The Dog Days: My June Wrapup

 

Hey Whores;

This has been an interesting enough month. 

So first happy pride month faggots and lets get into it. So as you know last month I quit my job finished out some big projects with my catering job and then starting job hunting. It was a really nice experience. I got to intereview with a lot of fantastic people learn a lot more about my ability as a cook and as a chef and kinda understood a little better what I'm looking for as a craftsman. 

And then I got this job at this winery. Its fine?

It really and truly is one of those jobs that you go and work for money that you can pay for goods and services. I don't like being picky. 

I was having a conversation with my boss the other day who told me that a co-worker who had just left the position felt that he was 'too good' to work here which is like 1. Vastly unprofessional for my boss to tell me about right? and 2. a really toxic way of framing managment and employment. It places the focus of ones capability on some kind of prideful haughtyness. 

There really is such a thing as being over-qualified for a position. and for someone who has worked really fucking hard the last 5 years of my life as a cook I want to work in a kitchen that is not disfunctional and actually utilizes and rewards my skills and effort. 

I've been talking to Em about this kind of thing and she said something really profound that um gagged me, I was shook, wig snatched in a ditch found dead hunttyyyyyy. 

She said it wasn't my responsibilty to learn how to communicate with my boss it was my bosses responsibilty to learn how to communicate with me. and that kinda through me for a loop. I want to find a kitchen where I actually feel understood and recognized. I want to work in a place where I'm not being this insane pedantic asshole for caring about labeling product or making sani buckets. I want to work in a kitchen where my co-workers care just as hard about the food there making as I do. 

Is that too much to ask. 

I'm going to stick with this position for a few months. One because I am polite and career-minded, two because I want to regrow my savings and three. because it is going to be a opportunity for me to really reflect on what I want out of my career and put my nose to the grindstone on better understanding the wine industry itself. I don't think that this was what I truly wanted BUT i am going to make the most of it.

So lets get into the good stuff 

So I am being a lazy little bitch and not feeling like formatting anything this month so lets talk first about the things I managed to cross off the watchlist. 

I wanted to watch gay shit for pride month and the main thing with that is that there isn't really anything on the list that comes close to queer films on my list unfortunetly. So I just watched movies by Jamie Babett. The two films I crossed off are from my review of Russian Doll.

First up is Itty Bitty Titty Comittee (). Which is basically SLC Punk for radical feminists. Some random chick who vagualey reminds me of Jane the Virgin gets coopted into a womens power organization that amoung its various goals is protesting the washington memorial because it looks obvously like a giant veiny patriacal COCK. (I sware to god if this gets flagged as sexually content I am downloading wordpress today). Its fun, its tongue-in-cheek, its beyound annoying, its honestly kinda problamtic in terms of acctrally praxis. Jamie Babbett said leftists infighting. choices were made. 

The other was SLeeping with Other People which I found insuffarable, and didn't watch more than the first 20 minutes, I think straight people were fighting in the middle of the road like a dumbass. I wasn't giving another hour and a half of my life to that. Change my mind. 

In other TBR news I also didn't finished Locked Up which was referenced in my article on the podcast Ear Hustle. I tried but I just couldn't get into it and I didn't want to watch a 16 hour miniseries in Castallian Spanish because I am a hater but more importantly tired. 

ok lets move on its already a third through the month. 

Contiuing the trend of queer shows I started off with Trinkets, a show about three girls who all have issues with shoplifting. Its about friendship, and expectations, and coming of age, and addiction, and less importantly how cool it looks to steal shit while listening to hip teen music. The Soundtrack eats in this show. 

Its a surprisingly fun and enjoyable teen show that feels like the best instincts of the YA genre. Its heartfelt, its poignant, its female-led. I also like that the main character is just a lesbian and literally known of the characters literally give a shit. thats great. She does get a girlfriend or something at some point. Thats pretty cool too. 

I also watched some anime this month so thats pretty cool. 

First up with that is Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead, Basically a Working Stiff (hah puns), misses his alarm clock and wakes up to a zombie apocalypse. realizing that he never has to go back to his shit job ever again he decides to live every day to the fullest and do whatever the fuck he wants. Its a bit like School Days or even Z Nation where its a laugh in the face of danger energy. The Comedic in the face of the grimdark and that can be nice at times. The Two things that stand out is its pretty aggresive anti-capatilist messaging. which is really interesting this is my blog so I guess I can get into it. 

SO I've recently been watching Romero's dead series for the first time and I finally say the sequel Dawn of the Dead which is set in a shopping mall. I've made the assertion before that post-apocalyptic media, (things that happen after the big bad), are often a type of dark pastoralism. There an escapist fantasty. To live in a simply world without deadlines or morning commutes, about being self-relient, about having enough resources to go around. The desire to die is sometimes the desire to live somewhere softer in this case the death is simply the rest of the world. There is also of course a cosumerist bent to some zombie media ala DOTD. Going into a store and simply taking whatever you want from it. 

So a lot of modern zombie fiction has this pastorlism angle its very much a working class/surbibinate power fantasty but the original zombie films of the 30s, (strong belief that maybe we should distinguish these as seperate genres), where very different. Um examply Time uhhhhhhh. White Zombie (1932). In these kinds of film the zombies in question are more closely aligned with the haitian voodoo. That of a eternal servent made to work forever under the hand of a slavemaster. 

What I find fascinating is that Zom 100 is a bit of both of these types of stories. It is a post-scarcity world where people have fun and fight the good fight but its also very explicet about contrasting the way that capitalism sucks the life out of you. Its not subtle and honestly I'm honestly really into it as a concept. also shoutout to the Evil episode 'Z for Zombie' from season 2 which shares a lot of the same framework. 

The last show I watched this month was the hit anime Delicious in Dungeon.

I rather like cooking animes and this one was nice because it gave you what I like, (food), without the usually anime nonsense, (weird ecchi shit). heres the plot

Local Adventure party gets TPK by a red dragon on a lower floor of the local dungeon. They Loose all there equipment and money and the fighters sisters is currently inside the stomach of the dragon needing to be rescued. 

So here's the plan. Were on a time crunch so lets literally eat our way through the dungeon. Killing and cooking the monster they come across. and um yeah thats the plot. 

Its 1 half deconstructed fantasy and 1 half cooking show and it manages to be incredible fun to watch. reminds me of those old dungeon crawler games I used to play as a kid. 

Anyway whores I have other things I want to do today so I'm gonna make this short. 

BYEEEEEEEEEE.