There Is No "You" In "Media"

Listen, I’m too old, too tired and too talented for any of that shit.

January 20th, 2022

It’s Celebrity Profile Thursday! Feels like it arrives earlier every year. The Hollywood Reporter profiled Lena Dunham, whose new movie “Sharp Stick” premieres at Sundance this weekend. People on Twitter felt all kinds of ways about Dunham’s reëmergence, with responses ranging from “negative” to “very negative.” Despite the title tease, there are no plans for a “Girls” reboot, otherwise she seems pretty happy. For Dunham pet trackers, the only animal mentioned is her “rescue dog, a Mexican hairless pug named Ingrid.”

In the NY Times, Katherine Rosman profiled Kathy Griffin who was, in her own accurate words, “erased” by the entertainment industry in 2017 after releasing a joke picture that she should have known would only be worth the trouble if it were a real picture. Griffin says “says her net worth is $50 million,” so it’s nice to know she’s not suffering materially, but “I just want to get back to making people laugh,” she tells Rosman above a picture of her literally testing the waters.

And Deadline followed up with Brian Cox, who continues to say whatever the hell he wants, confirming that The New Yorker’s Jeremy Strong profile “was Jeremy’s idea, the whole article,” and continuing:

Cox: …Let me tell you, I have such respect for Jeremy as an actor, and I just wish him well. I think he lives in a lot of pain. I mean, he creates the pain in the role he plays. That doesn’t necessarily help, but he does. … There is a certain amount of pain at the root of Jeremy, and I just feel for that pain. I think that he puts himself in vulnerable positions and with that New Yorker article, he placed himself in a very, very vulnerable position, and I think that he didn’t need to do that.

DEADLINE: Do you worry that you’ve done that to yourself to some degree with the book?

COX: What?

DEADLINE: Put yourself in a vulnerable position?

COX: No, no. Listen, I’m too old, too tired and too talented for any of that shit.

“Listen, I’m too old, too tired and too talented for any of that shit” is the energy we are all bringing to 2022 now. Get on board.

Hollywood Incidental: I guess we’re doing another three hour grimdark Batman origin story? “What, should we just make a different movie?” scoffed Jen Psaki. Luckily Douglas Wolk read all 27,000 Marvel comics and wrote a book about them, so we won’t need to make any more Marvel movies, but I don’t know if we’ll ever be free of the most American superhero: a grumpy, sexless, emotionally stunted, gadget-obsessed vigilante manchild whose superpower is ”being rich.” The A.V. Club title “Jason Mantzoukas is voicing Tommy Lee's penis in Hulu's Pam & Tommy” is already too much, but stick around until: “You’ve got four puppeteers working with an animatronic penis” if you can. Also RIP A.V. Club, another formerly great publication destroyed by media’s most maliciously incompetent owners, the Herbs of G/O. And Variety’s K.J. Yossman writes that a “New Film Studio Will Be Built in Space by 2024,” which will definitely not happen. The only surprise here is they’re not somehow trying to fund it with crypto.

Steve Bannon is promoting a cryptocurrency that “allows the currency’s operators to manually lock an owner’s token balance… This would prevent an owner from selling coins.” Lmao, Sickos.jpeg. Also today in crypto: “Synthetic wombs, etc.” The CIA is Havana normal one. Good news: U. Toronto has a tenure-track opening. Google Pixel phones using Android 12 are somehow mangling QR codes and sending users to the wrong URLs. Shroom SPAC. Reyhan’s family is determined to keep getting Covid until the pandemic ends, but according to Christopher J L Murray in The Lancet that might be soon, because “[b]y March, 2022 a large proportion of the world will have been infected with the omicron variant.” He adds that “the transmission intensity of omicron is so high that policy actions—eg, increasing mask use, expanding vaccination coverage in people who have not been vaccinated, or delivering third doses of COVID-19 vaccines …will have limited impact on the course of the omicron wave.” Get your free masks next month though I guess, at least they’ll help with the wildfire smoke. Ted Gioia asks “Is Old Music Killing New Music?” and I don’t know if the data really proves his argument but it’s an interesting question. Wirecutter: We tested four dozen human archetypes and here is the best partner for most people.

Finally: Guess the Wikihow article from one illustration, at Damn.dog.

Today’s Song: Propellerheads feat. Shirley Bassey, “History Repeating”

~ are old tabs killing new tabs? ~

I will not be addressing the Amanda Palmer advice column, please respect my family’s privacy at this difficult time. My “digital avatar in the metaverse” is @fka_tabs. Thank you for allowing me a short week, Tabs will be back for everyone on Monday but I’ll have something fun for paid subscribers tomorrow.

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