Artistic Weirdos Will Save Us All
Books, music, art and comedy will get us through the f*ckery. Plus, a Greek salad sandwich recipe 🍅
It’s been a wild and woolly week in the USA. What are you doing to take care of yourself in these wild and woolly times? This morning, I slept until I woke without an alarm, got up to snag a free breakfast coffee and muffin at this cool old hotel I’m staying at in Nevada City, CA, and took it back to my room, where I read in bed for an hour. Luxurious!!
I’m reading Naomi Alderman’s The Future, which is about the end of the world and how a handful of tech giants who control everything, including the weather, plan to survive. It’s packed with cult leaders, survivalist influencers, cool biotech, futuristic parables… it’s a ripping read, it’s dystopian as fuck, and I’m hugely enjoying it. I hope they make it into a movie.
I’m in Nevada City for the opening of a psychedelic art project (which I’ll write more about later), and I’ve already spent a day in the company of cool weirdos who hate authority and conservatism. It’s been extremely good for my soul. I’ve been spending a lot more time reading, looking at art, and listening to music lately, and have dialed down my screen and podcast time. A few favorite albums at the moment: Eliza McLamb’s Going Through It, Madison Cunningham’s Revealer, Phoebe Bridges’ Punisher — wait, there’s a pattern here…
But! What’s the perfect antidote to listening to moody songs about when things fall apart? Going to Reggie Watts’ comedy album taping!
I went to the second taping of his new Netflix special last Sunday, and what a goddamned treat he was, as always, with brilliant weirdo character riffs, improvised psychedelic songs, and a full-metal meltdown finale. My friend Lisa and I headbanged with 400 other fans, and floated out of the theatre feeling like cool kids. Can’t wait to see the special when it airs!
I’m going to read a ton of books, and see a ton of art, music, theatre and comedy this year. I can always rely on artistic weirdos to make me feel better.
The Absolute Fuckery of Katie Britt
The response by Alabama Senator Katie Britt to Biden’s (rousing?) State of the Union address this week was comedy gold. If we weren’t in serious danger of the GOP taking the White House in November, I’d be working on a character parody of this woman right now (I’ve got a variety show coming up in April, so if you’re in LA watch this space for more info).
Britt delivered the GOP rebuttal to the SOTU seated at her kitchen table. HAHAHA. A woman in the kitchen — of course that’s who Republicans chose to represent their vision for the future of America. It’s so fucking on the nose it’s embarrassing. And Britt’s delivery of the extremely rehearsed speech was over-the-top community theater dramatics from a terrible actor who was clearly told she had promise, and believed it. Yikes. From Rolling Stone:
Her impassioned, breathless speech — delivered at times in an ASMR-esque whisper from what appeared to be her kitchen — ended up feeling more like a rejected audition tape for a supporting role on “Grey’s Anatomy” than the hard-hitting political sparring favored by Biden’s Republican critics.
Into the late hours of the night, Rolling Stone was inundated, sometimes completely unprompted, with messages from longtime GOP operatives, right-leaning pollsters, conservative Capitol Hill staff, MAGA lawyers, and even some senior members of Trump’s own 2024 campaign absolutely torching Britt’s absurdly over-dramatic rebuttal.
I just saw this photo on Britt’s Facebook page. What hellscape of a fake kitchen is this? Why is she the only one sitting? Is her husband’s hand on her shoulder some kind of sign? The whole thing is so fake and yucky.
We’re in for plenty more of these “family first” videos from Republicans as they mobilize to make people forget what they’re really up to, which they’ve painstakingly laid out in Project 2025. I’m not going to get into it here, but if y’all are interested in a breakdown on what the GOP has in store with their “Presidential Transition Project,” I’ll write about it next week. Let me know in the comments!
Women In Weed
I’m a huge fan of
— a wildly talented culinary cannabis creator and educator, Christina publishes recipes, videos, podcasts and tips and tricks for consuming cannabis and infusing all kinds of food on her excellent Substack Fruit+Flower Unfurled. She’s also a friend, which makes me exceedingly lucky, because sometimes I get a home delivery of something she whipped up, like her mouthwatering Pumpkin Seed Brittle.
This week, Christina hosted an event to celebrate women in the cannabis space, and invited me to join her for a conversation about “patriarchal bullshit” in weed. It was a cozy, rainy night in Manhattan Beach, and a bunch of us gathered around a conference table with infused drinks to share stories about operating in largely male-dominated spaces in cannabis, how to be heard and stay safe, how to protect others from bad actors (of course, we got into a conversation about gossip), and much more. I was honored to participate, and I hope to be involved in many more events like it. I even left with a gift bag full of weed. Thanks to Christina and her co-hosts for a wonderful night that filled up my cup, and my stash!
Lysistrata and a Greek Salad Sandwich
The ancient Greek comedy Lysistrata by Aristophanes tells the story of an Athenian woman who’s determined to end the Peloponnesian War, which had been raging for nearly 30 years when the play was first performed in 411 BC. Lysistrata recruits the women of Sparta and Athens, the main rivals in the war, to stop having sex with the men until there is peace. They succeed — because it's a comedy, guys!
In 2003, a peace protest initiative called the Lysistrata Project organized thousands of readings of of the play in response to the Iraq disarmament crisis. What do you think would happen if we took a page from Lysistrata in response to the reproductive rights crisis? I made a sandwich about it. The super-simple tasty recipe is below.
I adapted the recipe slightly from Martha Rose Shulman’s version at NYT Cooking.
INGREDIENTS
Yield: 1 sandwich
1 tomato, ripe but firm, cut 1 thin slice and dice the rest into small pieces
1 ounce cucumber, thinly sliced
1 ounce green pepper — about 1/4 small pepper, seeded and thinly sliced
1 slice red onion, cut in half, rings separated, rinsed and drained optional
1 tablespoon crumbled feta
1 to 2 teaspoons chopped fresh mint
1 teaspoon sherry vinegar or red wine vinegar
2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
Salt
Freshly ground pepper
1 English muffin, lightly toasted
Mayonnaise
Dijon mustard
Make Yourself a Sandwich
Step 1: In a medium bowl, combine the diced tomato, cucumber, green pepper, onion, feta and mint. Toss with the vinegar and olive oil. Season if desired with salt and pepper.
Step 2: Spread the bottom half of the English muffin with mayonnaise. Layer the sliced tomato on top. Top with the Greek salad mixture. Spread the top half of the English muffin with mustard, and place on top of the salad. Press down and cut in half.
Tuck a napkin in your collar or lap, and eat your sandwich while listening to something beautiful like Bon Iver’s “Michicant” to shut out the blathering nonsense of GOP senators while feeling the deep gratification of your delicious sandwich, which you made for yourself. Enjoy!
That’s it for this week, friends. I’m going to take a light dose of psychedelics and go dance in an art gallery now. Thank you so much for being here. It means the world to me. More soon. MJ ❤️ 🌈 ✨
Cheers to the artistic weirdos. I love places like Portland and Austin so much that embrace weird in their everyday “keep it weird” mantras. When I’m crawling into my dark holes of despair, art always reconnects me with the world and myself.