If there’s one silver lining from the pile of bull-honkey that has been the media landscape during COVID-19, it is the resurgence of the television show Community on Netflix. Not only the fact that it’s back, but also that it has managed to grab a top ten Netflix ranking, renews…
RhetoricLee Speaking
Welcome back to part 2 of a close look at the very first ⅗ of the very first episode of “Tiger King,” the COVID sensational Netflix pop-umentary–meaning “pop documentary,” my new word for documentaries like “Tiger King” that are about as interested in helping us dive into the depths of…
Alright, I’m doing it: defending exactly the first ⅗ of the very first episode of “Tiger King,” the COVID sensational Netflix pop-umentary, (meaning pop documentary, my newly coined word for documentaries like “Tiger King” that are about as interested in educating the public as I am in watching actual documentaries–you…
I’m fixing to spoil season 7 of Brooklyn Nine-Nine by revealing the twist at the end of season 6. The spoiler is only a little bit though. My focus is on a side-story featuring Sergeant Terry Jeffords, played by the hunky and hilarious real-life Terry Crews, who stumbles onto perhaps…
It is no small thing to be a self-proclaimed lover of the f-word. American culture has always thrived on the puritan and even though we hear often the cliche that, “we need civility more today now than ever,” the truth is that there has always been a pressure to perform…
I am going to hit you with a little bit of pop culture but we’re gonna go non-fiction. Because I really want to dig into the harm that cliches do. Not any particular cliche but a general way of thinking and speaking that is derivative, trite, hackneyed, platitudinal, whatever synonym…
In the last blog post, I critiqued the cliched use of “challenging people” in motivational culture; I challenge you to bullet journal; I challenge you to get a coffee enema; I challenge you to just, like, be better. We are continuing in that vein, investigating another of these motivational cliches:…
I am not a “challenge” person. I don’t sign up to do races. I don’t put my name in those “win a blah blah” business card buckets at lunch counters. When my brother and I were kids, you could bet him about anything and he’d do it. “Bet you can’t…
If Ben Stein and the Kardashians had a baby that were raised by Janeane Garofalo in a recording studio, you’d have RhetoricLee Speaking. Listen every Tuesday for a whirlwind tour of banality across pop culture, political controversy, and whatever was on Netflix at 3 am. Watch the video trailer!
I love a good script. And I mean the word script two senses. First, I love when someone else takes the time to write a good script–the students in my public speaking classes, the creators of movies, podcast hosts–because I can tell on the backend how much more I appreciate…