Read this at your own peril as there is, arguably, X-rated material in here, but it’s the plot that might destroy you first. Reader’s discretion is advised.

New York Nights makes me truly wish for the reality of a Midnight Meat Train, though I wonder just how palatable Barker’s founding ghouls would find this trio — and this actor-population — of borderline Ken and Barbie dolls: somewhere between tasteless and bland, I would wager. 

So why am I going to write a scene by scene summary of Ernest G. Sauer’s 1994 softcore pornographic drama on a horror site, you might ask? Well, it should be a horror film for the viewing experience alone, an existentially vapid nightmare that occurred when somehow even extreme tit-annihilation wasn’t enough to prop up the thin pretext of a plot that could have been decent porn. Read that again ladies, gentlemen, and other beings of the night: the story is so bad, that even boobs — and simulated sex — weren’t enough to save it. But more on that later.

But there is another reason I’m doing this. You see, several years ago a horror personality who I’ve talked on here named Joe Bob Briggs created an award called the Iron Man Certification: in which someone watches a truly terrible movie and, after proving that they did so by outlining it scene by scene, got this particular and infamous recognition. According to Diana Prince, or Darcy the Mailgirl on her Patreon, Joe Bob had placed New York Nights on this roster of bad movies. So, in honour of the upcoming return of The Last Drive-In this coming April, and my own lack of sanity as a mad Doctor of Horror I am doing this so that you can laugh at my suffering — and I can also cackle at yours as I share it with the world. 

So let’s begin. 

We start off, after a stylized “York” emblem with an animated PS reminiscent of a cover made illustrated by Gray Jolliffe: except the cartoon figure isn’t a weird messy cat, but a man named Barry who apparently regrets his life’s decisions in the shower: getting drunk, and stupid, going home with someone whose name he doesn’t know, worrying about getting an STI, and remembering that he is only a cartoon character that doesn’t even need to shower. Apparently the whole sequence is a Public Service Announcement that can be summed up in the login “Get high. Get stupid. Get AIDs” from the Ad National Institute on Drug Abuse affiliated with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Suffice to say, this is the most disturbing part of this entire film, like a fear-mongering zombie that did not rot well. 

Then, we get into a preview of something “coming to Home Video this December” from Grown International Pictures played to an generic-sounding set of instrumentals more at home in an old Western Saloon or Keystone Cops films depicting unconvincing actors depicting producers, directors,pretentious artists and critics, and actresses scheming into the porn business. It’s apparently called Almost Hollywood with “Playmate of the Year India Alan.” 

But this is not what you’re here for, is it? No. I’m just showing off, or setting the tone of what this production will be like … or really, just procrastinating in print. Let’s get to it. 

Private Screenings presents … Baywatch. 

No, in all seriousness it is a scene with Julia Parton as Jessie running in slow motion, her breasts bouncing up and down, alongside her speedo-wearing boyfriend Buddy as they stride across the beach together. They go to a secluded spot with the remnants of white picket fences, perhaps illustration the erosion of the American Way of Life as he takes off her bra, makes out with her, kisses her as the introductory credits roll, and then they leave together with her bathing suit back on as if nothing happened.

Then, Jesse and Buddy are in a cabin the woods where he continues to make out with her in a bedroom surrounded by candles as if to enact some kind of ritual to grant life to this artificial depiction of erotic coupling that doesn’t happen before she slaps him half-heartedly across the face and tells him to “Cool your passions, I’ve changed my mind.” She is apparently “saving herself for a rich man” and “aspirations.” This North Carolina woman plans to go to New York to improve her fortunes. 

The next scene is another character, one Vicki — played by Susan Napoli — is definitely “down to clown” with a boy-toy in her suburban home until they hear her father come in. The young man, like Buddy, is a muscular Ken doll, though manages to vanish out a window with some of his clothes, and teleport to his car and immediately drive off. Her father immediately comes in, somehow hearing that she had company, trying to ground her at twenty-one for being promiscuous, forgetful and clumsy, and her deciding to go to New York to become an actress despite him. My …. “favourite” quote: “No daughter of mine is going to act like a whore. No daughter of mine is going to be an actress. And no daughter of mine is going to live in New York,” and in that order.

Finally, we have the third woman in our ensemble cast this time in a mansion: former model Barbara Lowery as played by Marilyn Chambers. This fine lady is looking at a portrait, knowing that her husband is “late at the office” again — which we see with some detail — giving a secretary or a coworker some … dictation. Then, after some sinister music where we see the infidelities, and bear in mind throughout this whole film we have not — and won’t see any — penises, Barbara takes off her gown, looking in her glamorous mirror as she pushes aside her photographs onto the floor and says “It’s time to punch out this time clock.” In the next scene, we see her husband come home with his shoes in hand before she stabs him in the neck to collect his insurance — no, just kidding. He comes home to find a “Dear John” letter in their bed with her not there. 

Now that these Three Little Pigs references, with a cottage, a suburban house, and a mansion — Straw, Wood, and Brick — are out of the way, cue in an airplane transition scene, some transitional montages of places that are supposed to be in New York, and then a taxi where Barbara gets out. Then we see another scene with a bus as Vicki comes out to see more New York scenes. And, of course, last but not least we have Jesse coming out of either a train station or an airport with a big hat and her bags. This feels like the beginning of a “Three women walk into a bar” joke. 

Jesse has plans. She goes to Cross-Town Realty — not Reality — Luxury Accommodations to get a job, which her prospective boss gives her because she is pretty, and he thinks she can sell with pretty much borderline sexual harassment observations about her “Bottom-line business” and her “top not being so bad.” He calls her his “premiere shower,” a word I think he is getting confused with other terminology as he sends her to show his most expensive properties to rich men to invest their blood money and keep the bodies hidden — I mean, in which to set up residences. He then gives her money to get rid of her perfectly good pink top and shorts to look “less like Dolly Parton” and more like “Ivanka Trump” (a statement that has not aged well and an insult to Dolly Parton). 

Now we are at a place called Phelps’ Hotel for Women. And look at that: Vickie happens to be Jesse’s next door neighbour. It’s starting to come together now. The Coven only needs a third member now. Anyway, Jesse’s come in with a variety of clothing and Vickie’s advice to her — after admitting she herself hasn’t found a job yet — is that she could sell more apartments at her new job if she “showed her body.” So Vickie not only reiterates that sex sells, after she asks with some disdain if Jesse is an escort, but she tells her that she “could land a rich husband”: totally reminding us of the entire plot of this film. You know? Three women come to New York to find rich husbands … Anyway, Vickie says she is going to a lingerie store to look for work and, very subtly, says she might be “a shower” now too.

Now Barbara is in the next scene putting on a fine business wear shirt, disguising herself after killing her husband and being on the run across state lines. But in all seriousness, she is really admiring herself in the mirror to follow up on returning to modeling. Another transition scene later, we come to follow Barbara to Borghese Models. A few of the younger girls there think she’s lost because she looks “experienced” — experiencing in the arts of seduction and witchcraft — but aside from an awkward and painful reference to her being older, she meets an old friend of hers with a mullet for work after being gone having raised a daughter and left her husband after twenty years. Nevertheless, her friend can’t help her and she leaves, heading to the lingerie store where Vickie actually works now. Time is plastic and fluid here.

After Barbara informs Vickie, who tries to sell her some spicy lingerie that her “spicy marriage has left a bad taste” in her mouth, for which no amount of pineapple will ever cleanse, she is told talk to one Mr. Tyler to get a job there. For his part, Mr. Tyler is attempting to get a woman to strip naked for him and when he touches her breast, she grabs his balls and teaches him a lesson about consent that he won’t remember the nex time. Vickie is right about one thing, it does “take him a minute,” which the joke about a man’s stamina and endurance aside, I wish was the whole length of this film. Not long after this, Mr. Tyler doesn’t learn his lesson and crowds into Barbara’s personal space as she backs away from him to perve-y — to look her up and down — and after realizing who she is, or was, and barely just saying he masturbated to her back in the day, he gives her the job.

So this grossness aside, we come back to Jessie who is showing a man a pretty apartment. The man, of course says he has no wife and makes comments about the “view” and nothing “artificial” in … the apartment. After offering to take her lunch, he immediately escalates it to wanting to grow old with her in the apartment, and commitment, which instantly gets her affections. Just instantly, you know? Now we have slow motion sequences with out of synch video of Jesse taking off her top, and what will become the first in a long line of half-naked leg humping scenes that are supposed to simulate sex, and I think may have influenced Tommy Wiseau’s understanding of erotic cinematic sequences. 

After these sequences are over, Jesse goes back to her employer only to find out that the man who seduced her in all of a few minutes wasn’t sincere about buying the apartment, but surprise oh surprise, he really was married all along. Then, back at her apartment, Jesse is furious about the fact that she was lied to, even though every adult worth half a brain cell could tell it was a ploy. I suspect that, as they go through this, Wiseau may have borrowed some plot points from this film and others like it as well. Anyway, Jesse tells Vickie that she will never take her advice again, that “after they made love” (geez, somehow that makes her even creepier than he had been, having been pretty much a fling to any other adult), she found out he was married and “probably not even rich.” That … kind of really says it all, and I wish it would have ended here. But it doesn’t.

Then, Jesse sits on her bed and finds Vickie’s lost glasses there. Vickie, if you recall, is supposed to be forgetful, but this would have made an excellent subplot or an eventual tie-in where they realize they have more in common than any of the superficial relationships they’ve been seeking. After all, the real treasure are the friends we’ve made along the way. As Vickie herself says, it would have “made life interesting.” But Vickie leaves to go to her lingerie modelling job alongside Barbara. We now know what is really at stake as Vickie admits she needs a second job for her acting classes, and Barbara is attempting to create more modelling photographs for her portfolio. Oh, the challenges of living. 

So now a man and a woman come into a vacant apartment to grope each other and make out, only to become “mice in the wall” as Jesse brings an old gentleman from North Carolina to check out the place. The man, like Vickie’s father, also seems to have excellent hearing and senses as the two simulate sex silently in the closet. Now, the older man Mr. Griffith — who is still mindful of the “mice” — offers Jesse the position of being housekeeping for this second apartment while he and his wife are away. Totally no strings attached.

No seriously. We never see Mr. Griffith again. Basically, Jesse gets a free high-rise apartment for being from the same State as this older man, and he warms up to her paternally and just practically gives it to her. The American Dream, the American New York Dream, am I right? Oh, and the couple that went into the closet leave, with a nice back shot of the woman too as she does so. Yeah. I am trying to find as many positives here as I can.

Now we have the next scene. It’s still coming together for the dark ritual of perpetuating this movie. The apartment looks like a storage room for antiques from the 20s. Jesse moves in. Time means nothing as it is all filled up. Just like that. In the scene after, Jesse seems bored and lonely. Then, looking like a bored young housewife from Days of Our Lives, she switches between television channels and the “Home Shopping Club” is mentioned. Remember that. It will come around again.

Finally, Jesse phones Vickie to move in with her, and start their relationship. But really, Vickie comes into the apartment, nearly knocks over a vase, and Jesse tries to explain how she got the place. We are almost the point where our Coven will form, I assure you. And, sure enough, we come back to Barbara, who is back at her modelling friend’s firm with new photographs of her latest portfolio. She attempts to seduce him, this man with the mullet, and seems far more into it than the other two girls, even showing off her naked chest until she changes her mind. She leaves and he basically makes it clear after she’s gone that “this was the only way she was ever going to make it in this business again.”

There has, and there still is, going to be a lot of this sexism, don’t you worry.

Now Barbara is thinking about going back to Michigan, only for Vickie to invite her to Jesse’s apartment to help her save money. She gets brought into this fine apartment, where Jesse agrees to have her stay so that Barbara — a far more “experienced” witch — can tutor her in the Black Arts. But really, she wants Barbara to teach her how to look more attractive and get a rich man for herself. 

They all return from a shopping spree. And then Jesse puts on a variety of dresses that are never as good as her first “Dolly Parton” one until she settles for the black and white striped Beetlejuice number. Then, Jesse’s education by Barbara begins as she shows her how to sacrifice — how to look more “sophisticated” to rich men. Aside from the fact that “billionaires don’t like to talk about tractor pulls,” Barbara seems to indicate that they do like to talk about art, the ballet, and classical music and go to museums, theatre, and symphonies because they like to be “patrons of the arts.” And, don’t get me wrong, a Renoir painting is ethereal and a Van Gogh creation is even better — as Barbara references — due to its elemental shape and inner vibrancy, but somehow as we will discover soon enough, I don’t think this is what rich men are into with regards to their taste in women and “the finer things.”

Sure enough, Jesse — with a scowl still on her face — goes through a brief montage of these precise elements: of Mozart banners, and museums and the like, as though being forced to drink some of George’s Marvelous Medicine before a nice transition to a strange club in the nightlife that looks like a drab, “Fish Under the Sea Dance” complete with a man pouring alcohol down a woman’s open and willing throat. This is totally not suggestive or anything, and we will get back to that later, I am sure. The three women are hunting for sacrif — right, I said that already, I mean rich men. Apparently, according to Barbara “hunky men” are poor and should be avoided. They then find themselves in the company of some businessmen who, as it turns out, aren’t at all as sophisticated as Barbara led them out to be. As the older man in the group says he “hates symphonies” and prefers “the spectacle,” which would be true for me in this film if it weren’t so utterly shallow and banal, but one thing at a time. Needless to say, Barbara tries her own terrible advice by telling Jesse not to try so hard and be herself, and Jesse almost — almost — calls her on the paradoxical advice, before Vickie realizes she’s lost her address book. Forgetful, absent-minded Vickie: totally not a subplot at all.

Now we are back at the apartment the next day. A handsome cab driver named Eric finds Vickie’s book and delivers it to Jesse, who has a conflict of interest in seeing an attractive man who is not rich. She feels bad for not being able to give him a reward, but he doesn’t want one, so it’s not a completely pornographic situation. But, that almost changes in the next scene with Vickie and Barbara who are totally into each other, plotting to — they are at their lingerie job with Vickie warning Barbara not to go into the backroom where Mr. Tyler is getting humiliated by another model, convincing him he has a chance with her if he tries on lingerie, only for her to steal his clothes and leave, with everyone else already gone for the night. I think it was supposed to be funny. 

Now, this is where things get convoluted a bit. Vickie has another job as a cocktail waitress, which she just got recently to Barbara’s concern over her “balancing liquids.” Dirty thoughts aside, she spills some on the suit of a patron named Stuart who she invites to their apartment to have his clothing “dry-cleaned downstairs.” This apartment building, affluent as well, is convenient to have in New York where even a minor room costs a soul of a philandering man like Barbara’s ex-husband that she totally didn’t kill.

Speaking of Barbara, she’s there and thinks Stuart is an intruder in an undershirt and boxers before he mentions Vickie inviting him there. As he says, he is totally not “a thief,” never mind anything else. He is invited to stay for dinner after Barbara lowers her pepper-spray, but he needs to meet his business associates. But, both Vickie and Barbara invite all of them there for the meal instead. 

Next we see, Stuart again, Kurt, and Gene who are all in “the oil business.” It is never mentioned whether or not they have a vested interest in the Middle-East, or just American soil — presumably Texas — and it remains that way. The cab driver Eric phones in the middle of it, to talk to Jesse, to ask her to dinner to which she casually says she has new plans, and hangs up on him. After we continue to see Jesse staying classy, with all of its connotations, all three men and women are awkwardly close dancing with each other, with Gene not really being able to keep his hands off an uncomfortable Jesse. Frank and Barbara hit it off well, with her not wanting to kill him, and Vickie and Kurt seem very friendly, while Jesse invites Gene to a Van Gogh exhibit at Sotheby’s. 

Later, all three women are scantily clad and calling upon the powers of — they are talking about their romantic plans. Jesse plans not to sleep with another man again until she knows more about him (read: whether he’s rich and single, or not). Vickie ends up having an encounter, complete with awkward naked leg humping simulated sex, and a parody of Vanilla romance, at the Fleur-de-Lys Hotel with Kurt which I suppose he would have called “taking her to Paris.” She wears a nice layered pearl necklace too that, I assure you, is merely suggestive the entire time. 

After a few more scenic transitions, which are interspersed to make us totally believe this is New York, Jesse is showing another apartment off but, as it transpires, the person meeting is Eric. She is quick enough to point out that he is “just a cab driver” and can’t afford it. Like I said, class: very much class. But, granted, he does collect on that reward by asking her to join him for the lunch he’s brought with him: which seems to be composed of alcohol which, if I were a drinking man, I would be indulging to get through this film twice. He then moves in to kiss her, and seems interested and then she rebuffs him by saying she is “seeing somebody” and that seems to end that for the moment.

After that, there is an obligatory aerobics scene between Barbara and Jesse where it turns out she keeps getting flowers from who she thinks is Gene. I guess more time passed again. Meanwhile, at the art exhibit, Vickie sees Kurt again who, as it turns out, is actually married to a stuck-up woman, which annoys her to no end. And even though I get Hogzilla flashbacks from when Jesse says they are in “Hog-Heaven,” we run into Gene again who totally takes credit for those flowers to Jesse. Now, Vickie meets a bartender named Chris who turns out to be an actor, and gets the chance to tell Kurt to “go to hell.” Jesse continues to bullshit about knowing art composition and interest, before Gene wants to take them to the back room.

Chris’ comment about saying he’s “like Columbus” definitely didn’t age well. Meanwhile, as they go to the bar table, Gene manages to be … more classy — read: classicist — as he laughs at hearing about Chris being “a bartender who is really an actor” before taking Jesse to the back room. This is where the music gets more sinister, and you think that something bad is going to happen. Gene is clearly overstepping his bounds, and Jesse tells him to back off repeatedly, but he doesn’t and she stabs him in the neck — No. She slaps him and leaves. Outside, Vickie is getting poured shots down her gullet and between her and Kurt, they peer pressure his wife into doing the same thing to “show Vickie” I guess. And, in tears, with her Beetlejuice dress all disheveled, Jesse leaves the chat — the party. I suppose she sees now, more than ever, just how superficial and hollow the society she wants to join truly is: or some moralistic realization like that. Don’t worry, we aren’t done yet.

So back at the apartment Stuart and Barbara are continuing to “just be friends” with, presumably, their genitalia or romantically as the case may be, but Jesse comes back and tells them what Gene tried to do. Barbara explains “It’s men like Gene who treat women like possessions,” when really Jesse wanted men like Gene for their money, which she actually seems to recognize. But then Barbara says something else which I feel encompasses this whole story: my favourite line in the film, the thesis statement of this piece of cinematic narrative:

“Sometimes we have to learn lessons in life .. the hard way.”

I feel that it not only captures the spirit of this fine film, but my own experience and goals in watching and writing about it. I keep this in mind as the next thirty-three minutes continue. Jesse is having something of an existential crisis as well as she realizes a rich man isn’t necessarily an ideal or perfect candidate for being a husband, and actually feels bad over repeatedly rejecting Eric time and again. In the next scene, Jesse tosses her Beetlejuice dress — the dress that apparently attracts billionaires — into the water under a bridge. 

Chris, in the meantime, takes Vickie to a movie shoot to which he’s gotten her a part. The topless couple before them kisses briefly before being called away, but it isn’t Vickie’s time — this erotic shoot within an arguably erotic movie meta-commentary or … something — just yet. Vickie finds out that the actor she is going to have a sex scene with in this production isn’t some stranger, but Chris himself: which really seems to do it for her.

Then, by the next scene, Jesse phones Buddy and is ready to go back to North Carolina, seemingly giving up. She then gets a flower delivery that she ends up throwing in the garbage, which is a nice smooth transition to Barbara throwing her portfolio into a dumpster as she gives up on returning to modelling. 

Vickie and Chris, on the other hand don’t waste time waiting for their movie scene as they kiss up and down their bodies, complete with softcore stripping and — you guessed it — awkward leg humping, though the body kissing almost makes up for it in what seems to be romance complete with harps and jazz trumpets playing in the background. By the time they get to the filming, they continue this chemistry. 

And then, we get a conga line going on at the popular nightclub with Barbara and Stuart as they start to have a serious relationship talk. It turns out that Barbara was with her ex-husband since they were teenagers, and Stuart lost his wife the year previous. But he seems to have a child in New York as well, who Barbara wants to meet sometime. Totally not foreshadowing. Suffice to say, Vickie and Stuart go back to the apartment together with so much more softcore porn and the leg-humping again, with some stylized slow motion for emphasis. The next day, Stuart and Chris meet each other in the apartment, with Stuart patting Chris on the arm. 

Jesse is telling her boss that she’s leaving and invites him to the farewell party. Next, Barbara sees Vickie and Chris together in the kitchen and finds out the two of them are already engaged, because time might be strange in this place but it is not wasted when marriage is on the line. Now, both Vickie and Barbara discuss Jesse leaving and they know that one man — only one man, of course — can convince her to stay with them.

