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Arrested Development, ChatGPT Plugins, and a Vegan Civil War
Ed Festa
March 27, 2023
Welcome to the Good Times, your stop for great writing, amusements, and fascinating stuff from the last few days (in 5 mins or less).
Yes, we're doing this to amuse America (and ourselves), but we also donate 10% of our revenue to education and affordable housing charities. So kick back and enjoy.
The Good Times Roundup
ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT STAYS AT NETFLIX: Netflix owes a lot to shows like Arrested Development, and it appears they still think it's a good investment. Netflix re-licensed all five seasons for a (curiously) unspecified amount of time, keeping the classic exclusively on its streaming platform - it was set to sunset March 15 when their previous deal expired. So rest easy banana stand fans, the Bluths are staying put.
CHATGPT UNVEILS PLUGINS: Now you can use AI to book trips on Expedia or buy groceries on Instacart, and OpenAI's opened a plugin waitlist for stuff you'd like to see robots do for you in the future.
Parents, we've already requested a make-my-toddler-breakfast machine, status updates to follow.
HERE COMES THE VEGAN CIVIL WAR: The FDA approved lab-grown meat (for the 2nd time) and vegans can't agree if it's kosher. In an opinion piece on Wired this week, a guest writer argued that lab meat's A-ok for a vegan diet since it ends animal suffering and in turn, the impact said animals have on the environment (cow farts, etc.). Not so fast say vegan hardliners. Given its use of stem cells, lab meat perpetuates animal 'exploitation' and the species-ist wing of the coalition argue this still elevates humans too much. Oh, it's good to be American these days. 10% of the world's hungry while we rage about 'species-ism.'
THE ORIGIN STORY OF MATT FOLEY, THE THRICE DIVORCEE: An interview with Bob Odenkirk hit YouTube a couple days ago where he discussed writing maybe the most famous sketch in SNL history. In his words:
I love Chris, and then the motivational speaker sketch that I wrote for him, the one that did so well.... We had done an improvisation, and we were all playing teachers of a school, and it was like a 'Don't Do Drugs' rally, and we were talking to the students, and he did his coach character. And it was Matt Foley. He might've even used the name Matt Foley. It didn't have the story, 'van down the river,' it wasn't a motivational speaker, but, you know, he was going, [imitates Matt Foley's mannerisms]. It stuck in my head, as it would anyone, and I went home that night and I wrote that sketch, and I've written hundreds of sketches in my life, and I wrote it exactly the way it's done, although Robert Smigel added the breaking table.
Take the Day Off
Because today's International Whiskey Day (est. 2008) but even more exciting, tomorrow is Respect Your Cat Day (origins unknown). Celebrate properly with the top 5 ways Americans show their cat respect (source: cat owners, who‘d know):
81%: I pet my cat.
78%: I verbally praise my cat.
65%: I give my cat a treat.
62%: I pick up my cat and hold him/her.
16%: I give my cat gifts.
With every newsletter we'll run a featured article on topics ranging from kids, dogs, news, sports, or anything in between. We aim to amuse - put another way, if Mark Twain were alive today we'd desperately try to hire him. Thanks for reading and without further delay...
Today's Article: The Movies in our Heads
In 1973, Yankee Stadium underwent a major renovation that forced the team to depressingly call Shea Stadium home for two years.
That's an indignity only Mets fans should endure but for the Yankee faithful, there were silver linings. Across the city, junk and antique shops started selling ripped-out stadium seats and my Mom scooped a couple up for my Dad, a Bronx native and lifelong Yankee fan.
They were sad-looking when he first got them, just rotting wooden seats and seat backs screwed onto a rusted iron frame. But they were solid by God, and my Dad kept them safe until he could restore them properly. They now sit in my living room because my wife's a saint.
Some years after the seats joined the family, I was born in New York just like three generations of my Italian forebears, but we left the city when I was six months old and bounced around before landing in Atlanta in 1989. Atlanta's been 'home' ever since - Los Angeles has had 15+ years to earn the title but I refuse to grant it - but those transient years were all my Dad needed to brainwash me on New York, the Yankees, and his childhood hero Mickey Mantle.
I read all I could on the topics. The 'New York' section of our World Book Encyclopedia got a workout and for birthdays, I'd get short hard covers on legendary Yankees. There was no internet to feed my obsession after all, and what a gift that was. Thanks to my web-free childhood, I imagined the stadium when Babe Ruth came to the plate (never saw the grainy films until much later). Did any head fail to turn when Joe DiMaggio entered a room? No chance. And when Mickey took off after a fly ball, the number 7 on his back, did fans collectively rise, inhale, and marvel?
When you get to make it up, the past gets magical.
In that vein, my Dad forwarded this NY Times article about a legendary scrap the '57 Yankees got into at the Copacabana nightclub, the sceney-ist watering hole in the whole city.
It's a terrific story. Joey Silvestri, a Brooklyn kid turned Copa bouncer, was there and after 63 years, he wants to set the record straight.
He was there but wasn't supposed to be - it was his night off but Sammy Davis, Jr., a regular he'd become friendly with, was passing through one last time before leaving town. At one table sat Billy Martin, Hank Bauer, Whitey Ford, and Mickey Mantle, there to celebrate Martin's 29th birthday, and next to them was a rowdy bowling team who, according to Silvestri, shouldn't have gotten into the club at all.
Everyone was in their cups and as Joey tells it, the bowlers started hurling racial taunts at Sammy Davis, Jr. The Yankees told them to knock it off, so the bowlers suggested they settle their differences outside.
'You don't have to tell Billy but once,' Mantle said of Martin.
And that's when Joey stepped in. He pushed to the middle and decked a bowler, sparing the Yankees the burden of dispatching the loudmouth who started it all.
The papers told a very different story however. They fingered Bauer and his running mates and as the Times tells it, it was a watershed moment for how the press covered athletes. The days of sweeping everything under the rug were over.
Honestly, I couldn't care less about the incident's place in journalistic history, it's the setting and characters that captivate. Also there that night? Sinatra, Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, and as my Dad revealed, Jim Caruso, my Grandfather's cousin and a musician in the Copacabana band. He played four instruments apparently (piccolo, flute, sax, and clarinet) and was a mainstay of the band ‘forever.’
I was floored by that fact but that’s all I know, and it’s all I care to know to be honest.
Some things are better left to the imagination, like what songs Jim played that night or whether his version of events would match Joey Silvestri's.
I'd bet yes. Exonerating legendary Yankees is noble family work, and we're family after all.