Mariah Carey’s Nine Perfect Silky Nutmeg Irish Creams
Lorde’s Solar Power glows dimly, Kacey Musgraves returns, Silky Nutmeg Ganache burns the house down, Nicole Kidman is a Russian baby, Mariah Carey pours a drink, and more rated Top Shelf to Low Brow!
Hi hello! Another Tuesday. Another day-late letter. What more can I say? We all know the gist. This is more of a “beginning of the week” edition, if you will. At least you know it will always be here to pepper the first couple days of your week with silliness, mirth, and joy! Let’s get into it. Warning: Multiple Fergie mentions litter the road ahead.
Top Shelf, Low Brow: August 16 — August 23
Solar Not-So-Powerful (except for “Mood Ring” duh!)
It would seem everyone’s (no one’s) clamoring for my thoughts on Solar Power. My thoughts are that I have no thoughts. I still haven’t listened all the way through more than once, but maybe that says it all, you know? I’m not feeling her!!!!! At least I wasn’t on Sunday when Tropical Storm Henri washed through the Upper West Side and I sat and cried at my desk because I was coming to terms with the fact that I’m not going to be able to make it home for my mom’s birthday next month (will be there a couple of weeks after though!). I was not in a particularly sound state of mind to hear “spend all the evenings you can with the people who raised you” at that moment. Call me crazy but I’m not trying to be horrifically fucking depressed and have that feeling exacerbated by songs about the eventual collapse of the earth and the anxieties of growing older. Lorde has all the money in the world to comfort her while she ponders those things. I, sadly, only have twenty-six dollars and a mint condition copy of Harry Styles’ issue of L’Officiel Magazine from December 2019 I’m saving for when I need pawn it off for money to make my down payment on a moon condo.
I certainly don’t mind more pared-back production, but it’ll just take me more time to get into the whole album. In the meantime, I am absolutely addicted to “Mood Ring,” which kind of…seems to have the album’s only pop hook? Whatever, it’s fine, I’ll crack my back into a sun salutation and get into it. Give me a week or three!
(Rating: Patently unsure…but if simply forced to pick at this very moment I’d have to say Low Brow. I can hear you all sharpening your crystals from here…)
Every day you all wake up and say “how can we slap Coleman in the god damn face today?”
The amount of constant suffering I must endure when people log onto Twitter and clickity-clack away their little tweets that disrespect the tireless efforts I’ve put in for the last five years. This tweet is not just a slap to my face, but a slap across the face of every Fergster in this great nation (under god, indivisible, with london bridge and glamorous for all). Those who don’t remember their history are doomed to repeat it, so I would implore anyone who is just realizing that “M.I.L.F. $” was the song of July 1st, 2016 to revisit The Fabulous Farce of Fergie Ferg, part trois, which documents the fall, plummet, and eventual rise of Fergie from 2016-2018. And for my fellow downtrodden MILFs, at least we have the barrage of replies to that tweet ruminating how the song and Double Dutchess were serves from the moment they dropped. But don’t think I won’t be checking receipts…I want to see proof of purchase of the Target version with “Kleopatra”!
(Rating: MILF $ going number one next week yup yup yup! But until then, don’t besmirch by Top Shelf girl as a Low Brow musician!)
In “gay people get one lick of attention and forget common human decency” News…
LizaMinnelliOutlives was an account I was really only aware of peripherally. People have been tweeting it onto my timeline for months, but like, I get the joke. Once you see the joke, you got it forever. Variety is the spice of life, babes! Bold words from a person who spent all of last night retweeting inane shouts from the void in the form of old tweets from Teresa Giudice’s Fabellini Wines account, but it’s true! Plus I truly despise little joke accounts run by cis white gay men—I think we all remember how insufferable the United States of Chromatica twitter became in two seconds flat. That’s the very same reason why I was not at all shocked to see this:
Like what’s wrong with you. How do you type all that out and not feel like it’s, at the very least, off-color and tone-deaf? You should’ve listened to your dad and gone into a STEM field!
Did a little deeper digging (clicked the link in their pinned tweet) and saw that Minnelli herself not only despises the account but went as far as to outright state that she does not support its creator either!
