The Weekend Coffee™: Trolling for America, taking Tootie to task, a tortured love song from 1987, and a taste of "Traitors" 🦅🤭📺🎶💔🏰
"GIMME A BREAK!" - Nell Carter
This week’s newsletter is gonna be FUNNY. It’s gonna be fun and cozy and a barrel of LAUGHS. If you came here for magic, YOU CAME TO THE RIGHT PLACE.
But first:
As you already know, once again it’s been a terrible week for people who love Minneapolis people. I feel like it’s my job to create a port in the storm for those who need some levity during these terrible times, and when things are particularly chaotic, I also try to deliver content to the fingertips of those who want to stay informed but also want to laugh. I also feel so sincerely with every bone in my body that the only way we’re really going to triumph against Sunkist Tits and his Stooges is if we’re laughing in these losers’ faces every single second of the day. I saw a TikTok on Thursday from a fellow Minneapolis citizen who was filming ICE agents, and he called one of them “shortstack.” The way that government-hired bounty hunter immediately whirled around and was like, “What did you just call me?”…I was like, “YA GOT ‘EM!” That shame will linger inside that dude for the rest of his life. Constantly showing these soulless losers that we don’t respect them and never will might be the one thing that causes them to live in a hell of their own making.
And so I’m all for it!!!
Anyway…I mean there’s laws and boycotts and trials and stuff that I would also like to see happen when it comes to this administration and their hired goons, but laughing about what a bunch of small-D, smooth-brained, no-talent, no-bitches fuckfaces they all are and making it clear to everyone who supports them that they are ALSO huge fucking losers feels like the one sure thing that’s immediately within my control, and so that’s what I’m gonna do to fight for our freedom!
I’m trolling for America, you guys!
Anyway - please keep your eyes on Minneapolis because what is happening here feels like a testing ground for what Sunkist Tits wants to do to any other governor or mayor who has the balls to stand up to him. It also feels like just another blatant move to distract everyone from The Epstein Files. Also, please call your congresspeople and remind them that they could literally end all of this tomorrow if they wanted to, and then ask what’s taking so long. My reps, personally, are probably super sick of hearing my voice every day and I don’t blame them but guess what? They get free premium healthcare and I don’t and so they’re gonna listen to every word I have to say!!!!
BUT FOR NOW, let’s just a take a little break from the outside world, make ourselves a nice lil’ cup of coffee (or cappuccino, if you’re hella fancy like me) and dive into some of the most ridiculously dumb stuff that we could possibly talk about right now. Capisce*? Capisce!
*I’m international. Cosmopolitan. I use words like “ciao” and “capisce.” Sorry for being cultured.
When the world never seems to be liiiving up to your dreams, then suddenly you're finding out the facts of life are all about yoooooouuuuu….yoooouuu-ouuuuu!
Right now Tubi is doing literally the best thing ever by putting a bunch of shows from the ‘70s and ‘80s in their entirety on their streaming platform, and it has me LIVINGGGGG.
A few months ago, I worked my way through My Two Dads and it was such a nostalgia trip; last month I started watching the ‘70s comedy sitcom Soap and loved how easily it was able to combine campy and wry comedy with soapy drama. I’ve long known that Soap was where a ton of comedy stars like Billy Crystal and Katherine Helmond, etc, became household faces if not household names, and I watched Benson as a kid so I already sort of knew that the character’s origin story started on Soap, but being able to finally watch the show and put those pieces together was really fun.
This month? It’s all about taking the good and taking the bad and taking them all and what do we have?
The Fact of Life, babyyyy!
The Facts of Life has always been my girl. I remember starting to watch the series in real-time when I was 3, and of course tuning into reruns on syndicate when I was a kid, but it still felt crazy to re-watch all these years later and still be able to remember within the first 2 minutes of each episode that, oh yeah, this is the one where Jo and her hometown boyfriend Eddie are growing apart, and this is the 2-parter where Blair’s sister wants to become a nun and ooooh this is the one where Natalie gets into trouble for making up someone who had an abortion for her article in the paper.
The thing I didn’t remember about this show is how, at least occasionally, it really went there. Geri, Blair’s cousin, was the first character with an actual disability to be on a sitcom (she has cerebral palsy). Also, an episode about a teen girl at Eastland getting an abortion (Natalie made up a girl to help illustrate her article’s stats and research but then a real girl is like, “how did you find out about me”),??? In the ‘80s?!?! There’s also a whole episode about how Tootie gets separated from the girls while they’re in New York and she almost gets roped into a prostitution ring. Like you know that Mrs. Garrett and the girls are going to find her at the diner in the end, but it still feels like a really close call and the ending - where Tootie is standing outside the diner, looking in on the sweet-but-sad teen prostitute whose pimp was forcing her to basically lure Tootie back to her apartment - is actually pretty harrowing.
