Strawberry Shortcake and Cut-Off Tees🫶
Volume 01, Issue 09…Sporadic yet lengthy
We’re back with another off-cadence, too-long edition of A Matt-azine! “Sporadic yet lengthy” is becoming the operating identity of this newsletter, just like my _____________.
(Fill in the blank and drop it in the comments. We’ll publish the best Match Game answers whenever the next newsletter drops.)
This Week Month In Gay Shit
-I’m sorry, but the American Love Story costume stills revealed this week are a rare, wild miss for a Ryan Murphy Production wherein they casted someone actually less hot than JFK Jr. to play JFK Jr.
-The Oberon, the newest Williamsburg gay bar first reported on here in JANUARY, has still yet to open nearly six months after they announced. The reporting I incited on reddit1 indicates they’ll officially debut in a few weeks after a homophobic fire inspector had held up their approvals.
-Planet Pride at Avant Gardner is (kind of) on! They’re offering a $50 gift card for crummy underwear to make up for the fact that the main stage of the Mirage will be closed for the event. Yyyikes.2
-Speaking of underwear: The latest collection from averageboys® launched this week. The brand riffs on vintage-y sportswear for the Mother Disco crowd in what looks like a merch manifestation and gay(er) pick up of the Nice Boys™ brand identity. The two names are too similar. What if Nice Boys™ starts producing merch? Copyright lawyer readers: do I have a case?! (I bought these shorts and this tee, though.)
-Jinx Monsoon is Mary Todd Lincoln
-Out: Gay Marriage? Also, providing a specialized suicide prevention hotline for LGBTQ youth.
In: Banning care for trans kids.
(Bleak trends this week. I quote Aretha Franklin’s insta Juneteenth post. Burn something down at Pride!)
SUCH A NICE BOY™
“Oh, wow! I thought you were, like, 30.”
Welp, we’re well into summer and have already accomplished a lot of the goals set out in the Summer Matt-ifesto, including number 27, euchre Thursdays on the Grimm rooftop, which kicked off last week. Glorious.
But with euchre club comes an ongoing conundrum for me and my usual crew of card sharks. Amidst dealing hands and chipping away at more Summer Matt-ifesto goals—1. doing bits and 2. drinking gin and tonics—we’re often paired up with or play next to infant New Yorkers, as in freshly arrived 20-somethings who think logging five years in the city certifies you some kind of veteran status.
We’re the grizzled millennials side-eyeing these warm and welcoming young midwesterners. However, likely because of their midwesterness, the euchre youth continually do us a great kindness in our introductions, one that merits a Nice Boy™ lesson. It goes like this:
Them: So, how long have you been in the city?
Us: Oh, um, like 15 years.
Them: Huh, wow. Did you go to college here?
Us: Ehm, no…
Them: Oh…Wait, so like how old are you?
Us: Thirty-[unintelligible].3
Them: No way! I thought you were, like, 30.
God bless you, child. You did not. And I am not.
But you’ve made this game of euchre infinitely more enjoyable and we can move on together to talk about inane things like which AMC Theatre in the city is your favorite. (Lincoln Square, duh.)
The takeaway: Just act surprised that someone over 30 is as old as they say they are. Always be like, “Wow. I would have thought you were [two-to-seven] years younger.”
It’s a graciousness that really gives the elder party a lot of confidence to float on for a day or two.4 And the flattery will immediately inure you to them, making for a pleasant ongoing exchange.
A win-win. Which, is what Nice Boys™ is all about.
…AND A GOOD EATER™, TOO
Summer Desserts are Hands Down the Best Desserts
Thanksgiving desserts get all the glory but half of them are made from gourds and nuts. Out. And, sure, Christmas cookies occupy a large psychic space but really, they’re cloying. Spring brings you Reese's eggs, but not much else.
That leaves one season where dessert peaks: Summer.
Why? Fruit flavors and cold.
Herein, a definitive ranking of the greatest summer desserts, which taken as a whole provides proof that summer slaps supreme when it comes to sweet treats:
Strawberry shortcake served on angel food cake
Strawberry shortcake on a biscuit
Freezer aisle ice cream sandwiches
Dairy Queen vanilla cherry dip
Good Humor strawberry shortcake ice cream bar
Peach cobbler
Key lime pie
Dairy Queen cherry lime Mr. Misty Float
Dairy Queen cherry lime Mr. Misty Freeze (THERE IS A DIFFERENCE!)
Somehow mixing the ice cream into the slush itself outranks having the slush and ice cream come premixed. I think it's because the float allows you to control the ice cream to slush ration in each bite. Important. Fla-Vor-Ice, all flavors
Ice cream sandwich, cookie variety
Lemon sorbet
Just one cold, really juicy, just really fucking amazing peach. (rare)
Unrecon-Styled
A Column Confronting Fashion in Your Late 30s.
No Sleeves, No Problem
Once for my birthday in my 20s, my grandma sent me a souvenir t-shirt from Marco Island. It was big and bright blue and had three sailboats printed on it.5 She included a note in her signature scrawl taped to the tee: “If you don’t like the shirt, use it as a dust rag.”
I appreciated her giving me the out because I wasn’t really going to wear that shirt. And I think I did actually use it as a dust rag. Another solve she could have offered to make what was the probably $4, or, let’s be real, free, shirt appealing:
“If you don’t like the shirt, just cut the sleeves off.”
Cutting the sleeves off an obnoxious graphic tee immediately elevates a short-sleeve into a piece of winking trashiness that actually looks good—in certain situations. There’s a knowing irony in the cut-off graphic tee, a double-down on novelty that transcends taste and enters the realm of cultural cachet.
It’s such a persistent and longstanding idea, that my brother and I secured a Tumblr under the name “The Sleeves of This Shirt Should Be Cut Off” years ago to document the very idea. (Nevermind that we never actually posted on it, but the intent was there.)
Something I’ve picked up from my other brother in recent years: forgoing the actual merch line at a concert and buying a bootleg tee outside the venue. You wind up getting a truly unique piece of merch from the show, only spend 20 bucks, and have an immediate invitation to cut the sleeves off something.
The graphic cut off can function as a conversation starter at the gym. (Or gay bar. They’re one and the same.) They work well as an easy at home uniform for summer days. Or, when the sides are cut long enough, let you hang a breezy tit for the neighbors while hunched over the rider mower cutting your dad’s grass when you’re home visiting. (Last one’s just me? Cool, cool cool.)
This is upcycling at it’s finest. Way better than a dust rag.
Thanks as always for indulging me. Remember to like and comment, subscribe and share.
It’s evident that New York gays have been lulled into a consumerist malaise given that this weak-ass rollout of a very expensive event isn’t being met with the fiery rage of a Stonewall-like rebellion. We’re so tired of giving our money away, it’s just like, fine, take it, at this point.
Herein, we should be lying about our age as item 40 of the Summer Matt-ifesto advises, but we’ll get there.
Listen, it’s either taking some bullshit like this to heart of getting botox. I’m not above either but botox is expensive. So if anyone’s got any referral discounts or anything to Peachy, hit me up.
Being on the placid Gulf coast and connected to a backwater network of protected mangroves, I don’t know if Marco had ever been known to be a true sailing destination, yet the shirt had three sailboats like they were in the fucking America’s cup. I digress. But to me it’s like when people with lake houses decorate them with seahorses and sea stars and palm trees. What the fuck are you doing? This isn’t the tropics. It’s Michigan.
Lots of ice cream treats and cold treats in the freezer in the basement!
Mention my name at Peachy for referral discount.