What A Terrific Week For New Jersey, Culturally

Some people like to make fun of New Jersey. “Oh, it’s a dump,” they’ll say. Or they’ll say, “it’s barely even a state, really, more just a buffer between Philly and New York to keep them from fighting each other.” Or they’ll say, “no one even cares about New Jersey anymore now that The Sopranos and Jersey Shore are off television.”

Well, the joke is on those people, because New Jersey is all over the news this week. Big things are happening in the Garden State. Why, you could even say it’s more like “InTheNews Jersey,” if you wanted to make the readers of your newsletter groan out loud. I would never do that. But you could.

The big one happened on Sunday night, when Rose Byrne took the stage at the Golden Globes to accept the award for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy. You have perhaps heard about this, but both to be sure we’re all up to speed and because Rose Byrne is cool, I will post the video here…

… and I will also blockquote the relevant section, which THR wrote up with a helpful fact-check.

Byrne explained that (Bobby) Cannavale was unable to join her at the Golden Globes because he was in the process of finding a new, cold-blooded member of the family. “We’re getting a bearded dragon, and he went to a reptile expo in New Jersey,” she said to laughter from crowd. (Byrne referred to Cannavale as “my husband” but has noted in previous interviews that the pair, who have been together for over a decade, are not legally married.)

Which, obviously, incredible for many reasons, starting with what a cool couple Rose Byrne and Bobby Cannavale are to be like “yea, sure, the Golden Globes, but what about this reptile???” and extending to how wild it must be to be chilling at your little stand at a reptile expo in New Jersey and suddenly, hey, it’s Bobby Cannavale asking about your bearded dragon. I choose to believe Bobby flew home first-class with a seat for him and a seat for the bearded dragon next to him. I choose to believe they both had champagne. I could go on for hours with hypotheticals about Bobby Cannavale and his bearded dragon.

But I imagine you, like me, have questions about this reptile expo, which cursory internet research suggests was a touring nationwide event called ReptiCon that stopped in Edison, New Jersey, last weekend. The ReptiCon website is pretty bare bones, but it does have lots of useful information buried in its FAQ section. Can you hold an animal at the show? Yes, but "each exhibitor is different so please ask before touching and always use hand sanitizer!" Can you bring your personal animals to Repticon? Sure, up to two, although "animals brought by guests to the event must be in good health and under their control at all times." Can you bring a venomous animal to a show? "Even though we have 'hot' shows, venomous animals are never allowed to be brought into our shows." Good to know!

I like this last one because its inclusion means someone has absolutely brought a venomous animal to ReptiCon before. I picture them shouting "FOR WHAT?" when they were asked to leave. Anyway, this is my favorite entry in the ReptiCon FAQ.

An animal escaped…it was my mom’s favorite! What do I do?

Each exhibitor is responsible for ensuring that no animals leave their exhibit area unless under the control of an employee or customer. Each vendor is responsible for recapturing any escaped animals without unreasonable disruption to other exhibitors or guests. Any escaped animals must be immediately reported to Repticon. Any lost animals that are found after event hours or after the event closes become the property of Repticon, with no obligation for return to the original owner.

If you can read that paragraph without immediately getting a mental image of Bobby Cannavale crawling around the floor of a New Jersey reptile expo trying to find the escaped bearded dragon he missed his partner’s Golden Globes win for to acquire for their children, well, I bet you're picturing it now. 

And yet, against truly staggering odds, this is not my favorite animal-related story out of New Jersey in the last week. That honor goes to a story I saw on NJ dot com with the incredible headline “Beloved walrus penis stolen from N.J. cheesesteak icon. Owner is blubbering mad.” Background will help…

Owner Rob Lucas Jr. told NJ Advance Media that Donkey’s Place has kept a walrus baculum — a bone in the penis of many mammals — behind the bar for as long as he can remember. The popular conversation piece sits alongside a megalodon tooth and several other artifacts.

I mean, sure. And apparently, a customer asked to see it and then walked off with it while no one was looking. The owner is being pretty chill about it, too, saying he doesn’t want to press charges over the stolen walrus penis.

“We didn’t want to file a police report or anything like that,” Lucas said. “We just want the thing back.”

Okay, two notes in conclusion:

• All of this raises the possibility that some guy tried to sell Bobby Cannavale a contraband walrus penis in the parking lot of the reptile convention he went to instead of the Golden Globes ceremony where his partner won an award
• If so, it’s really hard to pinpoint which of them had a better weekend

This has been your update on New Jersey.

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STUFF I CLICKED ON

— great blog by Ray Ratto about Bill Kennedy, the NBA’s most charismatic referee, who just went down with a hamstring injury

— Vulture went long on David Ellison, who gives off big putz energy

— Lisa Weidenfeld interviewed the Taskmaster guys 

— Philadelphia Magazine dug into the fiasco at the art museum

— some cussing in here but I just saw the “Yellowstone in 45 seconds” videos again and so I have to share it

— incredible comic where Columbo investigates Frasier and Niles for murder

— new show from the Abbott Elementary team

— the guy from Faith No More invested his first $14,000 in Apple and is a mega multimillionaire now???

— Kit Harrington fed up

— “Stranger Things doc director offers bizarre non-defense of alleged ChatGPT use”

— I love that Jennifer Lawrence will talk about whatever

— it is super cool that some writers realized the trademark for the shuttered Gourmet Magazine had lapsed and decided to just do it themselves

— lol "brilliant but reluctant L.A. psychologist Alex Delaware"

— Wawa coffee heist

— “Flock of 50 sheep storm Penny supermarket in Germany”

— the Rockford Files reboot is a nice reminder that the original theme song goes so much harder than it needs to

Okay, that's it for this week. Please subscribe and share and give back the walrus penis if you were the one who took it.