Meanwhile, Eric asks Jesse’s boss to see the space he was looking at under the pretext of seeing Jesse again. Unlike Jesse, her boss doesn’t seem miffed or put off by Eric or “Mr. Tucker’s” appearance. If New York is a city that doesn’t sleep, and it’s the central theme of this film, it is easy to see all of this foreshadowing in so much gaudy light. Eric finds Jesse and tries to convince her to stay, only for her to realize that the person sending her the flowers without cards was him and not Gene. Jesse decides to “reward Eric’s persistence” by inviting him to her farewell party.

The women themselves, all three of them, are bonding before their party. Barbara and Vickie are trying to convince her to stay, and with Eric. Barbara finds a letter that fell out of Jesse’s pocket that she knows is a goodbye letter to Eric, which is an interesting callback to the one she left her philandering husband but with the contrast of it being a relationship to which Jesse is supposed to give a chance. 

And now, the end game: known also as the party. There is a lot of room in this apartment as a scantily clad woman plays the violin and more than a few people attend. It is gradually revealed  that Chris has something to say to Vickie: the truth. The good news, for Vickie, is that he isn’t already married. The … bad news, for the viewers, is that he is actually a secret billionaire financing his own activities and Stuart himself tells Barbara that Chris is his son. Yeah. It was already a thin plot as all get out, but this is where it just doesn’t pretend to be ridiculous anymore. How neat and tidy, huh?

But we can’t end this without Jesse and Eric meeting and having their moment. And this is where another revelation happens after Jesse throws away her “Dear Eric” letter as she wants to be with him, and Eric gives her a ring she thought of getting herself a ring from the Home Shopping Channel. Yet we find out it is the original ring, because … wait for it … Eric isn’t a cab driver. Eric is a secret billionaire, who tested Jesse to see if she would love him for more than his money.

Yeah. I know. I have made terrible life decisions too. .

Even as everything comes full circle, and like a comedy — even one that doesn’t work — it all ends in a wedding as Vickie and Chris do get married, Stuart awkwardly proposes to Barbara who doesn’t want to get married, there is no dramatic interruption of the wedding vows. But it is also a double-wedding as Eric and Jesse get married too. This sugar is making me rot faster than any zombie virus. 

Now, towards the end, we see three scenes interspersed of the couples “making love” all dramatically, in slow motion, topless, and with leg humping and stomach sitting between scenes of New York. By the time we get past Jesse and Eric, and then Vickie and Chris, we finally get to Barbara and Stuart: who are just talking at first. Stuart doesn’t propose marriage to Barbara, but rather intends to fund and support a modelling agency led by her. She likes this, and then they have their own sensual, simulated sex scene.

And then, with lit candles in the background summoning Satan, the film is over: with callbacks and credits. 

That is New York Nights. I watched this twice, once to say I did, and the other time to write this scene by scene summary in the old tradition of Joe Bob Briggs’ Iron Man Certification. I feel like I lost a part of myself, something I will never get back after seeing these depictions of romantic love and a slice of life from what you would expect from New York City at any age. Now that it’s over, that it’s finally over, I feel … bereft. Empty. 

I think about what this film could have been in another place, and another time. I consider what would have happened if it had been more hard-core, with characters that had living experience and different lives and backgrounds, and ethnicities. If the three women did live together and three wasn’t a company. If Stuart was a war profiteer, or Chris a serial killer, or Eric a stalker. If the film had been divided into different stories or vignettes, more clearly, and each female protagonist had her arc that could have been great too. Like, for instance, Jesse calculating her way to the top and realizing she’s losing her soul only to trade it for freedom and liberation, or Vickie having fun being sexually promiscuous and finding herself, or Barbara continuing to escape the murder of her cheating husband. I think they would have made a great Coven together, especially if they got to the point where they were sacrificing their messed up male partners to gain immortality, or something. Perhaps Anna Biller could have made a better commentary from this material about the artificiality of American social and romantic interactions than I ever could, which she already did through Viva. 

I think there is a lot of potential in reshaping these kinds of movies to fit your dark will. But, in the end, I think that it served to show me that as bad as my writing can get, there are worse things. And sometimes, you just have to laugh at how ridiculous some things are. The filmmaker that Chris hires in a way that isn’t grandiose or manipulative says “This is a take,” and he’s right. And this is my take. I hope you appreciated my suffering, and I hope that we got the opportunity to agonize together like stereotypical bodies rubbing up awkwardly, like contradictory ideals never sitting well, against each other, forever.