One of you guys write the title for once
Whoops, my anarchy symbol!
Welcome to (Mostly) Good Dumb Fun, an email newsletter that we hope will deliver on exactly what the title promises.
This email is written by Jordan Zakarin, Emily Gaudette, and Eric Francisco. We’re gonna collect the best of the weird stuff we find throughout the day and then send it to you every evening. Everything is bad right now, so hopefully this helps a little bit.
I wish I had a public access TV show. I’d want a card table in front of a bedsheet, and I’d like to be do something repetitive like finishing a jigsaw puzzle for an hour, or reading from a picture book.
One time, I was coming home on the subway and Jordan texted me to turn on my TV and go to some local channel, because he was watching a public access show that he wanted me to see, I guess. What we ended up watching was a syndicated episode of Tuli Kupferberg’s “Revolting News,” and then we both ordered the late Tuli’s zines online. They’re cool—I want to frame a couple pages around my apartment but framing stuff is a gigantic pain in the butt.
When I was a teenager, I wrote the anarchy symbol on the Converse my mom bought me at Hot Topic, and on the backs of my hands. Suffice to say, things haven’t gotten any more legit for me. Now I just follow a lot of anarchopunks on Twitter and hope they mute me instead of unfollowing me. I’m a poseur, but at least I know it. - Emily
I swear I’m not sponsored nor paid for the following. If anything, I’m the one who paid: I recently picked up two masks from the vapor wave-inspired street wear label Vapor95. The TL;DR: They’re really good, worth picking up if you want fashion face masks and the feeling that you’re really living in a cyberpunk future. (Seriously, I can’t wait for Cyberpunk 2077 and I’m irrationally angry I’m not playing it in quarantine.)
Earlier this month, my stray Googling for face masks caused the algorithms to show me Vapor95 on Facebook. The magic algorithm worked, because I immediately took a liking to their aesthetic. (Yes, I’m aware of the once thriving, now dead, now thriving again vapor wave art movement.) After vetting that they were a legit company and not some sketchy Russian bots, I bought the two masks you see above.
Because Vapor95 makes their clothes to order, there’s no stock available for them to just ship out. So my order took a long time, several weeks from clicking confirm to finally putting them on my face. (Ordered on April 4, arrived April 28.) But the wait was worth it because these masks not only look good, but feel good on the face. They’re purely for fashion and light protection, there’s no medical-grade filters on them so you’re kind of overpaying for what you get. But as I only sit home and have only gone out for groceries, I think I’m fine.
My only disappointment is that I bought both thinking the red coloring would be vivid and bold. Instead they’re kind of a faded reddish brown, which I wonder is due to the unique dying process or their listing just isn’t being honest. Still, I’m happy with what I got, and I’m actually excited to go out just so I can wear them.
We’re living in a difficult time, but you gotta find the little things to keep the spirit and the imagination going. Me, I can’t wait to put these on and drive around with this blasting on the speakers. - Eric
Back when Emily and I had a podcast, one of my favorite things to do was interview professional athletes about their nerdy obsessions. I always got a kick out of the fact that these super-wealthy, freakishly gifted dudes who performed in front of tens of millions of people on a nightly basis would go leave the stadium, drive home in their expensive cars, and then kick back to watch some anime. And there are lots of anime fans in professional football and basketball!
If you grow up as a sports fan, you tend to think of star athletes as gods, affixing their images to your walls and praying that they might deliver miracles to lift your city. When you grow up and get to a certain age, it’s easy to forget that many of them are either your age or younger, so it only makes sense that they would be totally into the same cartoons I loved (and still love). And yet, it still baffles me that I’m the same age as oft-injured Mets superstar Yoenis Cespedes. He wrestles wild boars on his ranch and owns about a dozen flashy sports cars, so I still just stare slack-jawed at the guy, but nonetheless, we’re about the same age.
The one nerdy athlete I’ve always wanted to interview (and be friends with) is Robin Lopez. He’s a goofy 7’ tall center with wild hair best known for his rivalries with different NBA mascots and his enormous comic book collection. A few years ago, when Robin was playing for the Knicks and his twin brother Brook (an All-Star and moderately better player) was on the Nets, they were featured in the NY Times in a story about their shared nerdiness, plans to work in animation, love of Comic-Con, and obsession with Disney.
While I haven’t yet gotten to interview either Lopez brother, I did exchange a few delightful words with Robin today about the possibility that the NBA might re-start its season and play the rest of it out at Disney World and ESPN’s Wide of World Sports Complex. Robin was on a tear today, talking about the Disney resorts where he’d most want to bunk and then, with the help of eager fans, recasting every NBA mascot with Disney characters, including some real deep cuts.
Note: I am less two years older than the Lopez brothers, so this is totally fine. - Jordan
