I want to make a short thread about something very important to me.

As many of you know, I lost my dad to FoxNews and soft-conspiracy theorist probably starting a decade ago, and fully during the Trump Presidency.

It was awful and hard. Many of you know. He refused to think. He wouldn't reason. He wouldn't challenge his preconceived notions or his ingrown biases.

He became angry and bitter and vengeful: and he didn't even know why, or with what.

It's been devastating to watch. He's 75 now.

A LOT of people I know are grieving right now because they've lost someone close to them. And that happens all the time, especially as we age, but right now seems like a cauldron of sadness for those around me.

I, very often, feel like I don't know the right thing to say. "I'm sorry," is always true, you know, and easily expressed. But it always feels too common to me. Like a catch-all for loss. Impersonal, I think.

But I also don't want to fake sympathy, or act like I've been there if I haven't. That's hollow and rings false that way.

One question in particular about the #WGAStrike that a bunch of family and friends who are totally disconnected from the entertainment industry have asked about recently that I thought I should address here in a quick thread.

It actually has more layers to it than you'd think. My parents specifically ask about a few of my closest friends out here often, some of whom are execs at studios. And they've both wondered, with some amount of worry:

"Are you still going to be friends with (enter exec here) and be able to work together once the strike is over?"

Alright. Well. I'm a little speechless, but here goes:

Today, I tried a new method of cooking a steak called "cold searing". I don't know if it's an old idea or a recent idea, but it's new to me.

So I went and bought two cheap steaks from Trader Joe's. I salted them, left them in the refrigerator for an hour, then pulled them out, peppered them, and...

...put them directly into a cold NONSTICK PAN atop an unalight burner.

No, really. "Cold searing" means...cold searing.

Threw on the FBOY ISLAND Finale in the background and the only thing I hope for is that Garrett falls into a fire filled with nails and hornets and cancer. I feel bad for CJ because she ended up with two actual pieces of shit, and might have actually picked the worse one, somehow.

But a big part of that is her fault?

As I'm working tonight I have PUMPING IRON on in the background, which I'd never seen before.

And I'm sure if I'd experienced it way back in the day it'd hit much differently but in 2021 it just feels like Arnold is in a mockumentary and it is fucking HILARIOUS. Also - and I know I discussed this with someone on here before, maybe @DrewMcWeeny? - Arnold's definitely *working* to keep that accent, right? He's lived in LA for like 50 years, there's no way it wouldn't have faded by now.

I'm not mad. I'm just saying.

So I'm waiting for food tonight and I'm sitting next to a nurse from Cedars who...I mean, I've been around enough military vets to know thousand-yard-stare when I see one. And she looked like she could see straight through to the other side of the galaxy.

I probably shouldn't... ...have asked if she was OK. I probably should have left her alone and let her gaze into thr abyss.

But I didn't. I asked if she was OK.

And she snapped out of it and smiled wanly, and nodded her head, giving me a look of, "Please don't ask me for details."

I didn't. But...

#BACHELORINPARADISE is always a great mix of 1) castmembers who seem to be totally decent people and 2) castmembers whose current occupation is spreading mental illness and herpes.

Also, I have forgotten 3 out of every 4 people introducing themselves as, "You'll remember me..." David Spade is Timeless.

I do not remember Abigail

#BACHELORINPARADISE

As these days of Trump lope past us in a lethargic haze, I'm thinking a lot about my downstairs neighbor, Charlie. I've talked about him before.

Charlie, God willing, will be 102 years old in November. He is a Holocaust survivor.

And when I say "survivor", that says a lot. I'm not *exactly* sure of the order, but from what I've pieced together through conversations with him over the years, a four-year period of his life went like this:

1. He was captured by the SS after hiding out for several months in Lublin, Poland.