Bridget Everett, birria, and a gray LA
May blurred by with short trips to Orlando and Maine, and a mild case of Covid I caught somewhere along the way. The Cov doused cold water all over my birthday plans, and lingered for two weeks. I finally tested negative yesterday, celebrating with a trip to the grocery store. Woooo. I can't claim that was my first time out. We did do a great hike on The Birthday (masked). We masked inside the house the whole way, too, and R managed not to catch it. Small victories.
June is now stretched before me, amorphous and gray.
It is gray gray gray in LA. Has been. Continues to be.
R and I are making tweaky, minor edits to the movie, preparing to lay in new pieces of score, which will be satisfying and super fun. We're also making a big push to raise finishing funds, less fun but much needed to cover sound design, color timing, music licensing, and other sexy little finishing bits (HELLO E&O INSURANCE, I SEE YOU).
Meanwhile, as the writer's strike drags on, my supporting career is on hold. For the record, I stand in full support of the WGA. The "fucked up" streaming model (as Snoop Dogg put it) is not working. The model has to change. But the fallout from the strike could be intense. If nobody, not writers, not actors and directors, not crew, including script supervisors... If nobody is working until August or beyond...
Would you judge me if I told you've I've been doing a tiny bit of gratitude journaling? Just a tiny bit. I am not a gratitude journal person, I swear, but at the lowest point of coughing into my mask and feeling sorry for myself about The Birthday and the canceled plans and the lack of work and the gray, it helped.
(I will not bore you with a list of things I'm grateful for.)
*****
This month in tacos: A highlight of the trip to Orlando, second only to hanging out with L + AJ + J in their Airbnb, was La Patrona Tacos & Birria House. Is birria blowing up or what? I've had so much good birria lately. My gang came all the way from Western Australia, where they love their meat but have zero exposure to birria, so it felt like a triumph to just pop by the local taco truck, or Taco Airstream to be precise, and find killer birria tacos. We got a multi-pack of the beef, which were simultaneously tender and crispycheesy as they should be, served with glorious consomé for dipping. I love the symmetry, or economy maybe, in the fact that the meat is slow-cooked for six hours and then served with a side of its own broth. (The pastor tacos were also delish, as was their signature avocado "Catrina" sauce.)
This month in print: I'm reading Jenny Odell's new book, Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock, a few pages at a time. It's dense but kinda mind-blowing.
This month onscreen: If, like me, you are eating up Somebody Somewhere on HBO (the polar opposite of Succession, basically), may I direct you to the profile of Bridget Everett from The New Yorker? It was said profile that inspired me to watch the show in the first place, and the vivid, pussy power portrait Michael Shulman paints of Everett has colored my entire experience of the show. Not a bad thing.
xoxo,
Laramie
Please forward this to someone struggling with the gray, and/or someone who could use a little pussy power. If you're seeing The Laramie Report for the first time and you want more, subscribe here to get it once a month.
As always, here's your trusty taco map.
June is now stretched before me, amorphous and gray.
It is gray gray gray in LA. Has been. Continues to be.
R and I are making tweaky, minor edits to the movie, preparing to lay in new pieces of score, which will be satisfying and super fun. We're also making a big push to raise finishing funds, less fun but much needed to cover sound design, color timing, music licensing, and other sexy little finishing bits (HELLO E&O INSURANCE, I SEE YOU).
Meanwhile, as the writer's strike drags on, my supporting career is on hold. For the record, I stand in full support of the WGA. The "fucked up" streaming model (as Snoop Dogg put it) is not working. The model has to change. But the fallout from the strike could be intense. If nobody, not writers, not actors and directors, not crew, including script supervisors... If nobody is working until August or beyond...
Would you judge me if I told you've I've been doing a tiny bit of gratitude journaling? Just a tiny bit. I am not a gratitude journal person, I swear, but at the lowest point of coughing into my mask and feeling sorry for myself about The Birthday and the canceled plans and the lack of work and the gray, it helped.
(I will not bore you with a list of things I'm grateful for.)
*****
This month in tacos: A highlight of the trip to Orlando, second only to hanging out with L + AJ + J in their Airbnb, was La Patrona Tacos & Birria House. Is birria blowing up or what? I've had so much good birria lately. My gang came all the way from Western Australia, where they love their meat but have zero exposure to birria, so it felt like a triumph to just pop by the local taco truck, or Taco Airstream to be precise, and find killer birria tacos. We got a multi-pack of the beef, which were simultaneously tender and crispycheesy as they should be, served with glorious consomé for dipping. I love the symmetry, or economy maybe, in the fact that the meat is slow-cooked for six hours and then served with a side of its own broth. (The pastor tacos were also delish, as was their signature avocado "Catrina" sauce.)
This month in print: I'm reading Jenny Odell's new book, Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock, a few pages at a time. It's dense but kinda mind-blowing.
This month onscreen: If, like me, you are eating up Somebody Somewhere on HBO (the polar opposite of Succession, basically), may I direct you to the profile of Bridget Everett from The New Yorker? It was said profile that inspired me to watch the show in the first place, and the vivid, pussy power portrait Michael Shulman paints of Everett has colored my entire experience of the show. Not a bad thing.
xoxo,
Laramie
Please forward this to someone struggling with the gray, and/or someone who could use a little pussy power. If you're seeing The Laramie Report for the first time and you want more, subscribe here to get it once a month.
As always, here's your trusty taco map.
Don't miss what's next. Subscribe to The Laramie Report: