Sometimes I think I am too medium smart. I wish I were stupid or extremely smart. If I were a genius at something then I could be miserable but also write the Great American Novel or Great American Tax Plan. Medium smart is like, you read the paper, you understand the words and kind of you understand the context and the deeper meaning, and you have some pretty interesting theories of why it is that way, but then your brain is kind of like “Ok, that’s good. We did some real hard thinking. Now you have to think about cheese and where your other sock is.” What a tease! Am I alone in this? Does anyone get the sense that if they could just absorb and process a little more without getting existentially tired and distracted by moving images or catchy jingles you could solve a ton of problems? Feed the world? Invent a new coding language? I feel like I am too stupid to even know what it is I could create with these amorphous powers of intellect I lack. And I am burdened, like the rest of us, with the dread and sadness that our world is teeming with people who are suffering at the hands of–get this–other people! What the fuck are we doing? It should be aliens trying to subjugate us, not unfuckable billionaire humans! Ugh.
What if you could take a pill that made you stupid, like a reverse Limitless. I don’t mean just like alcohol or a nice edible, though sadly those are also out of bounds to me for other reasons [cop car sound effect]. I mean a pill you could take to be the kind of stupid where you aren’t miserable all the time because your appalling lack of curiosity only goes so far. You think you are smart, and on today’s internet you can confirm your beliefs with whatever misinfo slop you choose, and your dumb brain is just good with that. I’m talking about a pill that makes you Joe Rogan. I would honestly deal with living in Austin and having that weird fuchsia skin tone if I could have the confidence of a dumb idiot who thinks he is a genius. Sadly, I am deeply terrified of ever allowing myself to believe that I am smarter than I am. This fear is the personification of the dream where you’re back in school and didn’t study for any of the tests.
I attended a 4/19 protest thingy and I was going to talk about MORE politics in today’s newsletter but guys, we need a break. It’s bunny day, and I want to tell you about tiny pies.
But first! I had this idea for a screenplay based on an experience I had at an escape room in San Francisco a couple of years ago. I was with Garret’s dad (owner of the House of Froid and Chaud) and his wife-question-mark and also Garret’s sister, and we decided to book an escape room in the city. I love escape rooms, being medium smart, and I love introducing people to them and watching the varying reactions. It delights me to see what kind of problem solver people become in an enclosed environment, and it delights me equally when people respond with feigned enthusiasm or even indifference. I used to make the People of Earth cast do escape rooms and one of my fondest memories is everyone rushing around trying to communicate codes and clues to each other while Oscar Nuñez slowly ambled around the fake detective’s office picking things up at random and saying “Huh. That’s cool.” So I was pumped to observe this branch of Garret’s fam who had never done an escape game when we arrived at our appointed time to the rather gaudy street facing-escape roomerie (Red flag number one. How can an escape room company afford a storefront location in San Francisco? How did they escape those OVERHEADS??). The teenager who greeted us told us that to use the room with just us and no interlopers we would have to pay extra, and this was relevant because there were two people waiting to do a room, presumably with whoever showed up for the next time slot. We all agreed it would be fine to play with strangers, and told them to lead the way. When I said ‘we all agreed,’ I mean everyone who is normal and not a complete fucking control freak agreed and I became internally furious at these dorks who thought it would be a good idea to intrude on my special social experiment. I mean, come on, this is my Family and it is Christmas or whatever!
The interlopers were two men, father and son or possibly uncle and nephew, who looked for all the world like they were on their way to a sporting event. I assumed this was their first escape room from their approach to each new puzzle, which I would describe as childlike awe and wonder. They were as unhelpful as they were affable, and my annoyance faded as the game wore on, because I am not a complete monster and they were excited. What still puzzles me to this DAY, chat, was that after the game finished and we said our goodbyes, the man and his son-nephew retired right back to the waiting area to join the next incomplete group! I saw them on my way to the bathroom and I asked them if our room was their first. They said they had been doing this all afternoon. I smiled and said my goodbyes and left and then I never stopped thinking about them. Is this a series? Maybe a short. Two people who just join other peoples escape rooms all day long. Maybe they are going to slowly, throughout the day, unpack some light family trauma, or deepen their inter-generational bond. I will play the evil asshole who is annoyed with them at first, because I hate acting.
Tiny Pies
When I was in New York after college I had a job at a series of boutique fashion companies, landing finally at a designer women’s clothing boutique that had a few brick and mortar locations throughout the city, including one in brooklyn that I worked at. I got my best friend Po a job there as well, and for about two years we were allowed to work together on Saturdays by ourselves even though that is actually insane. We would take turns being the most hungover, because it was a pretty small store and only one person really needed to do math at any given time. Tiny Pies was a skincare idea we came up with, one of hundreds of zany, long forgotten ideas for sketches or jokes. The idea with Tiny Pies was sort of an ad where a Julia Roberts-esque woman was smugly listing all the benefits of her new regimen which was literally a pie in the face, except it was the size of a bon-bon. Just a little cream pie she held up on one finger and looked into the camera with a knowing smile and said “Tiny Pies.” That’s it. That’s the story. Fittingly, the saga of my best friend and I getting to “work” together on Saturdays was ended by a pie, namely a large pepperoni pizza pie that we had out on the cash-wrap during business hours when the boss stopped by unexpectedly. To be fair to us, there was no dedicated break room or eating area in the store for us to lunch in, which is softly illegal. To be unfair to everyone else, we were eating greasy pizza right next to expensive silky blouses women were shelling out the big bucks for. Anyway, we were not fired for some reason and only sent to work at separate stores until they opened an ill-advised location in Tribeca, where we were sometimes allowed to work together again. I could probably fill a book with the absolute hijinks we got up to, but I really need Po to fill me in on the stuff I am missing because like any best friendship, you are really only one half of a brain without the other. Those little Best Friend heart necklaces should be brain-shaped.