Jeffrey Wells

Visiting Jett, Cait and Sutton’s home in West Orange, New Jersey has been HE’s default Thanksgiving destination since I moved to Connecticut in ‘22. But not this year. Come 11.27 the Jersey crew will be dinner-ing in Massachusetts so Jody and I are out in the cold.

So last week I started looking around for a nice, home-styled, non-corporate restaurant (fireplace, candles, scent of cinnamon and pine needles) to savor a Thanksgiving dinner in, and guess what? They’re all fucking closed.

Okay, we found one place that’s turkey-serving in Silvermine (Tavern at Graybarns) but they’re charging $150 a head plus extra required gratuities. No, thanks. That’s exploitive.

Right now our best (i.e., affordable) Thanksgiving option is Turkey McNuggets at McDonalds.

I think it’s shallow and rather ungracious of those nice local eateries (Westport’s Terrain, Georgetown’s Milestone) to shut their doors on Thanksgiving. They know there are many people like me with no soothing place to go. Restaurants should respect the customer base and open their hearts on this day of family togetherness.

HE to Friendo: “I caught episode #1 of Rachel Sennott’s I Love LA a couple of nights ago, and while it’s simultaneously revved-up and draining you can’t say it lacks the necessary Zoomer energy or doesn’t understand its own lemme–outta–here vibe— either you submit to this kind of arch–humor–aimed–at–under–35–women–and–gay–dudes thing or you throw up your hands and turn it off.

“Full respect paid to Sennott, the show’s maestro-like creator, star, senior writer and exec producer.

“But if I was a 28-year-old Silver Lake woman looking to somehow nudge my way into talent-managing and all my friends talked like the women on this show (toxic emotional phoniness…migraine–inducing, machine–gun insincerity to the max) I would probably wind up (a) shooting myself with a snub-nosed .38 or (b) becoming a William S. Burroughs-level heroin addict. My motto would be ‘yeah, I love LA but I’m drowning in phoney-baloney, fair-weather friends.'”

Friendo: “It’s just Lena Dunham 2.0…a mix of Girls and Entourage.”

Tatiana Antropova in a scene from I Love LA:

HE commenter Mike Shea: “Die, My Love definitely feels like a new subgenre: the tired, frazzled, going-insane, new mother experience. I thought Amy Adams was great in Nightbitch even as the story chickened out by the end. There was last month’s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. There was also Jason Reitman‘s Tully. And now this.”

In this Die, My Love corner, N.Y. Times film critic Alissa Wilkinson. On the ring’s opposing side, Hollywood Elsewhere’s Fearless Fosdick…Jeffrey Wells, I mean. Sepia-amber tint vs. stark black-and-white. In essence, the alleged joys of sisterly solidarity and mad Lawrentian immersion vs. instinctual lemme-outta-here plus an honest, elemental fear of being chomped down on.

Wilkinson….

Wells…

Wilkinson…

Wells…

My “Die, Yuppie Scum” T-shirt was still considered timely apparel when this snap was taken in the spring or early summer of ‘90. “Yuppie” had been a curse word for a good four or five years. A few months earlier Mike Figgis’s Internal Affairs opened theatrically. In the final scene Richard Gere’s Peck, a corrupt cop, angrily taunts Andy Garcia’s Raymond Avila by calling him a “fucking yuppie.”

Jett was nearly two; Dylan was five or six months old.

On top of which the once young and matinee-idol handsome Brendan Fraser turns 58 on 12.3.25. Costar Rachel Weisz celebrated her 55th last March.

No one’s advocating for size or age discrimination here, but traditions are traditions.

The only girthy-protagonist-vs.-monster precedent is Lou Costello in those goofball Abbott-and-Costello horror japes. HE’s favorites are (a) Hold That Ghost! (‘41) and (b) Abbott and Costello Meet The Mummy (‘55). But Mummy Costello was ten years younger (48) than Fraser.

Jeff Goldblum is the only Wicked: For Good cast member I personally relate to, and his character (the Wizard of Oz) is fairly villainous for the most part.

You can’t say Goldblum didn’t have the best line in the original Wicked: “I think it’s a bit much.”

But never let it be said this is not a “safe”, positive-minded, wholesomely diverse cast. They cover the woke waterfront.

What kind of 21st Century ensemble cast do I relate to? Dozens upon dozens. How about the Spotlight guys? The Sentimental Value family? Or the Zero Dark Thirty-ers? Or the Manchester By The Sea pain-bearers? Or the Weapons community? Or Team Irishman? I could go on and on.

What if you have issues with diverse identity brandishing but you don’t consider yourself a MAGA mouth-breather? What if you’re more of a sensible centrist?

From David Brooks N.Y. Times column, posted on 10.30.25:

From Politico’s Elena Schneider, dated 11.2…as if everyone didn’t already know that Democrats have all but slit their own throats over woke issues and trans stuff in particular.

Proles to Dems, Part 2: “Sorry to break it to ya, ayeholes, but J.K. Rowling had it right all along.”

The storied Asbury Park carousel is seared into my emotional history…my DNA even. Because it marked me…an innocent renegade incident that branded my childhood and teen years.

I wrote about it a couple of years ago…

It was a late summer evening, and my now-departed mom (her name was Nancy) and I were roaming up and down the more-than-a-century-old boardwalk in Asbury Park, New Jersey. One of the evening’s highlights (in my mind at least) was the famous Asbury Park merry-go-round.

After going on a ride and eating some cotton candy we made our way south (or was it north?). At least a mile, maybe two. Then I somehow slipped my mother’s grasp and disappeared. Gone.

For the first time in my life I had decided that it would be more exciting and fulfilling to go on a solo boardwalk adventure rather than stay with mom.

Nancy freaked, of course. She found a couple of uniformed cops and asked for their help. They all looked, searched, asked all the merchants…no luck. The trio finally made their way back to the merry-go-round and there I was — staring, bedazzled.

This incident put the fear of God into both my parents. From then on they decided I had to be kept on a short leash and monitored extra carefully. The result is that I began to feel that my life was being lived in a gulag, a police state. Rules, repression, “no”, time to go to bed at dusk, “because I said so,” “you’re too young,” etc.