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Vibe Check
RomanceLandia and the Rise of Queer Romance
00:45:39
On this episode of Vibe Check, Saeed and Zach welcome Saeed’s longtime friend and romance expert Tanya Melendez to break down the rise of romance across every genre. From beloved tropes to what really separates a true romance from just a love story, they cover it all — including a deep dive into the TV show Heated Rivalry. Then, Tanya spills a little tea about what Saeed was like as a teenager. Plus, they share their picks for “the vibes are on, the vibes are off”.
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- [00:00]
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- [01:00]
Tanya Melendez
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Tanya Melendez
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- [01:31]
Zach Safford
This episode of Vibe Check is sponsored by Cricket Wireless. Cricket famously is the very first phone carrier I ever got as a teenager. They have been around for that long and they have been that consistent for that long and they have been the way in which I have stayed connected to my friends and family for many, many many years. We have big love for Cricket Wireless and everyone over there. Cricut Wireless is all about reliable nationwide 5G that helps you do more of what you love when you love to do it. We with nationwide 5G and a vibe that's friendly, affordable and drama. Free. Cricut Keeps you connected and sharing with ease. You get speed, reliability and real connection effortlessly. Welcome to Cricut Nation. Cricut 5G requires a compatible device and is not available everywhere. See CricutWireless.com for details. Girls, girlies, girls.
- [02:24]
Saeed Jones
Tris, Trace, girles. Oh, my gosh. Oh, this is going to be so fun, listeners, because our third girl this week is my dear friend Tanya Melendez. She has known me since I was 18 years old.
- [02:43]
Tanya Melendez
The wee little baby, baby, say you.
- [02:47]
Saeed Jones
And we've been friends the whole time. And she is now working on her dissertation at the University of Illinois and is a self described pop culture junkie. So let's get into this. I'm going to do it. I'm Saeed Jones.
- [03:03]
Tanya Melendez
I'm Tanya Melendez.
- [03:06]
Zach Safford
And I'm Zach Safford. And you're listening to Vibe Check. Listeners. You can tell Tanya listens to Vibe Check because she knew the beat immediately.
- [03:19]
Tanya Melendez
Oh, yes, I do. I know this song. This is my jam.
- [03:28]
Saeed Jones
Oh, I'm so excited.
- [03:29]
Zach Safford
No, this is. We've been talking about you for so long and Saeed's been like, we gotta get my friend in. We gotta get my friend in. And we have not met yet. This is our first time meeting.
- [03:37]
Tanya Melendez
I know, I'm so excited.
- [03:38]
Zach Safford
Oh, yeah. And then you live in Illinois. I'm a big fan of Illinois, the state that took me in after I left Nashville. Ran away from the South. I went to school. But thank you for being here.
- [03:47]
Tanya Melendez
Thank you so much for having me. I have watched you on stage, Zach, because I went to the live show in Chicago. So that was fabulous.
- [03:55]
Zach Safford
That is right. Oh, my God, yes. You were there. Wow. Now it's all coming back to me. I totally forgot that. Yes. That's amazing.
- [04:01]
Tanya Melendez
Oh, no, you met so many people that night. It's okay.
- [04:06]
Zach Safford
Thank you for giving me the grace. But yes, we have actually been together, but this is our first, like, substantive time in which I get to listen to your brilliance because you are a site has already teed up an expert in a topic that we are discussing today, which is the rise of romance across all genres. Which is.
- [04:21]
Tanya Melendez
Yes, absolutely. I love love. Let's do it.
- [04:25]
Saeed Jones
Let's do it. Well, you know, as we always do on the show, we love to ask each other our vibe. Tanya Melendez, what's your vibe? How you doing?
- [04:33]
Tanya Melendez
You know, I am so happy to be here because my vibe is 90% stressed out over writing at the moment, which I know you can relate to sometimes. I'm neck deep in my dissertation process. So if I do not have romantic fiction of every kind, okay. In my life, every day, I would be going insane. So my vibes are good because heated rivalry edits are getting me through.
- [05:01]
Saeed Jones
Wait, heated rivalry edits? Oh, is that something like on TikTok, where it's like a montage?
- [05:08]
Tanya Melendez
Yes.
- [05:09]
Saeed Jones
Like a little slideshow.
- [05:10]
Tanya Melendez
Yes. We don't call them montages anymore. It went from montages to super cuts to edits. So now we're in edit land.