If my idol said that about me I’d delete all my social media and simply wither away from perpetual embarrassment. That coming from the woman who agreed to officiate the gay wedding at the beginning of Sex and the City 2? Mortifying! Although I’m sure if Fergie ever got wind of what goes on here at the TSLB headquarters, she’d have similar words for me as well.
(Rating: Low Brow)
One All-Star Stands Before Me…
How foolish of me to assume that Kylie Sonique Love’s frantic, committed DJ miming would be the best part of last week’s episode of Drag Race: All-Stars. But then again, when has Drag Race ever come through after it has gotten my hopes up? It’s the smartest possible thing to go into the week to week ghayos (gay chaos) that is RuPaul’s Drag Race with absolute basement-level expectations because when you get an episode like this, it’s enough to stand up and cheer.
After so (so, so) many goddamn episodes being teased about this season’s “game within a game,” the twist was finally revealed and it was just about what anyone with knowledge of the show would’ve expected: a chance for each eliminated queen to fight to the death in a secret Lip Sync battle royale, competing in order of their elimination and working their way toward the current lineup—if one eliminated queen wins, they advance to the next week to face off against that week’s following eliminated queen. I’ll admit, with such a strong set of competitors hitting the stage, it wasn’t so simple to predict who may advance just from name and reputation alone. But as soon as Silky Nutmeg Ganache pulled a whiskey tumbler, ice, a mixer, and a magnum of liquor out of her titties, it was very clear she was the competitor who came most ready to fight, a fact she had already made perfectly clear in her own season.
After annihilating several consecutive weeks of lip syncs, a cosmic blessing occurred. A’Keria C. Davenport declined her return to the competition, leaving Ms. Nutmeg Ganache alone on the main stage. Instead of accepting her win by default, Our Lady G requested the chance to prove herself all on her own with the lip sync she prepared. While all were expecting a show, no one was quite ready for Silkifer Nutmeg Ganachez to burn the house down with a terrifically fun, classic drag show-style lip sync to the best song ever made, Aqua’s “Barbie Girl.”
The concept is so simple and nothing new in the world of drag, but brought to this stage and executed in a solo performance with so much silliness and passion by Silky Nutmeg Ganache—and to this song—it’s elevated one hundredfold. This is an instant classic lip sync, a moment that feels iconic from the very first second. Truly incomparable. This is the fantastic lightness we’ve been missing! Thank you Doctor Reverend Professor Emeritus Silky Nutmeg Ganache!
(Rating: Top Shelf)
I’ve always said that Real Housewives of New York star Sonja Morgan has the ability to see into realities and dimensions far beyond our own, but none of my colleagues at NASA have been able to confirm that—at least until Doctor Morgan tweeted her proven evidence of the Multiverse Theory.
Have you see #Hacks?
Hold onto your lassos girls, it’s depression time!
NOBODY MOVE! After letting us bask three and a half years of Golden Hour’s tranquil acceptance of true love found, Kacey is making sure that all the Little Muskrats are going to have our naive hearts broken along with her. Because what are the depths of despair if not pockets of sadness to suck your fans into? Some of us are trying to remain content with the little that we’ve got, Ms. Musgraves! But for her, I will make the sacrifice.
Sure, “star-crossed” may only be an aperitif, more of an intro instead of a true single, but with the album just a couple of weeks away, it’s more than a welcome taste of what’s to come. The song is cinematic and unexpected, still incorporating her country roots with a slightly more new, downtempo pop element. Both this opener and the trailer for the album’s accompanying film are giving me The Bride by Bat for Lashes, one of the best albums of 2016 and a stunningly gorgeous concept record with somewhat similar (though far more macabre) themes to Kacey’s story. And that’s a high compliment, not a comparison! I just hope that I’m not being misled for the thousandth time by the film’s trailer.
