BoJack Horseman and New Unnamed Franklin Avenue Coffee Shop

Welcome to the ninth installment of my newsletter about my two very favorite things in the world!

"Back in the 90s. . ." . . . you know where I'm going with this, right? Back in the 90s, there was a very famous TV show, Full House, which was about a widower raising his three girls with the help of his best friend and his brother-in-law. I've seen a few episodes of Full House (maybe while being baby-sat?) but for the most part Full House falls into the great lacunae of pop culture knowledge constituting 1981-1997 or 98 for me. (I'm serious - I had to google the 'best friend" and "brother in law" details). All the kids at lunch talked about the most recent episode, I felt left out, etc., all part of my damaging childhood. But also back in the 90s, in the fictional animated world of BoJack Horseman's Hollywoo, where humans and anthropomorphic animals live side by side, there was another very famous TV show, featuring a bachelor horse (BoJack, voiced by Will Arnett) raising three human children and the ensuing hijinks. Present day BoJack is a washed up celebrity, living on the residuals of "Horsing Around," drinking a ton, being mean to his slacker roommate Todd, and trying (not very hard) and failing (spectacularly) to write the memoir that might revitalize his career. In the first episode alone, we see BoJack vomit copious amounts of cotton candy on two separate occasions.

When I started watching BoJack Horseman, I didn't like it. "What the fuck," I remember thinking, as an imprisoned Todd, incarcerated for money laundering. . . the money he collected. . . by running a David Boreanz tourist scam . . . out of Bojack's house . . . because it's decorated everywhere with huge letter Bs, was humorously courted in jail by both the Aryan Brotherhood and the Latin Kings. "This isn't funny at all. This is incredibly stupid. I cannot even remember why I started watching this show." Probably because it was the middle of July and too hot to move or make decisions and Game of Thrones was over and BoJack Horseman had a pretty good marketing campaign.

I stopped watching for a while, then became completely housebound by mosquito bites and turned again to BoJack Horseman in the middle of another stifling, boring August weekend. The second time around something clicked, immediately following the episode with the dumb Todd-in-jail subplot, actually. "This isn't supposed to be funny," I realized. "This is meant to be sad and depressing."

That established, BoJack Horseman went on to become one of my favorite TV shows!

Incidentally, BoJack Horseman is funny, and maybe some people find it so right away. For me, it is more of the surprised "Heh!-that's clever" kind of funny ("like Doonesbury") than actual LOLing. A lot of the humor relies on visual puns, like when Diane, BoJack's ghostwriter, describes her brother as the "black sheep of the family," and then we meet him, and Diane's brother is a black ram.

(Boston, USA)

Or -- this is for the New Yorkers -- check out the poster (or all of them) in the background of this diner scene:

Dan Smith will teach you guitar

The writing is very clever -- to a fault, at times, which I think was one of my initial frustrations. But once I was acclimated to the tone, or really to the wild shifts in tone, I liked it more and more.

BoJack is interviewed by "A Ryan Seacrest Type" in anticipation of his film comeback:

(for some reason the prayer hands make this for me)

There's plenty more. One of the child stars on "Horsing Around", Sarah-Lynn, goes on to have a career as a world-famous sexy pop star before turning 30 and being supplanted by "14-year old dubstep wunderkind" Sextina Aquafina:

(click, for this is a video!)

which is followed by a smash cut to:

(Bojack's house, where Sarah-Lynn is coincidentally hanging out)

When it's not being silly or weird, Bojack Horseman leans really hard into insecurity, self-loathing, depression, and general darkness. Life is random and meaningless; what better way to illustrate that than an actual illustrated pastel nonsense world where spiders knit eight-armed sweaters over lunch while pitching their latest puppet show, giraffes run valet parking, yoga moms wear Lululemming, and drug feuds are settled by agreeing to host a quincenera? BoJack's frenemy is an enthusiastic, happy-go-lucky Golden Lab named Mr. Peanutbutter. He, like BoJack, is a former 90s TV celebrity, but Mr. Peanutbutter seems unbothered by status."He's so stupid, he doesn't realize how miserable he should be," BoJack says. "I envy that."