- [05:18]
Zach Safford
I have to say, Tonya, as someone that has, you know, I'm older because I, you know, we were all probably, you know, we were around when YouTube was launching and video editing was such a foreign concept.
- [05:28]
Saeed Jones
We were there when the. When the old scripts were.
- [05:32]
Zach Safford
When they were written in the original. But, you know, I'm just now learning how to edit video on a very, like, base level. These young people, those fan edits, Oscar worthy.
- [05:42]
Tanya Melendez
It's incredible. Yeah, it's incredible. Like, it is such a joyous expression of fandom. I cannot get enough. I have seen fan edits about Woodward and Bernstein from all the President's Men.
- [05:58]
Zach Safford
It's really. And like, what is it? I mean, this gets into kind of the topic a bit, but I would argue that fan edits are a material that has been created in our culture that shows the humanity within a digital landscape. Because I've never seen AI do a fan edit. Well, do you agree?
- [06:15]
Saeed Jones
True.
- [06:16]
Tanya Melendez
Yeah, it can't. It can't because it's about what is the moment, the look, the image, the touch that. That absolutely brings back all the emotions from when you first watched the material. Right. And AI can't do that. They don't know why a tuna melt is important.
- [06:33]
Zach Safford
So that's what you don't get. You know, a lot of how AI does. Is say, doesn't even bother himself with AI so he doesn't really know probably the mechanics of it. But, you know, they look at, like, audio files and you look at levels and you see more levels spike. And AI assumes because there's laughter, that that is something to focus on. So it uses a very, like, mathematical way of building out video content, which sometimes can be. But humanity is not always a mathematical equation, especially when it comes to, like, fan edits and romance in these videos, which is what you're focusing on.
- [07:04]
Tanya Melendez
Mm.
- [07:05]
Zach Safford
And love, love, love.
- [07:06]
Saeed Jones
Well, this is our Valentine's Day episode. So, Zach, I would ask you, you know, like, what's your. I'm gonna. This is so nervous. What's my vibe? What's your.
- [07:14]
Zach Safford
Hey.
- [07:15]
Saeed Jones
Hi, friend.
- [07:17]
Zach Safford
What's going on? Let me get comfortable.
- [07:18]
Saeed Jones
What's your Valentine's Day vibe?
- [07:20]
Zach Safford
My vibes. It's so funny. I used to be a person that. Okay, so folks know I like to look at Facebook mem to see where I was same day in the past. Nostalgia is my drug. I love it every day. But I used to be a person that loved to talk about how single they were all the time. And then, you know, four or five years ago, I stopped being single, and now I have a partner that. In which it's like, we are so together all the time that, like, Valentine's Day is something I don't even think about that much anymore. So that transition has been really funny. And proof of how much I've transitioned from a person that used to rail against Valentine's Day and call it Singles awareness Day and make content about it and post about it is that I am spending Valentine's Day with my entire family in Craig, so I don't even have privacy with my partner. We're, like, going on a little trip to Ojai together. It's my birthday in 10 days, so my mom and my sister are flying in with their partners, and we're spending it together. So my Valentine's Day is about, like, my familial love, which is such a funny, mature chapter of a relationship that isn't so stoked. And did he buy me flowers? Are we going to dinner? Like, I know he loves me so much that I'm saying, let's spend time with my mother, which is a very thing for me. So that's my vibe. Saeed, how about you?
- [08:36]
Saeed Jones
I mean, I love that, like, you coming at a different angle, because, honestly, the only people right now in my life, aside from, like, literary authors who I feel like really get a lot of what I'm going through are my friends who are working on their dissertations. You know what I mean? It's like, my friend Hannah and I being. She's like, I wrote a sentence today, and I'm like, I revised a sentence. That was the best I could do. You, like, it's just. You're in deep. And so, you know, I am now researching Audre Lorde's life, and it's been really interesting learning more about her relationships. And, ooh, she sure did live in this world. And, you know, it's interesting. Like, in this book, I don't know if I'm gonna write about this time, but Langston Hughes, like, when he's in the book, most of it is set in Mexico. And as it turns out for Audre Lorde, you know, she was already working with her feelings about queer from really, like, pre college years. But her first time really embracing being in a lesbian public relationship was during a year she spent in Mexico. She went on a trip to Mexico, and while she was there, she like, just, you know, and it didn't last beyond that time, but it was just really formative. And it's just really interesting thinking about a woman warrior like Audre Lorde even needing to kind of, like, tiptoe and being liberated by this experience. So far away from. So that's kind of my. Valente's Vibe is like learning about how our ancestors learned to love.
