"The President is a white supremacist, and white nationalist domestic terrorism is at an all-time high in America, but sure, let’s totally celebrate one of the whitest shows in the history of white America..."

"... with an extended interactive experience that allows you to pretend that one of the country’s most diverse cities in America is actually all white, and also get a photo op with … a recreated set of the fictional coffee shop with a couch that was only ever available for said six friends to sit?...  Like a bajillion other people, I watched the show off and on throughout its 10-season run, and I even liked some of the episodes, appreciated the chemistry of the cast, thought the writing was strong, and found moments of its comedic timing to be absolutely impeccable."

I'm reading "Why 'Friends' Is The Wrong Show To Celebrate In The Trump Era" by Rebecca Carroll (in Gothamist)(via Instapundit), and I've got to stop and be irked that Carroll didn't link to anything at "moments of its comedic timing [are] absolutely impeccable." Come on! It's got to be the way David Schwimmer says "paste" in the line "They're still not coming on man and the lotion and the powder have made a paste!"



Notice that the leather pants are black. Ross attempts to overlay his whiteness with black skin — a kind of blackface (or, more accurately, blackleg). He becomes emotionally overwrought in what can now be understood as a sort of racial panic. He is not a black man and yet he has presented himself within blackness. He calls another white man who directs him, disastrously, into whiteness — white lotion and white powder. But the lotion and the powder have made a paste!

He is stuck — pasted! — within whiteness, like the show itself, endlessly, hopelessly white!!

I can't imagine how I'd feel if writing racial critique stuff was actually my job. It would be very hard to keep a grip — maybe paste would help — on what is serious and what is ridiculous. I went back to Gothamist to figure out if Rebecca Carroll is someone who got educated in racial studies and is therefore somewhat forced to write essays like "Why 'Friends' Is The Wrong Show To Celebrate In The Trump Era." And here's the ad Gothamist had for me:

"Police were on the lookout for a suspect last seen wearing tight leather pants, who might have disguised his appearance by getting a level 8 spray tan. Alias: Holiday Armadillo."

"His getaway from the police failed because he was stuck in second gear. The police approached him with caution because he was known to be trained in karate and unagi, the state of total awareness. However, he did not resist arrest and repeatedly assured the police he was 'fine.' He made a failed attempt at getting off easy by sweet-talking an 'Officer Pretty.' At trial, his defense was that it was a case of mistaken identity and the real thief was someone named Russ. After being found guilty, he asked the judge for leniency in his sentence because he had learned his lesson: that he needs to find the line between stealing and what store owes him, adding: 'Beer? No no no!' The judge agreed and sentenced him to drink a glass of fat."

Riffs my son John on a Daily Beast article, "British Police Hunt Suspect Who ‘Looks Like Ross From Friends.'"

Here's the surveillance shot the nefarious lookalike:



The real Ross, David Schwimmer, responds:

Officers, I swear it wasn't me.
As you can see, I was in New York.
To the hardworking Blackpool Police, good luck with the investigation.#itwasntme pic.twitter.com/EDFF9dZoYR

— schwim (@DavidSchwimmer) October 24, 2018

And here's the box set of the complete "Friends" series, which John sent me a while back and which I've watched enough of to get 30% of the jokes in John's riff.

ADDED: The glass of fat: