Huge feelings in my heart
gaga loves her dive bar, remember rick-rolling?, and deli boys
a continuous mix of articles, shows, books + more worth raving about
this week: Gaga in the LES, early 4chan days, and DELIghtful boys. Scroll to b2b to Jennie and Dua Lipa, plus relive the live version of “Abracadabra”
Lady Gaga’s Zane Lowe interview
Gaga’s Zane Lowe Mayhem interview was at Welcome to the Johnson’s, a lovable, dive-y as fuck Lower East Side bar whose bathroom floors are never not totally wet.
“When I come down here I have a huge feeling in my heart,” Gaga says. same, girl, same.
Seeing the pool table, I pictured myself sitting along the wall, phone in hand, half-watching skate homies play pool with cheap pool cues for the millionth time.
Before she and Zane sit down, she mentions the PBR and shot combo (prob still the cheapest spot for a beer-shot in the city).
She points to the corner of the bar and says she used to write songs on a napkin.
It reminded me of my own bar napkin, from a Johnson’s former neighbor and since-shuttered, LES fave (rip max fish).
My 2019 napkin is not a Grammy winning song but just a brainstorm of names for my zine that became HECK. Do you have any saved napkins? What’s on it?
Making Mayhem is Gaga trying not “to give my music an outfit,” in order to create “gothic dreams” of experiences that haunt her.
A handful of LES nights will haunt me forever 👻 If you ever had an era of nightcrawling around the Lower, you feeel me. I know you do!
Memes to Mayhem
“The Antisocial Network: Memes to Mayhem” documents the rise of 4chan into the worst results. The recap of the early days is oddly nostalgic. I realized how (tangentially) informed I was about the site in 2007, the same year everyone was “getting rick-rolled.”
That was one of the first inside jokes started on 4chan that eventually became mainstream. They invented memes and all (?) internet humor. LOLCATS, anyone?
Hearing their user names threw me back 18 years: that’s fuxnet? Omg, moot! It felt like a true reveal seeing them. Before allll the bad shit it was just an anonymous image-sharing forum which eventually birthed hacker group Anonymous (Guy Fawkes mask).
When they show screenshots that say RAID! RAID!1 and cover the Hal Turner raid I lost it!! I didn’t know this was a memory I had but hearing it all put me right back at some guy’s house listening to the prank calls and cracking up.
For more on that, there’s this from Mondo 2000, a y2k cyberpunk magazine and site (and legendary throwback): Early Chan Culture, The Raids Of Hal Turner And Their Personal And Societal Implications
Once the doc is at Gamergate the fun is over. Far from subversive humor and simple pranks, the second half of the doc is anxiety inducing: QAnon and Jan 6.
I’m left feeling nostalgic for the early days before widespread misinformation, before “big tech,” and before we knew who Elon2 was.
Deli Boys
Truly unexpected laughs, real LOLs from this crime comedy about Pakistani brothers who take over after their father dies by golfball. One of their best and easy-to-miss jokes is about the Ying Yang Twins. Poorna Jagannathan (the mother from Never Have I Ever) is excellent as gangster Lucky Auntie. I hope there’s a season 2.
back 2 back music bumps for the soul
Jennie and Dua Lipa - “Handlebars” - current song i can’t stop singing and Dua sounds good on this too.
Of course, we’re closing this out with the Gaga’s SNL performance of “Abracadabra” WARNING: extremely nourishing!