- [10:07]
Tanya Melendez
That's so great.
- [10:08]
Zach Safford
You're such a good steward of that reflection because you've been talking a lot on the show about the messiness of our ancestors and their human experiences.
- [10:17]
Saeed Jones
Yes, it's a whole thing. They were just people. Anyway. Okay, before we jump into this episode, we want to thank all of you who continue to listen to the show. Don't forget, you can email us anytime@vibecheckstitcher.com, and of course, a special shout out to all of our Cupids cuties, Cupid's
- [10:36]
Zach Safford
time,
- [10:39]
Saeed Jones
who subscribed to our Patreon. If you want to join the group chat, you can find us@patreon.com vibecheck but for now, let's get into. What is it called? Let us go to Romancelandia.
- [10:50]
Tanya Melendez
Romancelandia. That's my name.
- [10:51]
Saeed Jones
Let us journey. That's her name, to Romancelandia. Okay, so obviously, Zach and I are huge fans of heated rivalry, but admittedly, we're not experts on the romance genre at all. And in particular, something I know I'm gonna want us to talk about is, you know, when the show took off, I felt like initially, a lot of cisgender gay men were confused by this, you know, phenomenally sexy TV show that's all about gay men. They're women characters, and they're wonderful as well. But it's about gay men and gay. I mean, gay fucking, to be honest. And they were like, it was written by a woman. You know, it was like, you know, for some people, they just couldn't square. I was like, it's called fiction. But so I felt like it would be good to bring in my friend Tanya, who, as we've said, understands it really well. So to get it started, he did Rivalry. I mean, it's kind of scary how much I'm a little worried for the actors to be honest. Cause, you know, fans can be a lot. What did you think of the show? Were you surprised that it took off in the way that it has?
- [12:12]
Tanya Melendez
I mean, I really do think the smuggest people on the Internet right now are us bitches who read romance. I think we. We have been waiting to throw this in yalls faces for so long, like, just taking hits for decades. Here we go. Like, it is unbelievable to me how much I knew that eventually this would happen. I didn't know which book, I didn't know which adaption, but, yeah, this was not a shock to those of us who love the genre. This is, to me, the most vital form of any love story that there is is the romance genre. It is built on trope. It has genre expectations that are rigid as hell. If you don't have a happy ending, it's not a romance. It is a love story. And those can be beautiful. But it is not a romance if it does not have a happy ending for whatever that couple looks like, whether it is a CIS heterocouple and just two of them, or if it is a polyamorous mob of asexual genderqueer folk, it doesn't matter. They need to be happy.
- [13:28]
Saeed Jones
Okay.
- [13:29]
Nordstrom Rack Advertiser
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- [13:29]
Saeed Jones
Okay. So this feels like a good example of the divergence, because as a gay man and I hadn't read the book, I experienced so much dread in the lead up, right? Because I think gay men, we have all our trauma, right? And so we're like. I was just like, there's no way. You know, like Kip and Scott. I was like, there's no way. There's no way. Shane's parents, you know, I was just waiting for the other shoe to drop. But you're saying for people familiar with romance, y' all were like, it's good.
- [14:00]
Tanya Melendez
We were fine.
- [14:00]
Saeed Jones
It's the process.
- [14:01]
Tanya Melendez
Yep, we were fine. We knew it's the how. The how is what hooks us. Every trope that is deployed has to be deployed in a way that feels fresh and new. And that's where we get back to why this worked, which is the writing. It is the book. Rachel Reed wrote a series. It was six books. Scott and Kip are the first book. Heated Rivalry is the second book. And it goes all the way through to the Long Game, which is the sequel to Heated Rivalry. And now the next one is coming out. But the reality is that it is a series of tropes. Enemies to lovers is a trope, right? You know, the Grumpy Sunshine is a trope, right? Ilia. Ilia being the angsty on the inside, gooey on the inside, but outwardly just this man whore running around is a trope. Right. And then the introvert who tames that. This is all typical tropes, but what matters is that Rachel wrote all of these perfect scenes that built on one another. There's not a wasted scene. In a great romance novel, every single page matters. You're not going to diverge for two chapters to discuss other side characters or somebody investing in a company or somebody's brother. No, in a romance novel, you are focused. And that includes the sex scenes, obviously. So obviously, romance tells a simple story on the face of it, but the execution of Rachel Reed's writing by a man who care deeply about bringing that to life with Jacob Tierney, that's what you get. And then, you know, you add Connor story and Hudson Williams into the equation, and, you know, yay for the casting folks. Right? So you bring those two in with their chemistry, and everything comes to life. I think the success of this will hopefully force other producers to pay attention to the material, let the language do its job, let the writers write and trust the books.
