The True Cost of Nostalgia

The Friday High 5

Walt Disney Studios

Nostalgia is one of the driving factors in my life, to the extent that a not-inconsiderate amount of my life is spent in conversation with my own past. I’d rather talk about 20-year-old movies than the latest theatrical release. If life is a journey of self-discovery, how bizarre it is to realize you’re more invested in your past than your future.

I’m not exactly alone in this. Hollywood’s current business model is entirely predicated on mining our past to resell it to us. And it works. I recognize the game even as willingly I had over my chits.

Nostalgia is empty calories. Junk food. It’s also why I am moved to tears every time Rey catches the Skywalker lightsaber in The Force Awakens. There’s no logical reason for it. But how do you argue with your own heart? (Btw, just dialed up that video and yep, still activates the tear ducts.)

So yeah, on the whole, I’m very pro-nostalgia. To the point that my writing career is founded on it. (It feels very high brow to call this a career but the IRS tells me I can no longer classify it as a hobby, and the tax implications of obsessions are unclear.) I started out writing fiction because I was chasing that old familiar dragon, and even though I don’t write fiction as often, I still daydream about my own Star Wars novel. I realize that’s far-fetched, but I have a higher chance of delivery than any of Lucasfilm’s live-action projects.

That was a very long wind-up to get to my point, but all of it is topical.

I recently watched ¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!, a documentary about South Park co-creator Trey Parker’s attempt to save a piece of his childhood and Matt Stone’s extreme patience with his friend. Casa Bonita is a restaurant and Colorado cultural landmark, one I’d not heard of because I’ve never been west of the Mississippi. It’s the excess of Disney World with sombreros and cliff-diving. It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.

The restaurant closed in 2021, another casualty of Covid. Parker and Stone bought the property out of bankruptcy for around $3 million, which meant they had no clue what they were buying.

They bought a hot mess.

The documentary is about the renovation of the restaurant, which includes an actual pool that Parker and Stone can shovel money into.

There’s a point early on when the estimated work skyrockets to $20 million. Parker acknowledges the smart move is to get out, even if it means eating $10 million. But he doesn’t want to quit, and is a rather giddy when Stone’s forbearance holds.

Rather than just another disaster renovation show, the documentary is a cautionary tale of the true price of nostalgia. Not just in a financial sense—which in Parker’s case amounts to many millions of dollars—but also in that nostalgia cannot survive direct contact with the thing we love. There’s a moment at the end of the film where Parker acknowledges that in saving Casa Bonita for everyone else, it’s now lost to him. Talk about tragic.

I have little risk in losing Star Wars by writing about it from afar. In fact, the act of engaging directly with my nostalgia keeps my love for the saga alive, even as present-day Star Wars flounders about uselessly. But I’m also reconsidering my penchant for nostalgia for its own sake. It’s awfully easy to get caught in the tractor beam of the past and be sucked inexorably backwards.

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Every Friday I share 5 things I enjoyed this week. Also, high fives are inherently cool, and I think we can all agree Friday is the bestest day. Hence the Friday High 5. 🙏🏻

This week’s High 5 is going to be a bit nontraditional, mostly because it was one of those weeks without much excitement. I’m going to keep it on the short side, too.

¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!

One of the unexpectedly great parts of the documentary is seeing Parker and Stone record South Park dialogue. And also just exist and be funny. Some people just got it.

1923

We finished season 1 of this Yellowstone spin-off, which it turns out is only half the story. And the least-interesting half, I might add. I enjoy seeing Harrison Ford sit a horse and gruffly tell people how it is, but it was all setup. It felt like watching pieces moving around a chessboard but without any major moves. In that way, it actually reminded me of season 2 of House of the Dragon.

This Cord Organizer

Sometimes it’s the simple things.

I like a clean desk but by necessity have cords all over the place. This nifty little bit of foam wrangles them all and keeps everything tucked neatly out of place so I can pretend I’m living in a MacBook ad.

GRRM Talking about Roleplaying Games

Sometimes you just want to know your heroes are not that different from you.

I don’t know what it is about GRRM exactly, but man. I can listen to this guy talk about basically anything. Good storyteller.

BTW, GRRM playing a roleplaying game where the characters are senators jockeying for power is completely on-brand.

My Detroit Lions

Yes, this is ostensibly a pop culture outlet, but my Detroit Lions are giving me so much life right now.

I’ve been a fan my entire life, and we have been bad for 95% of it. This current run of excellence is unprecedented. Not only did we come within a few fluke plays of making the Super Bowl last year—which we’ve never done—but we’re currently the top team in the NFC and favorites to reach the Super Bowl.

A lot can change in the next 10 weeks, but this team is something special.