The other thing I didn’t remember, however, is how this show is the original Degrassi Junior High in that things don’t always wrap up neatly by the end of the episode, and the characters experience real consequences for their actions. There’s rarely any “Well, Nat, you lied about your source but it’s okay, you can still stay editor of the paper” or “Jo, you spread a story about your teacher being busted at cocaine party without checking the facts and sure, he said he was resigning but since you apologized I guess we can all forget this whole mess.” The only one who seems to ever get off scot-free is Tootie, which is VERY ANNOYING during seasons 2-4. She tells everyone she’s not trying out for the school play because she wants a break and so she’s only at auditions to support Natalie, but then once Natalie gets huge applause for her solo, who decides to immediately jump up and audition and thus essentially steal the starring role? TOOTIE. Also, can we talk about how she was an AWFUL singer? The way the show kept trying to convince us that she was so great that of COURSE she would immediately get the lead over anyone else made me even more mad for Natalie! And then at the end, it was all about Natalie apologizing for being jealous, but Tootie never had to apologize for being selfish!! I was PISSED! And don’t even get me started on the Jermaine Jackson episode when Tootie ditched out on Jo’s scholarship fundraiser fair AND made Mrs Garrett skip out on it too so she could be hysterical on main for a 3rd tier Jackson 5 member, and then it ends with “Poor Tootie, she was just TOO much of a FAN” while Jo didn’t even get any semblance of an apology??? Oh, and THEN, the episode when Natalie FINALLY gets a boyfriend and Tootie is all jealous of being left out and so she messes up their date on purpose and the end is all about how Natalie is sorry for leaving Tootie out and choosing a boy over her but Tootie didn’t have to say sorry for literally sabotaging Natalie’s date on purpose?! I was STEAMED! The worst was when her brother comes to visit while on a ski trip and he invites them all to a college party at his hotel room. He gets drunk but still insists on driving them home, and because Tootie idolizes her brother and doesn’t want him to feel embarrassed, she basically drags Natalie and Blair out by the hair and makes them get into a car driven by a drunk driver. They of course all get into an accident, which Tootie tries to cover up but can’t, and in the end, does she apologize to Natalie and Blair for literally putting their lives at risk? No, she just focuses on her stupid brother and how he almost hurt HER. THAT IS TEW TEW MUCH TOOTIE!
But you know what? Much like the rest of the girls, I was still able to forgive and forget because damn it if that girl didn’t have great comedic timing:
But let’s not kid ourselves: The one with the absolute best comedy chops in this show is a one Mindy Cohn, currently starring in Palm Beach Royale:
Anyway, it is definitely my #1 go-to comfort watch right now and I highly recommend getting your sparkling eyes on Tubi (it’s free! There are ads but that just means you get cute little breaks with which to check out my Stories on IG or catch up on the latest True Story) and finding YOUR nostalgic comfort watch, too.
And then come back here and tell us all about it!
Respectfully on repeat: “Can’t We Try” by Dan Hill, ft. Vonda Shepard
Speaking of remembering things…
I came across this on TikTok the other day and was like, “Oh my god, I used to LOVE this song!” I immediately saved it to add to my True Story playlist, and have been blasting it non-stop ever since. Listen - I have a crazy memory, so much so that it is literally to my detriment (forget the past? I literally cannot!). But I also love those moments when you know you haven’t heard a song for literally DECADES yet you still know every single word and note by heart. And the craziest/funniest part was the emotional memory that came flooding back?? Like what kind of relationship drama was 1987 Amber tuned into that made this song burrow so deeply into her emotional core??! Unless she was like, “huh, this song probably describes what all of my future romantic relationships are gonna be like”, in which case…that little 8 yr old psychic weirdo was RIGHT!
My favorite part, though, is during the second part of the song (but the first bit in the video above) when Dan Hill is like, “hey girl, you’ve been talking to strangers about your feelings and you’re actually supposed to be talking to me about that” and Vonda Shepard (who would go on to be the singer of and on Ally McBeal) replies with, “oh, that’s so funny, because you brush off every real conversation I try to have with you.” and then he’s like, “Um, how the fuck was I supposed to know that you yapping at me was actually you trying to TALK to me??”
Like literally THEE most “You have to TELL me these things” male weaponized incompetence call-and-response lyric in the entire world. I love it!
Traitors? More like SLAY HERS, amirite!!!
Next week we’re gonna talk about the new season of Traitors, but since they just released the first three episodes on Thursday, I don’t wanna do any spoilers for those of you who haven’t gotten eyes on it yet.
Yes, I know! I am a nice person who thinks about other people! Thank you so much for noticing!!!
So here’s some no-context reactions to the season so far:
That’s it for this week! If you live in Minneapolis, stay safe. If you don’t live in Minneapolis, stay safe. If you’d like to fly my baby dog and me out of here, preferably on a private jet, stay safe. If you are a hot international person who lives in the British Isles, France, Italy, Greece or any of the Scandinavian countries - would also settle for Canada if I must - and you’d like to marry me and adopt my dog so that we may move to your country legally, stay safe!
Gently pressing warm fingertips on your cold earlobes,
-Amber