- [16:08]
Saeed Jones
Right. Like, to your point, like, sticking close to the book.
- [16:10]
Tanya Melendez
Every line that people love from heated rivalry, Rachel Reid wrote.
- [16:14]
Zach Safford
Yeah, yeah. Well, I want to talk more about the characters because there's been a lot of controversy around who the characters are and who they are in the real world or the physical world outside the books. Our dear friend Chani Nicholas got into some trouble and threads because she tweeted out that the story was a Sapphic love story, it wasn't a gay love story, and that she wrote something to the effect of the patriarchal imagination. Could never. By stating that, you know, these two men, why we escape into them, is that they're presenting a masculinity that isn't glamorized or celebrated in popular culture. We're seeing men with emotional depth. We're seeing men work through their emotional depths with each other, not with a woman aiding to get over that hurdle. And she got a lot of pushback from gay men who have been very, you know, sensitive about this show because they're saying, you know, people that said, and I may go have cocktails with, are like, why are women, you know, turning their gaze to us? Why are they looking to us? Why are they putting all these tropes onto us? So what do you make of the queering of these tropes within romance? Have they always been able to hold queer bodies, or is this something special? We're seeing with heat of rivalry.
- [17:19]
Tanya Melendez
What's interesting to me is this is a combination of things. Number one, women have always been writing gay men and love stories. That has never stopped. That has always been a part of it. I mean, if you want to go back to fan mags in the 70s that were all about Kirk and Spock doing it in space, this is traditional work. The difference is, as the publishing industry has changed for romance, so have the stories. Right. The explosion of the indie author. Romance is the genre that produces the most successful indie authors outside of traditional publishing. Traditional publishing is going to minimize risk. Indie authors write what they write, and that allows so many different queer experiences to come across on pages. It's always the same tropes. It's the same tropes they were writing in the 70s, right. Rich girl, poor boy. Like the whole thing.
- [18:12]
Zach Safford
Yeah.
- [18:13]
Tanya Melendez
But as authorship has become more accessible in the digital age, as indie authors can get their work out and seen as people engaged in fan activity on social media, book talk will launch someone into space if they feel like it. Right. All of these things together allow for these queer experiences to be written. Now, women are writing them. Women are writing them for a lot of different reasons, one of which is a. It's hot.
- [18:41]
Saeed Jones
What?
- [18:41]
Tanya Melendez
Can we all agree that gay sex is hot? Like, why is that? Why is that even? I don't understand when people are like, I don't know why women. Like, I don't know. It's two hot guys doing it.
- [18:55]
Saeed Jones
Yeah. From the perspective of a woman, it's like, you like men. Why not have two men?
- [19:00]
Tanya Melendez
Here's two, add a third. There's another one. Like, I don't. It just. It's bizarre to me that we have to simplify this and be like, well, what is the deep psychological wins. Yes. We live in a patriarchy and it's bullshit every single day. And I will tell you, as a bisexual woman who was married to a man, I am all for vulnerable men and fighting toxic masculinity. I get the same joy out of fictional characters being good people in almost any genre. But in romance, it becomes this beautiful fantasy of what it's like when men in particular, but all people are able to risk vulnerability and have it pay off. Right. There is justice here. Those that expose themselves and are willing to be gentle and are willing to be vulnerable get rewarded, you know?
- [19:57]
Zach Safford
Yeah.
- [19:58]
Saeed Jones
Oh, I love that.
- [19:59]
Tanya Melendez
I always say that, like, one of the best things about romance is that love in itself for everybody. It's like this achievable Everest. Right. Like, we can all have that, but it feels like it's the biggest thing in the entire world. Why would we not want to read about that?
