Death by Consumption
8/4/26 - 8/10/26
Sorry to all the Leos in my life, but I think I can officially say August is my least favorite month of the year. The weather is Amazonian, no one’s releasing any good movies, and everyone is extra psychotic because their therapist took off all month. At least in the depths of February you have spring to look forward to! In August, all I do is develop heat rashes under my armpits and pay ConEd $500. Maybe I’ll feel differently if it ever drops below 100 degrees again, but that doesn’t seem likely, soooo TIME TO GET THIS SHOW ON THE ROAD.
This week: I spent waaaaay too much time analyzing Eric Adams’ latest humiliation, I watched a random new movie where Hugh Jackman plays Robin Hood, I watched the Scorsese Cape Fear to heal myself from the Apple TV remake, I read a thriller set in 1700s New York, and I read a book that manipulated me into crying.
Eric Adams gets heckled at an AI data center meeting in Wisconsin Rapids — on r/Wisconsin
In some ways, it feels like my entire life was leading to this video. I am a NYC resident and a survivor of the absolutely bananas Eric Adams administration, but before that I was born and raised in the great state of Wisconsin. So it gave me great pleasure to see this video, in which Eric Adams — of all people, they chose him as the messenger! I can’t get over this!— attempts to sell the residents of the town of Wisconsin Rapids on the concept of building an AI data center in their backyards. And it… went about as well as everything else he’s ever done!
Forgive me for this indulgence, but I think I need to break this video down, beat by beat, like it’s the Zapruder film:
00:00 - 00:53: Right away you can tell we’re in for trouble, as Eric starts his sales pitch in the most Eric Adams, non-Wisconsin way possible: by talking about his own press. “One of my colleagues shared a post with me that said a ‘high-profile person’ is coming to your town, and I said: who’s that?” The truly deafening silence after this humblebragging joke is physically painful. Eric Adams remains my favorite amateur comedian.
00:54 - 01:14: Now we’re off to the races. “My name is Eric Adams,” he says, and is immediately hit with a wave of BOOOOOOOOs. He hasn’t even started his data center sales pitch yet! These people are just booing his EXISTENCE. I want to give a particular shout-out to the guy in the back of the room who yells, “You belong in prison!” Okay, so these folks have done their homework! This is when Eric Adams should have just dropped the mic and sprinted out of the building.
01:15 - 01:20 : “I grew up in a small area in Queens…” Is this man really trying to bond with the people of Wisconsin Rapids by positioning QUEENS, NEW YORK as a small town? Ah yes, the little fishing village of Queens! Such humble beginnings for this young boy, who grew up measuring his height against the cornstalks of Astoria, and whose meemaw and pawpaw would tell him tales of such big-city wonders as horseless carriages!
01:21 - 01:24: Undaunted, he continues describing his upbringing: “A young man, dyslexic…” At this, in possibly my favorite moment of the entire video, a woman in the crowd says, in the thickest Wisconsin accent, “Oh no……” and it’s impossible to tell if she’s genuinely touched or sarcastically mocking him. Either way I love her.
01:25 - 01:46: This is where things really get rough. “Bullshit!” someone yells, after he describes his entire career with the NYPD as “protecting children.” “What is he doing here?!” someone shouts into the void, and that really IS a good question. Who the fuck thought it would be a good idea to have Eric Adams sell data centers to Wisconsinites? And what do I have to do to get that person in charge of more bookings like this in the future???
01:47 - 02:23: Now the crowd is really picking up steam, and starting to have some fun with it. In this section, they’ve decided to start a playful call-and-response, in which Eric Adams starts a sentence and they finish it for him. “Here’s what we’re going to do…” he says, and someone yells, “Steal our water?” “We’re going to…” he continues, and someone else fills in the blank: “LIE.” I love these people.
02:24 - 02:45: Chaotically, a woman in the front row has decided to stand up and raise her hand. But Eric isn’t calling on her, so she simply reaches her hand out and gestures that she needs the mic. She even waves her fingers in a “bring it here” gesture. This is insane! I am gobsmacked. “Carrie, sit down,” a woman says, and Carrie WHIPS her head around and says, “NO,” with a righteous, terrifying anger in her eyes. Ok, so we are not to fuck with front-row Carrie, is the lesson here.
