Fear and Loathing in our Basements
The day Quarantine began, my local Whole Foods had a line around the entire city block. Everyone was stocking up on toilet paper, frozen pizza, and beans. That was 5 weeks ago now, and our provisions are long since exhausted. The book you bought to read? It’s finished. The 30 rolls of toilet paper? Somehow also finished. This thing is lasting longer than any of us hoped, so the JTTB staff are pulling back the curtains to reveal the books, jawnz, and provisions getting us through this strange time. It’s time to hit the reset button and prepare for the next few weeks of this bullshit.
Jack Ferris
The Perfect Shorts
I could come here and pretend I have a personality outside the realm of fashion, but that would really be a lie. I’m a shallow ditch of a man feigning interests for clout. Hardcore shows? I only go for the Air Maxes and merch designs. Biking? Only because my outfits look good in motion. In keeping with this, my first essential is, of course, a piece of clothing. These Noah shorts are admittedly a dumb purchase— $148 for what is basically Patagonia baggies. I will say, though, these fit a little slimmer than baggies and the nylon... oh my God the nylon. I’m used to associating nylon with 1000 denier cordura backpacks and raincoats, but it’s so soft and airy. In a lifestyle dominated by six-hour long stretches of Seinfeld on the couch and the occasional outdoor activity, these truly are perfect.
Tapes
Having already outed myself for investing in the hardcore scene largely for people’s fits, I do enjoy my music. Unfortunately, my AirPods keep dying because I use them to sit in front of the computer for longer than I’d like to admit. It’s important to be able to go analog in the apocalypse, so having a full stereo and some cassettes has been great for me. My current favorites are Dead & Dreaming’s Faces of Sleep and Gulch’s 2019 Promo. If anyone reading this has Candy’s 2017 Demo, any and all Hard Stripes and Division of Mind tapes, or the Sunami Demonstration tape please DM me on Instagram @jacklferris (I can pay with money and pictures of my hands which I was once told are nice).
If you want some tapes for yourself, go support my local shop because their selection fantastic and they deserve your patronage.
A Water Bottle
You know the fucking vibes. At risk of sounding like a fitness influencer with #stayhydrated in my story, you SHOULD be hydrated. When this all ends, do you want to come out of your hole with disgusting, oily skin and an engorged gut? No! You want to come out with softly glowing skin and a lithe form. On the Third Day after his death, Christ rose from the dead and emerged from the tomb. When the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene saw Jesus did they recoil at his appearance? No! Jesus was looking fresh-faced and well rested. Why? He’d been drinking water. Drink your damn water. This Need Supply Nalgene, although of the controversial narrow mouth variety, makes me feel chic as hell. Not to mention the fact that supporting small businesses is cool as fuck and gets you babes.
Bart Hutchins
Chaos by Tom O’Neill
Manson was a patsy. The CIA using him to discredit the hippie movement and quiet leftist action in the U.S. might have been hard to believe a few months ago, but Jeffery Epstein was murdered in broad daylight and now anything seems possible. Chaos is a 20-year investigation into a set of CIA operations that are truly mind blowing. We’re all losing it right now, so might as well tune in, drop out, and fuck the fed.
Lululemon Double Foam Roller
Speaking of taking down the fed, you can’t do that with tight muscles. Now becoming my everyday quarantine ritual, foam rolling has changed my life. The end of the word is stressful and rolling out every wound-up muscle is my favorite way of getting through it.
Nike Run Club App
This will end. And when it does, you can have the basement-dwelling incel body that the deep state wants or you can be a lean, mean, speedy little Adonis. I have never been a runner, but after a few weeks training with Nike Running’s “Global Head Coach” Chris Bennett, I can throw down 30 miles a week. The gyms are closed and body weight exercises are a joke. Go outside, hit the trails, and do something that will allow you to look down on others.
Mary SATOWOSKI OR SOMETHING
Now, more than ever, it is important to take care of our mental health. This means removing negative influences from our feeds. People that are more attractive, more in shape, and more interesting need not apply. Now is the time to live in the bubble I failed to create in the real world.
Flattering Mirrors
I refuse to be surrounded by anything that insists on reminding me of my terrible self control— they will be promptly removed and replaced. The under-appreciated but exceedingly important companion to a good mirror is good lighting.
A Copy of Infinite Jest
If you didn’t
Finish Infinite Jest
Invent post-ironic literature and the new sincerity
Attempt electroconvulsive therapy to treat chronic depression
Die tragically
You didn’t lack time. You lacked discipline.