Upon learning that his estranged friend and former collaborator Herb is dying of cancer, BoJack goes to visit him and tries to apologize for screwing him over back (yes) in the 90s.

BoJack: I'm sorry.
Herb: OK. I don't forgive you.
BoJack: . . . . Herb, I said I'm sorry!
Herb: And I do not forgive you.
BoJack: Uh, not sure you get what's happening here. This could be the last time that --
Herb: NO. I'm not going to give you closure. You don't get that. You have to live with the shitty thing you did for the rest of your life. You have to know that it's never, ever going to be okay.
It's never, ever going to be okay.

That's the unspoken subtitle of BoJack Horseman: It's never, ever going to be okay. Even Mr. Peanutbutter - Mr. Peanutbutter! - says at one point, "The universe is a cruel, uncaring void. The key to being happy isn't a search for meaning. It's to just keep yourself busy with unimportant nonsense, and eventually, you'll be dead." Bojack wants to feel good about himself, but can't stop doing terrible things; he wants to be a "real" actor but can't let let go of "Horsing Around" (Charlie Rose: "dismissed by critics as "broad" and "saccharine" and "not good"), which he watches on repeat, even during sex, and even in the hospital when he thinks he's dying, via DVDs that he carries with him everywhere. He can't stand being alone, but he also can't be kind to the people (animals?) who want to be close to him. "What would make you happy?" Diane asks him at the end of the first episode. "Finishing my memoir, I guess," BoJack says.

Will getting that one thing you've always wanted make you happy? How will you really feel at that precise moment? Will getting everything you've always wanted make you happy? Will starting over? Will you be happy if you always move forward and never look back? Three seasons into BoJack Horseman, he's finished his memoir -- and accomplished so much more -- but he's still not okay; he's probably doing worse than ever.

My Netflix queue is cluttered with half-rewatched BoJack episodes. The jokes are funnier on multiple viewings, but this most recent season spent a lot of time filling in pre-season 1 story, which gave the existing dark parts additional depressing resonances. Some of it is too much to take now. (And while the Todd stuff is largely redeemed, some of it is still just too stupid.) Last weekend I rewatched some of season 2, but then I got to the part where Todd opens a theme park and I had to take a break.

I decided to go to the dollar store and see if I could find an ironing board, since mine was ruined in the Minor Bathroom Fire of 2015. Dollar General had one, and I was way too satisfied that I'd finally crossed this small errand off my list ( under "unimportant nonsense"). Walking back home I noticed that yet another new coffee bar has opened in my neighborhood, this one in the tiny storefront on Franklin that used to be a candy shop. It's so new it doesn't even have a Google result yet, and their card reader wasn't set up. It did already have the white subway tiling and blackboard signage that are apparently required by local building code to open a business in Clinton Hill/Bed Stuy.

It wasn't much past noon but it was already very hot. The iced coffee was $4 and only available in a grotesque 20 oz "L" size. "Headed for the beach?" the barista asked me. I was confused by his remark because I wasn't dressed for the beach and also trying to figure out if there was any way to bargain for a "M", or even a "S."

"With an ironing board?" I asked. "Do you only have the large iced coffee?"

"Oh!" the barista said, embarrassed. "I thought that was a boogie board. Yeah, just the large."

I ordered it anyway. Now I was embarrassed too, for carrying around an ironing board and also for telling myself a whole story about the absurdity of the mandatory large and then ordering it anyway. But pointing it out or arguing about it seemed like something BoJack (who, memorably, has to apologize on national TV re: a "dibs" situation at the supermarket) or, more likely, Jerry Seinfeld would do. I am often troubled by how quickly I determine what TV characters would do in various situations.

I went to the milk station and saw that there were ants everywhere, like, really, all over the place. This I did point out. "I don't mind, but the next person might," I said, which is true, (I don't mind! I am gross) but also a pretty annoying thing to say, in any tone of voice, though I tried to keep mine light.


Until next time,

Ruth


PS:
I am reading tomorrow with an amazing group of Emily Books writers at this! I have no idea what I'm going to read, but I'd love it if you came.