Every Friday in New York’s Dinner Party newsletter, senior writer Tirhakah Love plans a seating chart for the week’s main characters and asks us all to consider: Where would you sit?
Jupiter has been eating planets, y’all, and we could be next! That second part isn’t really true, but wouldn’t it be mighty cathartic to get swallowed whole by a more supreme celestial body? Wow, the relief. Unfortunately, the rest of the crew on Table 2 is a little depressing. Mayor Adams put on another very strange demonstration this week when he publicly crushed city-confiscated motorbikes, which, because we’re cultured, we know are staples among gravity-defying Black people. It is the symbol of a Black subculture. It was one of those moments that, as a bit of a Negro myself, I was like, Oh wow, he really doesn’t fuck with us lmao. The mayor’s little spectacle of waste feels strangely akin to the latest offerings by one Aubrey “Drake†Graham. His album Honestly, Nevermind, aside from like three agreed-upon hits – “Massive,†“Sticky,†and “Jimmy Cooks†– was pretty whack.
One of Drake’s rivals, Pusha T, was also kinda bringing corny back this week when he showed up to a festival appearance with fake coke bricks. Now listen — I’m not one of those people who think that Push should switch up his content or whatever. Get paid for what you do well, ya know. But I guess bringing out kilos of baby powder or whatever just didn’t hit for me. Speaking of bumps, though, the ultraviral TikToker Khaby Lame has become the most-followed person on the app. Good for him. Hope that the checks keep clearing; plus it means he can probably buy a couple rounds for the table — except for No. 1 draft pick Paolo Banchero; he just gotta sit there and sip his seltzer. Opa!
I can’t lie: I’m already annoyed with Table 3. I’m so sorry to Beyoncé’s backup singers on Break My Soul because they really carried that song home for me and I’m just imagining the praises we’d break!! Ugh. But I can’t really abide sitting next to a zombified Brad Pitt, who graced the cover of GQ again for another brand boost in the midst of fuckery. We see you, Bradley! You not slick! Stacey Abrams is also lacking in slickness when she tweeted this week that police departments across the country are greatly underfunded. The literal gasp I let out reading that, like, sistren, the APD alone has a budget of like 230 million American dollars!!! How?! It’s sad that Abrams hasn’t learned that kowtowing to the Democrats’ party line on police does not an election win guarantee. Some of us gotta hold more L’s than others.
As for me, I’ll be holding no L’s at this lil function. I’m sitting at Table 1, Sheeran be damned.
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