02:46 - 03:15: Carrie is now standing up front and facing the audience, as if it’s a joint presentation between her and Eric Adams. But, in a twist, she reveals that she’s actually on his side. “You’re going to lie to us!” a woman yells from the back, and Carrie SNAPS at the woman: “LET HIM TALK.” Finally, Carrie sits down, with one final glare at the unruly audience. Is Carrie… Wisconsin’s biggest/only Eric Adams fan??? The disgust for the crowd RADIATING off of Carrie could actually power ChatGPT for a month.
03:16 - 03:30: “Before I hand it over to Anton, I just want to share one story with you…” Eric Adams says. As any Eric Adams fan knows, when he has a “story to share,” you’re about to hear one of the craziest fucking things you’ve ever heard. I’m so excited. (Also: who is Anton? Probably someone from the data center, but with Eric Adams you truly never know. Anton could be, like, his personal trainer.)
03:31 - 03:56: “My close friend’s mother passed away from breast cancer,” he begins, and we’re already on shaky ground with this story. He continues on and on, describing this woman’s family history of breast cancer, and this queen up front has now thrown up her hands in confusion:
03:57 - 04:15: Would you be surprised to learn that the point of the story (almost certainly untrue) is that “they” (who?) “used artificial intelligence” to find breast cancer in this close friend? I have… questions, and so does the crowd. “Doctors do that!” someone shouts, hilariously and correctly. “They can do that at Riverview!” a woman behind the camera says, matter-of-factly, and my little Wisconsin heart grows three sizes. I truly cannot believe this confusing story didn’t immediately change everyone’s mind about data centers!
04:16 - 04:50: Now we’re really in crazy territory, as Eric Adams tells us that when he got his diabetes diagnosis the doctor told him he’d lose his sight and fingers and toes “within a year.” Somehow, the point of this is that the fine people of Wisconsin Rapids should allow data centers in their backyards, instead of the obvious point: Eric Adams needs a new doctor.
04:51 - 05:04: Now he’s trying a new tactic, calling people out for “hate of technology.” This, unfortunately, makes me fear for the day — probably sooner than we think! — when being mean to ChatGPT is classified as a federal hate crime. Anyway, this attempt goes over with the crowd… about as well as you’d expect.
05:05 - 05:13: “Build it in your backyard!” a woman yells, which is pretty much the only thing anyone needs to say at one of these meetings. It’s so interesting how Eric Adams clearly thinks it’s easier to sell a data center to the people of Wisconsin rather trying to sell it to the people of New York! Probably nothing worth examining there.
05:14 - 05:40: Eric is now panicking and stuck in scold mode, repeating “When you talk, I will listen,” over and over and over again. He repeats this for a full 30 seconds, until someone yells, “WE GOT IT!” I love how the crowd has the energy to yell at him for the big issue while also trolling him over the little annoying things he’s doing.
05:41 - 06:19: Honestly, I think Eric has lost the plot a little here. He rambles for a bit about how “we” took a look at “our product” and redesigned it to make a “product you want to look at.” ……What? My best guess is that he mixed up this data center sales pitch with the sales pitch he has next week for, like, those robotic dogs that can shoot you.
06:20 - 06:30: And now we’ve hit the true barn-burner of a line. “If we like it or not, folks,” Eric says (a perfect way to start your sales pitch after being screamed at for 6 minutes!), “Data centers are going to be here.” The outraged screaming that erupts after this statement literally made me rip my headphones off. We are watching a master salesman at work, folks!
06:31 - 06:35: Realizing his mistake, Eric tries to amend his sales pitch/threat: “Data centers will be around the country.” “Not in Rapids!” someone screams. Eric has no rebuttal, and if you look closely you can see this is the moment where he starts trying to figure out how to get off stage as quickly as possible.
06:36 - 07:00: Oh no, he’s lost the plot again. “What we must determine is what’s the quality of the product in this country,” Eric says, and even Carrie in the front row is starting to look a little confused. “Because if our data’s not here, it will be somewhere else,” he says, and I assume he’s hinting at, I guess, China? Having our data? Or something? But the crowd only hears the phrase “it will be somewhere else,” and BURSTS INTO APPLAUSE. I’m crying. I would die to have been at the supper club with everyone in this room after this meeting.
07:01 - 08:03: Eric, after spending 0 seconds speaking about the benefits of building a data center in Wisconsin Rapids (because there aren’t any), and nearly 7 minutes just scolding everyone, decides to wrap it up and pass it over to Anton. Anton, I now realize, is the man who’s been standing the entire time behind Eric Adams, looking disappointed at the crowd, while dressed like he somehow managed to take his fucking yacht up the Wisconsin River to this meeting:
08:04 - end: Anton is immediately heckled, and Eric once again tries to step in to tell the crowd to be respectful, and is once again drowned out by a chorus of people yelling, “SHUT UP!” As he slinks off-stage in shame, the video ends.
I mean, I can’t believe this went so poorly! I love the fact that some data center company sat around to brainstorm exactly who would be the perfect salesperson to smooth-talk a Wisconsin community into living next to one of these monstrosities, and they landed on disgraced former NYC mayor and the world’s newest Albanian citizen Eric Adams. That is exactly the perfect person to choose for this assignment!!!! Amazing work to all involved.
I’m so proud of my home state, and I’m kind of happy for them — one of life’s great pleasures is getting to scream at any one of New York’s god-awful former mayors (truly, take your pick), and it’s a rare treat to get to do it without having to pay rent here. Congrats to the fine people of Wisconsin Rapids! And, as always, I will be eagerly looking forward to whatever Eric Adam’s next move is. (His immediate next move was actually — and I wish I were joking about this — tweeting a shirtless photo while holding a cucumber. Truly, he’s an inspiration to anyone who’s struggled to move on after a bad meeting at work!)
The Death of Robin Hood (2026) — on Apple TV
This random movie, in which Hugh Jackman plays an aged Robin Hood in the 1200s, who is grappling with the horrible things he’s done, would have been a lot better had it not been about Robin Hood. I understand you need a famous name like Robin Hood to have a chance of selling a film like this, but I wish we lived in a world where you could just make a big-budget epic about a random asshole in the 1200s! It would have worked a lot better as a strange little character piece, rather than trying to slap the whole Robin Hood mythology onto this, for no reason. As it stands, though, this is a decent movie, I guess better than I expected, but still a very strange experience. It starts quite brutally, with a ton of miserable violence and some incredibly bleak action sequences, before settling into a quieter, more thoughtful back half. I have no idea what was going on with any of this, and my confusion kind of makes me like it more. I support the right for a film to be confusing as hell!
Cape Fear (1991) — on Criterion
After the floppage of the Cape Fear remake, we had to cleanse ourselves with Scorsese and De Niro’s equally strange but much better original (well, original remake). De Niro is so silly but scary in this, and though I do love Javier Bardem, what De Niro is doing in this is so much more interesting and destabilizing. You never know what he’s going to do from moment to moment, other than be hot. Unfortunately, I also kept getting distracted by the fact that Juliette Lewis has not aged in 30 years — she has braces in this, but the exact same face she still does in her 50s, and it kept creating this weird effect in my head like I was watching the middle-aged Juliette Lewis doing some sort of Pen15 thing here. Anyway, this movie is better than the show, and thankfully it’s over 8 hours sooner than the show was!
Golden Hill, by Francis Spufford (2016) — paperback
A fun little thriller set in 1700s New York, in which a young man of mysterious origins arrives from London claiming a powerful businessman owes him 1,000 pounds, and all sorts of trouble ensues. It’s written in a rather difficult style to get into, but once you pick it up it all just flows, and the pulpy nature mixed with the historic setting is very enjoyable and silly. An unexpected beach read! The ending, too, completely snuck up on me, and was a lovely way to add some retrospective color to everything you had just read. This was the first fiction book Francis Spufford published, after a career in historical nonfiction, and now I want to read his others!
Heart the Lover, by Lily King (2025) — library ebook
This small, simple book has gotten a lot of praise, but I resisted its charms at first — it follows a love triangle of sorts, from college until middle age, and I didn’t really find anything appealing about a heterosexual love triangle, especially one that consists of college students having academic discussions. But then the book skipped ahead to middle age, and I won’t spoil anything but things suddenly get very serious, as they tend to in middle age, and next thing I know I’m literally crying while finishing this goddamned book. What the fuck! This book snuck up on me, and I’ll credit Lily King for that, but maybe it’s also something to do with the fact that I and everyone in my life are turning 40 as we speak — so maybe you’d read this and feel absolutely nothing. All I know is this book made me cry when I least expected it, and I am annoyed at it for that and I’m feeling manipulated. I just think if a book’s going to force you to cry, it should come with a warning label!
I now have to see the EA video but had so much fun reading your description, I kind of don't need to. I can't imagine what's next for this high profile person - maybe a shirtless talk in New Orleans about how they're the fattest city in the world and need a data center to take the weight off? Thank you for making me laugh my head off. Front Row Carrie 4ever.