Crosswalk: The Musical: The Ending: The Essay
Even from the grave, I am haunted by James Corden
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SHOWS:
Kimberly Clark: One Night Only! Wednesday May 31st @ 8pm. I’m opening for the very funny Kimberly Clark, who you’ve perhaps seen on Tiffany Haddish’s They Ready(Netflix) or Corden (more on him below). The Comedy Nook is my comedy home away from home and this will be a fun one!
Hello Sternal Journalists.
I’ve been thinking recently about how a lot of things seem to be ending. I care about a lot of them and have complicated feelings about even more of them. One that I don’t care particularly about too much or even have complicated feelings about? The recent ending of The Late Late Show with James Corden.
I don’t have strong feeling one way or another, but because I live about four blocks from the studio where he filmed his show, I’ve seen his smiling face on a billboard nearly every day of the past five years of my life. And on some occasions, I’ve even been stopped on an errand by his various Crosswalk: The Musical variations. The most notable time this happened, I was walking back from getting coffee and there was a crowd of maybe fifty people amassed at the intersection. Even during prior Crosswalk: the Musicals I witnessed, there was hubbub, but there was never a crowd.
Now there’s a very specific internal tension when you’re an Angeleno who happens upon some clearly very Hollywood-y shit in the wild. Because you’re supposed to act like you’ve been here before. After all, you’re an artist yourself :) and this is a city full of artists but it’s also a city that’s processing that art into business :( and, even though that’s precisely how you’re punching or hoping to punch your ticket, it’s a little gauche to want to poke your nose in someone else’s literal business.
So when you see something that a big crowd is going a bit gaga over, you’re supposed to maybe cast a bemused eye in transit and chuckle at the crazy things that get people going, never really querying the substance of the moment with more than a raised eyebrow. That’s what’s supposed to happen.
Supposed to.
That’s how it’s supposed to—well, listen, the tension is there because you also kinda wanna fuckin’ know what’s goin’ on!
And that day, I let the kinda wanna fuckin’ know part win out and asked somebody “Uh-heh-heh” (←gotta give a self-deprecating “uh-heh-heh” to signal that you are embarrassed to be even asking) “Does anyone know what’s going on here?”
And some kind probably tween turned around and said, “It’s BTS!” Sure, enough it was K-Pop superstars and plain old normal being-the-most-famous-people-in-the-world superstars BTS. They were, over the course of the Beverly-facing red light at the intersection of Beverly and Gennessee, performing a quick but heavily choreographed and heavily set-dressed version of their 2021 hit, “Butter.”
And when I say set-dressing, I mean there were like 12 foot tall letters spelling out “B-U-T-T-E-R” and a trampoline cast iron pan with a person in a pancake costume jumping up and down in it.
You can watch the video of it here:
It was strange. It was fun. It added some sparkle to my day. It was also essentially a flashmob commercial for a band which (the band) was created by a billionaire in a highly regimented corner of the global music industry. It was that art processed-into-business stuff in the purest sense.
I don’t really care that James Corden is off the air, or that BTS (as I remembered while googling around for this SternJourn) is experiencing an ending of its own while its members pause being BTS to go serve their mandatory military service in the South Korean army. They are both/all very impressive and hardworking entertainers, they just aren’t my impressive and hardworking entertainers.
But when you slap it together with the end of humanity’s monopoly on creativity via things like Chat-GPT or Dall-E (most likely bad) and, for me, the end of the sort of 20s+ portion of life (complicated, but as friends are becoming fully realized versions of themselves and even more excitingly literally totally new friends, this is most definitely good), and the end of over a decade of peace between the WGA and the AMPTP (invigorating, but bad) and other little media things like The Daily Show, Succession, Barry, it just feels overwhelmingly like a cycle is turning over and tomorrows have a much higher chance of feeling different than yesterdays, compared to the average tomorrow-yesterday differentiation.
And well, in a time like this which feels thick with meaning and evolution and even potential, one can still be worried. About what will happen in the future, about what should be done in the present, about what we could have done in the past.
So when that cascade of overwhelm is crashing over you, it’s great to be reminded, as I was in a text from a friend in DC earlier this evening—
—that Fat Joe is a lobbyist now. Endings are scary, but beginnings are where crazy fun shit like this happens.
Speaking of crazy fun shit, here are some
Recommendations!
Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Video Game. This is the much-awaited sequel to 2017’s Nintendo Switch game Breath of the Wild (something I devoured during the pandemic and, to the dismay of my real gamer friends, cannot not bring up in comparison to ay game they ever recommend to me). So it’s very nice that it actually applies to this. I’ve only played it for a few hours, but I’m already feeling the exploratory and experimental glee I got from Breath of the Wild. If you’re intrigued by video games and haven't played either, I recommend starting with BotW. If you’re looking for another game recommendation, I have pretty much zero knowledge.
Notes from Prince Harry’s Ghostwriter. Article. The name of this New Yorker piece is a little overly sensationalized in my opinion. It’s part meditation on truth in storytelling and part poppy behind-the-scenes look at ghostwriting as an industry. But it does talk about Prince Harry. If you like writing or reading, I think it’s worth checking out.
Live at Electric Lady. Album. This Denzel Curry album has a live band and it’s very cool and also pretty short. Easily enjoyable on a drive or while cooking a meal.
Beau Is Afraid. Film. Ari Aster claims this is a comedy, not a horror, and that’s very funny to me. It’s a crazy movie and I don’t know if I liked it, but I’m glad it exists.
That’s all for this week. I do know that I like you and I’m glad you exist!
Much love!
Julian
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"And nothing's ever come as far as I'm concerned
From those dead tomorrows planted yesterday"