Katie Kahn
Mason Pearson Mixed Bristle Brush (Junior)
A few years ago, I started growing out my entirely indefensibly-expensive-to-maintain platinum bob. I soon realized that, counterintuitively, the peroxide made my hair somewhat manageable. Huh. My natural chestnut waves generally look like trash after 3 seconds in the SF fog, no matter what I do to tame them. I decided an indefensibly-expensive iconic brush might help, and so I purchased one on sale from RueLaLa, right before Quarantine. Firstly, I should have selected a bigger one. Using the Junior, my hand gets tired after a minute of stroking my strands. Ha Ha. Stroking. Laugh all you want, you sexless fool! You didn’t pull before Quarantine, and you certainly won’t after! Secondly, I have no idea if it’s working yet, as I’m still in the “weird oil distribution” phase of switching to boar bristle. Despite this, it’s still an excellent buy. Methodically brushing my hair while locked away in my room for untold days to come makes me feel like a tragic princess who’s reminiscing a bygone era in which she had handmaidens gently setting her curls. This alone is worth the buckeroonies.
Life of the Party by Tea Hacic-Vlahovic
After nearly a decade of cross-platform enjoyment of Tea Hacic-Vlahovic’s Milanese missives and kooky videos, I showed up at one of her Thursday-night stand-up gigs with two large White Claws in my Gucci bag (the venue banned alcohol lol) and introduced myself. Flash forward a few hours and I’m fully slizzard off martinis at Chateau Marmont smushed on a couch between Tea and Rachel Rabbit White listening to some guy playing piano and occasionally dashing to the bathroom for girlfriend mirror selfies. Ah, the halcyon days of December 2019. What I’m trying to impart is that Tea is the Life of the Party, and so is her debut novel’s main character “Mia.” A post-punk escapee from the Opioid Belt, Mia tries to balance fashion school, relationships, and partying in late-2000s, a.k.a. pre-Instagram, Milan. While it sounds like the makings of a CW series, Mia is more likely found sitting on the sidewalk talking to the pigeons after a late night at the swingers’ club than in the frow with Anna Dello Russo. Reading the book, you get that youthful, yearning feeling that the next great party (or recently-imported horned-up male model) is right around the corner. Hopefully one day, when we are freed from our homes and all delete Instagram, that will be true again.
I bought this bikini inexplicably from RueLaLa at the beginning of Quar, and its delightful print and simple cut have brought a little joy to working from home. I wear it under something Zoom-appropos (por ejemplo: a Carole Baskin-inspired Whistle dress, a Sporty & Rich sweatshirt, Madewell pull-on shorts) so that I can quickly transition to flopping down and roasting my bones in the spring sun between calls. After applying sunscreen, of course. I’m not STUPID.
These days, Milly is best known for unchallenging semi-formal wear— let’s call it engagement-party chic— but it pioneered the floaty dress of the Bush era which has been on the verge of resurgence. Trend resurgence is a complicated matter because it’s often nostalgic: nostalgia is a tool used to feign sentimentality and shared cultural memory in order to distract and suppress progress. The worst part of the 2010’s was the explosion of millennial nostalgia for the 90’s and 00’s. But in times of chaos like now, doesn’t a picture of Paris Hilton wearing a Milly bow dress at the launch party for the pink Motorola Razr make you feel a bit better? Oop, the sun’s out! Gotta go bake!
Jesse Beardsworth
A Bottle of Whiskey
I re-watched Justified, possibly my favourite TV show of all time, last month, and boy do they consume a lot of Bourbon. Be it Blanton's, Maker’s Mark, or the elusive Pappy Van Winkle - you name it and Raylan will drink it at some point over the 6 season run. I’ll probably write an article about why I love Justifed soon. I wish I was a Cowboy. I’m not sure where this is going anymore, but hey, drink whiskey, it passes the time!
Or, in particular, read a Cormac McCarthy novel. I was recommended Blood Meridian by a friend, and I loved it. Though his level of detail in certain passages may rise to excruciating, McCarthy really makes the reader feel a part of frontier life, even if most inhabitants of said frontier meet a violent end. I’m currently reading No Country For Old Men, another of McCarthy's popular works, and it is brilliant. In a time BQ (before Quarantine) I ventured onto r/CormacMcCarthy and was saddened to see the users of such a subreddit were awfully typecast - violent incels. Oh well.
World-Class Leisurewear
I would have gone insane if not for the feel of a loop back sweater on my otherwise bare body. Leisurewear is a growing niche, and is very fucking expensive. But what is the point of money if you don’t spend it on things you like? Well, I’m incredibly frugal so I’m going to leave that question rhetorical. My Dad, however, invested wisely in a full Sunspel sweatsuit a few years ago, and he continues to flaunt it around me all the time. It’s infuriating. I’m slowly going insane. If only I’d spent my money on the finest cotton sweatpants the UK has to offer instead of food. I may be dead, but at least I’d be comfortable.