Don’t give me a six-minute extended music video, if you’re going to put out a film alongside your album, it better be at LEAST 25 minutes long and incorporating five to six songs from the record. Don’t think I’ve forgotten about Gaga calling “911” a “short film” when the video totaled 4 minutes and 43 seconds. Just because something has cinematic themes and is directed by a notable filmmaker doesn’t mean you can quantify it as a short film. Yes, I will gatekeep on this! If you’re gonna do it, DO IT. Luckily, Kacey doesn’t read as the type to disappoint me like that. But we’ll see on September 10th...
(Rating: Top Shelf)
Nine Suspicious Accents and a Dream Deferred
No one is having more fun on television right now than Nicole Kidman. After leading us down a dead-end road to nowhere for six weeks last fall with The Undoing, Nicky Kid is back, back, back again with another batshit David E. Kelley miniseries. New wig, new accent, the works. But while The Undoing fell flat by giving us the most boring, predictable ending possible, Nine Perfect Strangers seems to be taking a much more admirable approach: giving the people exactly what they want—nonsensical stupidity, copious hotties, fake teeth, and a shaky Russian accent! Nicole sounds like she choking on her tongue while dosed up on a combination of Lunesta and horse tranqs just to get out the words “I’m Masha.” I simply adore it and hate it so much at the same time, I can’t stop watching it over and over again.
Nine Perfect Strangers is not, by any stretch of the imagination, “good.” It is, however, a great way to see Luke Evans’ calves, which is a fair trade. I keep getting thrown by being sent to commercial in the middle of episodes (I don’t pay premium for anything, watching ads is the way to beat the system, actually) after being so spoiled by HBO Max for so long, but weirdly, Hulu subscribers who pay the extra $5 for streaming without ads are the ones missing out here. There are some inane Hello Fresh advertisements that land randomly throughout the show’s first three episodes, where they fed two actresses nondescript plot points from the show to talk about while they make their Hello Fresh meal. Can you imagine going over to your friend’s house every night to sit down, assist them in cooking a meal from a fucking box like an unpaid sous chef, and chat about the show where Nicole Kidman gets the following text:
That’s the kind of connection we really lost during the pandemic. Thankful to Nine Perfect Strangers for reminding us that flop “prestige” is just as good as the real thing.
(Rating: Top Shelf…but like, bad Top Shelf)
Sweet, Sweet 15% ABV Fantasy
Elusive Entrepreneuse Mariah Carey has released her new line of Irish Cream liqueurs entitled Black Irish, a nod to her parents’ lineage. As a world-famous purveyor of beverages and sometimes singer when the mood strikes her, this is a perfectly logical next step from her iconic Walgreens/Duane Reade partnership of 2014.
Now, a fair warning for all the young Lambs out there: proceed with Caution and drink responsibly, because you don’t want to Shake It Off with some Black Irish after a long day of feeling your Emotions and end up on The Roof. Too much Black Irish and you may become Obsessed, thinking We Belong Together, but that’s A No No. If you feel that inclination, you may have to give yourself The Distance with Black Irish. Though you may be Thirsty, and it may taste sweet as Honey and give you a sweet, sweet Fantasy or Vision of Love, Someday you may have to contend with being a Prisoner to the bottle. You’ll be saying Oh Santa-Maria, There’s Got To Be A Way! You’ll have to learn The Art or Letting Go or you’ll be Languishing (The Interlude). So be careful if you look at your Black Irish and think you Can’t Take That Away, or you may wake up one day and look at your surroundings and say, Did I Do That? Best to always Migrate to water after a few servings of Black Irish.
(Rating: Top Shelf, but more realistically this feels like it has middle-shelf liquor store placement. Would love to try it someday along with a Fergalicious brand wine)
That’s all for this week! Except, of course, I am back, back, back again at Taste for my penultimate piece, ranking every single Jennifer Lawrence film.
This one was honestly so fun and such an honor to write, I truly love JLaw and never for a second thought about hopping on the anti-Jennifer hate train. She was always destined to be more than just a tumblr favorite! She lives in her characters and truly creates a weighted presence for all of them, even in franchises where she could totally get away with just phoning it in. Okay…maybe House at the End of the Street is the one exception, but even that is trash cinema glory.
Alright! I’ll see you next Monday. Less freelance for a bit means more time for my first loves: this newsletter and all of you, of course 💖