delineate being unwilling vs being unable and I feel like due to stoppages it’s more likely the latter but this is why it’s also frustrating to see that someone who owns a literal building doesn’t have some emergency money stowed away. Or that Boeing, a company who just last year was getting roasted for making planes that fell out of the sky and trying to sell the software that made it less likely that that would happen like it was an add-on Kim Kardashian sticker pack, wants strings-free money and will probably get it because Chuck Schumer is weaksauce.
To close, some follow-up from yesterday, a thread of Britney Spears looks as different editions of the Communist Manifesto.
