The Deranged DNC After Party That Stole My Will to Live

Everything we can’t stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture. [View in Browser]( [Subscribe]( [Image] with Kevin Fallon Everything we can’t stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture. This Week: - The DNC afterparty nobody asked for. - Dolly and Cher to the rescue. - Remembering a Drag Race star gone too soon. - A foolproof guide to getting a husband. Never Go to a Second (Virtual) Location Thursday night’s Democratic National Convention ended with [Joe Biden accepting his party’s nomination]( with what may be the best speech of [his presidential run](: an electric call to action, profound acknowledgement of our nation’s grief, and as close to a “mad as hell” moment as we’ve seen from him as he pledged to lead our country into a stronger, safer, and sane new chapter. It was shortly thereafter that this purported chapter began, with Zooey Deschanel and a [Property Brother]( doing a comedy bit as a warm-up act to Diplo DJ-ing a virtual dance party in front of a White House green screen. Hmm. The four-night DNC was a [remarkable event](, pivoting an alienating and self-aggrandizing political masturbation session into a sobered, astonishingly intimate hand and heart out to voters and hurting Americans. Biden’s closing speech was the cincher, the perfect time to call it quits. But lurking in the sidelines like the friend who forces you to stay for “one more drink” even though you’ve already called an Uber and suddenly it’s 3 a.m., you’re staring at a string of 17 texts to your ex while spilling the 40-piece nuggets you picked up on the way home all over the bed, there was this idea of throwing a “DNC After Party.” I don’t know why I watched it (my editor asked me to), but I did. It was deranged. It was unbelievably corny and possibly not actually appealing to a single soul. Except me. I loved it, this thing that never should have happened, but did and was totally, gloriously, endearingly stupid. Just the idea of it alone. If you were reeling in the moments after Biden’s speech from someone speaking about the atrocities facing our country in rational, intelligent terms, if you were just completely thrown off your axis by stridence and dignity—hell, normalcy—standing in for the absurdity we’ve endured in terms of the presidency, well the DNC was looking out for you. Don’t worry, the convention said. Here is an afterparty DJ’d by Diplo over Zoom following a toast from Alyssa Milano delivered while choking back tears. Welcome back to surreality, and a political circus tent that makes you feel like you are losing your damn mind. Like any great after party, the music started 40 minutes after the event was supposed to begin, and only once a dozen or so speeches about political activism had been given. Presiding over the “festivities,” a word that has never been used more loosely than in this moment, was Bravo host Andy Cohen, who promised that “tonight’s after party is one last hoorah before we get back to work” and get Biden elected. If there is any reason why this bastion of silliness worked, it’s because Cohen was the emcee. No one does infectious, unbridled enthusiasm better, delivering puns so groan-worthy they instead transcend and become, in his delivery, borderline brilliant. And he was having to put in the effort here. The first guest was Democratic party chair Tom Perez, who added, “And for tonight’s purposes, chair of the Democratic after party.” If there is one thing I wish for anyone reading this, it is that you could have seen my face after he said that. Perez laid out the rules! Oh my god, the rules. These rules just need to be typed out for you to read. It’s a patriotic duty. 1. “Dance like no one’s watching, then vote like you threw out your back and need your healthcare.” 2. “It takes two to tango, and it takes 270 to win.” 3. “Nobody puts Baby in a corner, but, you know what? We can put Biden in the office. “ 4. “Look both ways before crossing Kamala.” 5. “Give Trump the boot, then rally.” 6. “Fight for your right to party.” A Trump-themed “boot and rally” joke at a Democratic National Convention after party? Be still my trash bag, cornball heart. What followed was about 30 more uninterrupted minutes of a random assortment of celebrities doing little comedy bits and making appeals to campaign for Biden. It was relentless and exhausting and kind of just a poor man’s version of what we had just spent four nights watching. But it was also super diverse, gay, and campy, so I cherished every second. Jamie Camil, of Jane the Virgin fame, recapped the week as a Telenovela—or, as he called it, “a TeleJoevela.” Get it? I thought it was cute and actually really clever. Have I attracted some sort of DNC Stockholm Syndrome? I’m blinking three times for help, but in the meantime swooning over how hot and charming Camil is while doing this bit. Iron Chef Cat Cora and her activist and music producer wife Nicole Cora introduced a menu of delicious-seeming snacks and cocktails, which I first thought was rude considering I was just eating Ritz crackers out the sleeve and drinking old red wine out of a box—and then I knew was rude when I discovered that their “No Malarkey Nachos” was made with pita chips?!?! Then there was the Zooey Deschanel and Property Brother thing, followed by a thing from Grey’s Anatomy’s Jason George, and then a really funny thing from Aubrey Plaza, and then a confusing thing from figure skater Michelle Kwan. Joe Biden Skyped in with a pre-taped message and a joke about all the ice cream he eats. Still, nowhere to be heard, was any music or dancing. It happened eventually, as Diplo arrived with a tongue-in-check set in front of a green screen that made it look like he was spinning records from the White House lawn, at which point I danced my way over to the computer to write this so I could go to bed. Thinking back, I’m not entirely sure what exactly it was I watched, or what purpose it was meant to serve. A press release promised “curated content that includes a call to action to bring awareness to important issues and to engage voters,” which, wow, what a party...and I guess is what this was. I delight in the randomness of these things. I also understand that the vast majority of people have had it up to here [I am raising my hand high above my head] with celebrity-driven political hijinks. Given that palpable exasperation, it’s confusing that the DNC read the room and thought “maybe we should do more of that.” But the harmlessness of this after party thing doesn’t quite deserve the ire when lumped in with the more egregious Hollywood-meets-Washington efforts. What we all deserve, however, is Tom Perez to hone a tight five. “Give Trump the boot, then rally.” I’m still losing it over those rules. Dolly and Cher May Actually Save Us The tangles and knots that modern celebrities contort themselves into any time there’s an [occasion for accountability]( or [apology]( is as painful to watch as the tone-deafness of their performative, often useless attempts at [political activism]( can be. With the last few months amounting to Hollywood on a tightrope walk carrying a boiling hot cauldron, burning us more with every misstep, we should all be grateful that the legends arrived to set the example once again and teach these idiots how it’s done. Please welcome to the stage, Dolly Parton and Cher. [Image] Showing off her unique talent at being the best at absolutely everything, yet adhering to her duties as the Patron Saint of It’s Really Shouldn’t be So Hard, Parton [gave an interview]( explaining why she—back in 2018 before it was in the national conversation—removed “Dixie” from the title of her dinner attraction “Dixie Stampede,” owing to the word’s glorification of the slave-holding Confederate South. “When they said ‘Dixie’ was an offensive word, I thought, ‘Well, I don’t want to offend anybody,’” she said. “As soon as you realize that [something] is a problem, you should fix it. Don’t be a dumbass. That’s where my heart is. I would never dream of hurting anybody on purpose.” In one corner, we have dozens of celebrities and companies paying millions of dollars for consultants, strategists, and publicists to stress over what changes to make in response to Black Lives Matter, in return burping out nonsensical boilerplate language to accompany the empty gesture. In the other, we have Dolly Parton: “Don’t be a dumbass.” It echoes what she said about Black Lives Matter. “I understand people having to make themselves known and felt and seen. And of course Black lives matter. Do we think our little white asses are the only ones that matter? No!” What I love about Dolly Parton is that everything about her that we hail as perfection is actually just being a human, one of Hollywood’s most endangered species. Then there’s Cher, who has spent the last few days in a spiral trying to figure out how she can personally save the Postal Service. Not tweeting about how the Postal Service should be saved. But how she’s gonna get her iconic Cher self out there and do it. First was the plea for someone, anyone, to let her know what her course of action should be. (She wanted to volunteer.) “IS NO ONE GOING TO HELP ME WITH POST OFFICE,” [she tweeted](. Then, after about an hour had passed, [she tweeted the update](. She had called two post offices and asked to volunteer, and was politely turned down by both. “I Said'Hi This Is Cher,& I Would like to know If you ever take Volunteers.” Turns out anyone who works a post office needs to be fingerprinted and background checked. We need to first address the fact that an entire movie, if not movie franchise, needs to be made about the post office worker who picked up the phone