2️⃣093: Marisa Tomei?!?!?! 💋

Growing up in Puerto Rico, I was fortunate enough to have my immediate family live within five minutes of each other. The uncle I'm talking about (still) lives on a street outside the neighborhood where I grew up. Getting to his house was either a 2-minute drive or a 15-minute walk from my house. Those travel times make perfect sense if you grew up in suburbia or sound batshit crazy if you grew up in a walkable city with proper public transportation.

Despite our physical proximity, my uncle and I didn't spend much time together. You could blame it on life or being busy or a bunch of other things I won't get into. I guess the best way to explain it would be that things make more sense (but also a lot less) as you get older...

Fast forward a few years, and my uncle calls me one day and says, Guess what?! I'm moving to Miami!

I didn't know what this meant for our relationship, but I knew I was excited to have a family member so close while my brother and parents were still back home.

I must admit, I was not excited to hang out the first time we did. I had just returned from a few exhausting days of travel, and all I wanted to do was relax in my bed.

You know when you get an excited text from someone who loves you and wants to see you, and you love them back, but you're not really in the mood for anything at the moment, and you feel like an asshole, but you'd rather chill by yourself and not talk to them? 🫣

I made it home from the airport, straight to the shower, and that's when I got another text, I'm waiting outside your apartment! I took one teary-eyed look at my mattress as I closed the door to my room and walked out to meet him (idk why I looked at it like that; that mattress was garbage).

As soon as I opened the door to the car and got in, he looked at me with the biggest smile ever, pulled out a six-pack of beer, and said -¡Papito! I got the beer. Tell me your favorite pizza spot, and we'll order one and watch movies all weekend!

How could I be angry at that? He had just proposed the perfect weekend 🍻 #DudesRock Little did I know that was the beginning of an unexpected renaissance in our relationship.

Sometimes, it feels like life moves so fast the things you think will be there forever are gone long before you realize it. Tim Urban put it much more eloquently in this essay I love that was recommended to me by a friend.

Growing up, you form relationships with people during the time you can spend together. Most of us think that's all the relationship will ever be, especially with family members you love unconditionally but don't speak with as often (or as openly) as some friends. Life had just given me a second chance, a second chance I've gotten more than once, and a second chance few people ever receive 🙏🏽

For the next few years, while my uncle still lived in Miami, we spent more time together than in the previous 23 years of my life. Entire weekends hanging out just the two of us (if my aunt wasn't in town, when she was in town, it would be the three of us, love you!). We'd talk about current events, sports, movies, anything you could think of. Conversations we'd never had because it had never been just the two of us.

My uncle was the first to go into detail with me about personal finances, saving money, and investing for retirement. Things many people feel are obvious once they encounter them later in life but also complain that no one taught them earlier when they should have. If it wasn't for these conversations, I would’ve struggled with these topics on my own. Through it all, we developed a very special bond that didn't exist before, and I'm eternally grateful for it 💞

With all the time we spent together talking about life and finances, we spent even more time watching movies.

A shit ton of movies 🎞

My uncle will watch pretty much any movie except scary movies, but he especially loves animated movies. These are his comfort films. He spends all day working very hard (in finance) dealing with numbers that would make the average person's brain explode. Even when working remotely and not traveling for his job, he's always on call from 8am to 7pm 👨🏻‍💻

But when it was time to cut it off, he cut it off. Immediately after he’d turn on the TV and put something on 📺

He told me about so many movies he had watched that I considered him one of the few people who could compete with myself, my brother, and my childhood friends in terms of film knowledge

Until one day, I discovered his dark, dirty, devious little secret…

He's too busy, there's no time for that! When you finish work at 7 or 8 at night, go to bed at 10pm, and wake up at 6am, you can't be sitting around focusing on the nuances of a two-hour film. Instead, he turns on the TV, flips through the channels (that's still a thing people do), and when he finds a movie he thinks is interesting, he leaves it on.

It doesn't matter if the movie is 5 minutes in, 20 minutes in, or 87 minutes in. If he sat there and watched for more than a few minutes, that's considered "watching the movie" in his book.

I was so shocked when I discovered this information that I almost had an aneurysm. Me, the guy who loves watching the first five minutes of any movie simply because everything happening to the character is entirely different from what will transpire over the next 90+ minutes. If you didn't know they were late for work, have a bad relationship with their partner, or have that one shitty friend you know is going to cause trouble, how can you appreciate everything else that goes on?

Needless to say, I felt like

This discovery haunted me for a fair amount of time. I just didn't get it. How could anyone claim to have enjoyed a movie when they saw less than 25% of it?

Sure, every single action scene in Die Hard is worth rewatching on its own, but if you didn't witness the interaction with the limo driver who took John McClane to Nakatomi Plaza, how could you appreciate the scenes where we cut to him sitting in the car with a huge teddy bear talking on the phone?!?!?!

The more I thought about it, the more flabbergasted I became

Until, one day, I realized it really doesn't fucking matter. The best thing I could do for my sanity and personal happiness was to

And let it go I did. I finally felt

As I pondered about what makes me feel like I need to know every single part of a movie, I realized we get too caught up in the details of things that don't matter while ignoring the details of things that do. Who cares if you have no idea how the couples in Couples Retreat ended up together on the island? It doesn't make it any less funny when the tantric yoga instructor is being a weirdo or any less heartwarming when Vince Vaughn gives one of the greatest explanations of love that's ever been written.

We get caught up scrolling our feeds and refreshing our timelines to get updates from people's lives whom we've never met or only had a few interactions with; meanwhile, you haven't called your grandma in three weeks.

Maybe you've had this realization before.

Maybe you have it every day.

Maybe you think what I'm writing at 31 years old is something most people have already figured out.

Those things could all be true at the same time. But another true thing is that an epiphany or realization isn't going to change your life unless you make a concerted effort to act on it. I can realize I'm a piece of shit for not calling my grandma during those five minutes I spend scrolling through NFL reactions of people roasting the Dallas Cowboys for getting whooped by the 49ers (please respect my silence during this time 💔), but unless I pick up the phone and reach out to her nothing's going to change.

Maybe I need to stop worrying about what happened in the first five minutes of Bullet Train (actually super important to understand Brad Pitt's character's relationship with violence fwiw) and just respond to the unanswered texts from people who love me.

What do you think?

You might wonder why this email is titled the way it is. It started as an idea to discuss the greatness of Marisa Tomei. It ended up being a realization of things I'm fucking up in my life (pretty much how everything I write goes, sans the Marisa Tomei part).

I told you my uncle loves animated films, and he does, but his favorite movie of all time is My Cousin Vinny. Why wouldn't it be? It's a classic. If you haven't watched it, please schedule some time this week to treat yourself by watching the film in its entirety (yes, the first five minutes are very important!).

Since this post was inspired by one of the all-time great Joe Pesci performances and the ever-lasting aura of Marisa Tomei, below you can find notes I took while watching the movie and thinking about what to write. Enjoy (maybe some spoilers ahead).

PS

Asher, I know I told you this email was supposed to be short…

I tried. I really did.

UNEDITED NOTES ON MY COUSIN VINNY WITH SOME EMOJIS ADDED TO MAKE THAT SHIT POP

• When the guys are getting interrogated, they haven't been told what they're charged with

  • This is anti-cop propaganda disguised as a comedy

  • This is one of the greatest comedies ever

• First Marisa sighting when they arrive to alabama

  • Jet black hair

  • Leather jacket

  • Looking fine as fuck

  • Pink camera, she's got style

• In prison

  • There's a big guy named Bubba who makes you his sex slave

• Funny without being insulting?

• Coming out of the shower stealing the show again with just legs 🦵🏼

• What can I do to help? She asks as "stand by your man" plays in the background

• Dressed like she's going to the met gala for breakfast with the white and black dress and big shoulder pads

• Look at the menu breakfast? Ya think? There's only 3 choices breakfast lunch and dinner

  • They order 2

  • You guys down here hear about the ongoing cholesterol problem in the country?

• Every line she speaks makes me want to marry her

• Bailiff in the courtroom the first time they walk in has the straightest mustache of all time 🥸

  • It's incredible

• She's worried about Vinny his first time talking to the judge because he's fucking up

  • She looks so beautiful worried 🤩

  • Damn if anyone ever reads these notes they'll think I'm weird as fuck this is pretty weird all these notes probably won't even work for the email

  • Will I ever even write this

• Vinny gets arrested and on the bus to the jail he's whistling and looking happy they don't understand but he's the greatest lawyer of all time so he's got this

• If I ever get arrested I want Marisa Tomei to bail me out if not just leave me there until she comes

• How old is Vinny's character supposed to be?

  • Joe Pesci born in 1943 this movie came out in 1992

  • Marisa Tomei was born in 1964 she's 21 years younger than Joe Pesci

• I don't give a fuck about cars but listening to her talk about cars turns me on 🚗💨

• "dead on balls accurate"

  • It's an industry term

• I guess the handles broken the water faucet is dripping

• Wtf is going on here Vinny, you fucking up this case or what?

  • Look a that amazing red dress and lipstick 👗💄

  • Youre my fiancee youre supposed to stand by your man and encourage me

  • She is!!!

• I need to know how old Joe Pesci is in this movie..🥴

• My roommate walks in and says my cousin Vinny?? Fucking great movie. My dad loves it it's his favorite like it's the sopranos

  • Everyone loves it

• When you're out there you're going to be really great

  • When Marisa Tomei tell ys you that you know you have a chance

  • IF YOU DON'T FUCK UP she always keeps it real

• Nobody pulls a wool over the eyes of a Gambini, especially this one

• Just give me one chance

• She's against Vinny going hunting, she loves the environment and the animals. Ahead of her time. What an icon 🏆

  • Leather is sustainable 🐮

• Deer story got me feeling hot, what is wrong with me 🫣

  • She's a great actress

  • If you were a deer and you got your brains blown out you think you'd give a fuck what the son of a bitch who shot you was wearing?

• He comes back from hunting thinking he finessed the other lawyer but he had no idea it's what is supposed to happen. Marisa Tomei tells him about disclosure

• Marisa Tomei

• Oh you told the judge your name is Jerry Hallo that's a smart move if you actually read the articles and not the only the headlines because he's dead! (early supporter of media literacy, always ahead of her time 🤓)

  • Very next scene she's wearing one of the hottest dresses ever

• Flying punch to get the $200 might be the greatest punch in the history of cinema

• Imagine being the stenographer for the lawyer who studdered

  • The free public defendant

• THE YUTES YOUR HONOR

  • Is it yutes or youts?

• Look at her smiling at him when he proves Ms Riley can't see shit I want her cheering on my D1 babies from the sideline

• Greatest witness of all time

  • Those tire marks could never be made by a 1964 Buick Skylark

• This may be the greatest display of lawyering of all time

• Harvey Specter or Vincent Gambino?

• Marisa Tomei

If you love 2UESDAY consider upgrading to a Premium Subscription.