and heard on the other end of the line, “Hi, this is Cher, I would like to know if you ever take volunteers.” Also requiring acknowledgment is the utter cruelty in denying us the capital-S Stories that would surface from Cher working in a post office. And let’s not dismiss the potential for postal uniform redesign (artwork credit: me): [Alternate text] But, jokes aside, it’s inspiring to see that, while younger generations of public figures keep screwing this up so bafflingly bad, people like Dolly and Cher are still the benchmark for good. Remembering Chi Chi There are things that people say when someone dies that have become such reactionary vernacular that, well-intentioned as the words may be, they sometimes seem meaningless or rote to me. It’s the condolences equivalent of, “How are you?” “Good, you?” “My friend died.” “They were a light.” It’s almost like a thing you’re supposed to say. It’s a hang-up I have that’s outlandish and likely unfair, but one that I’m thinking about now in the aftermath of the news that Chi Chi DeVayne, the stage name of popular [RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant Zavion Davenport](, died Thursday at age 34 of suspected kidney failure. All over social media, her drag sisters and family, friends, and fans have been remembering her. Almost uniformly, they are mourning the loss of a person and a performer who was “a light.” [Alternate text]( Maybe it’s another instance of what I was talking about before, a nice thing we say out of habit. But in this case I get it. I’ve been watching videos of her on stage, revisiting old interviews she’s done, and remembering why, even if she was never a frontrunner when she was there, I was always drawn to her on RuPaul’s Drag Race. She was a gymnast and ferocious dancer. She was goofy and unafraid to look bad, which in turn often made her look spectacular. She had an easiness about her that made humor come naturally, sometimes unintentionally, exuding a familiarity that made you feel like you just found a best friend, who you never actually met, through a TV. When she returned to Drag Race for an all-stars season, she described herself as a “trash bag queen with the heart of gold.” How can you not be immediately attracted to someone as humorously self-effacing as that? She was candid, movingly so, about her struggles with sexuality and escaping her upbringing in Shreveport, La., as a gang member. The power of the show, of course, is the ways in which it spotlights the undeniable talent of people who have had to fight and manifest for themselves the power and confidence to love themselves in a way they could present so proudly and unapologetically on stage. Each runway, challenge, and lipsynch is a celebration of the hard journey from the darkness into the light, a light the best of them, which Chi Chi was, starts to harness themselves. I watch her lip sync to “And I’m Telling You…” from Dreamgirls in a Drag Race episode ([see it here](), and am struck by both the pain and the triumph of it. Chi Chi is a flips and tricks queen, but here she was, planting her feet, and summoning a lifetime of struggle into a performance bright with resilience. It’s true, and it’s my mistake because it really does mean something: Chi Chi was a light. How to Get a Husband This list of “[129 Ways to Get a Husband](” from McCall’s magazine in 1958 [went viral this week](, and it is my favorite thing ever. Of course, it’s outrageous. Thank god things have changed, because this is some horrifying shit. “Go to all reunions of your high school or college class. There may be widowers there.” [Alternate text] Just for fun, I followed some of the tips this week to see if they worked. I stumbled when I entered every room, would randomly go cry in a corner, and walked back and forth in the living room carrying around a hatbox. My boyfriend didn’t even notice anything was different. [Alternate text] - The Vow: Cults! Docuseries! All of 2020 America’s weirdly favorite obsessions. - Class Action Park: My parents talk about going here when they were younger as if they had survived war. - Love in the Time of Corona: It’s slim pickings this week. [Alternate text] - Love in the Time of Corona: But also…that title...speaks volumes... - Unhinged: A Russell Crowe thriller that thinks you’ll want to brave corona to see it in theaters. Advertisement [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Instagram]( © Copyright 2020 The Daily Beast Company LLC 555 W. 18th Street, New York NY 10011 [Privacy Policy]( If you are on a mobile device or cannot view the images in this message, [click here]( to view this email in your browser. To ensure delivery of these emails, please add emails@thedailybeast.com to your address book. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, or think you have received this message in error, you can [safely unsubscribe](.