- [20:18]
Zach Safford
Yeah, yeah. That's so real. And, you know, something to kind of broaden the aperture here a bit, but keep it within queer storytelling. You know, people have been saying this show only works because they're men. A lesbian version would never work. And then I bring up, what about Hunting Wives? Does that fit into this? Which I'd love for you to respond to that part. But before we get there, I was thinking about television that has created these huge moments over the past two decades. And a lot of those moments, to me, are actual queer television. Orange is the New Black launched Netflix, and that was a Sapphic story of folks in prison. So as an expert looking at TV and what it means for culture at large, what do you make of these moments in which queer stories become so huge and become a sticking point for all of us to see ourselves within them?
- [21:05]
Tanya Melendez
Yeah, I study television for a little. That's what I do.
- [21:08]
Pharmaceutical Ad Voice
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- [21:09]
Tanya Melendez
And the thing that I study about it the most is how TV creates cultural scripts. We are trained by our television sets, and I say television sets. It's just. That's how we watch tv. But you know what I mean? And one of the ways it trains us is that we watch stories of people. We attach ourselves to characters, we map ourselves into their experiences, regardless of what those literal experiences are. Right? We map ourselves to their emotional experiences. And the story of queerness on television has always been the pushing forward of the connection between those who are queer and those who don't understand queerness. Right. Even if they are. Don't know it yet, or even if they're young and figuring out, or even if they truly believe they have never met a queer person. Right? Because those people do exist. But it matters. There have been studies that have proven that for all of its faults, willing grace helped enable marriage equality in this country. It just did. We know it did. It changed the way people thought about those characters and therefore, how they thought about gay and lesbian couples in this country. There is nothing wrong with, I think, the way people think of having a token character. We can talk about that term forever, obviously. But having queer characters in every story matters because queer people are everywhere. Right? Highlighting their stories within a larger cast is also important. The Hunting Wives does not hinge on the romance between these women. It does hinge, though, on the sexual attraction that they are compulsively pulled back together over and over again. Right. But also it Matters in Apple's biggest show this year. Right. Rhea Seehorn just won a Golden Globe playing a lesbian who loses their partner but then is tempted with. Right. Like it's a whole thing. But her queerness is inherent. Television used to separate queerness from the character, or it was the only part of the character, one or the other. Right. Either they were the gay capital letters, or they just mentioned it once, never talked about it again. Now we're in an age in which television is allowing queer people to be fully formed human beings on screen. And that is everything. That is the next stage of representation that matters.
- [23:35]
Zach Safford
Oh, my gosh. You are so brilliant. Saeed was so right. Like.
- [23:39]
Saeed Jones
Like, when I'm right, I'm right, and I'm always right.
- [23:41]
Zach Safford
I'm sorry, but. Well, a lot of what you just said, I want to dive more into, but I want to dive into it more with a character we all know on the show. And that character is Saeed Jones. Because from what I Hear, you've known Ms. Jones before she even knew herself. So if you're willing to stay around, I'd love to use the next segment to go into some tea about Saeed Jones.
- [24:03]
Tanya Melendez
I would love to do that.
- [24:05]
Zach Safford
Amazing. And we're gonna try to tie it to the subject matter itself. We're gonna try. So listeners, stay tuned for our next segment, the romance of Saeed Jones.
- [24:12]
Tanya Melendez
We'll be right back.
- [24:18]
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- [25:34]
Zach Safford
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- [26:52]
Saeed Jones
All right, cuties, we are back and we are here again with my longtime friend and tv. You call yourself a pop culture junkie? And I'm like, I don't know. You're a pop culture goddess. You have so much insight into not just romance, but tv. I mean, Zach, I can send this to you later and readers should listen, but Tonya wrote a great piece a couple of years ago for Vox about depictions of abortion stories on television and, you know, and how they all play out whether the abortion happens or, oh, you suddenly miscarry and so we don't actually have to follow through on this difficult story. She's just brilliant and so, yeah, we would love to have you back to talk about probably all kinds of tips anytime, but let's get messy. All right. Okay, Zach, I'll let you take it from here.
- [27:43]
Zach Safford
Okay. So when was the first moment you saw Saeed Jones, and what did you think? This is also a question that shows up in we aren't really strangers, which I should just bring that game, the card game. I don't know if you're familiar with it.
- [27:56]
Tanya Melendez
I have not played it yet.
- [27:58]
Zach Safford
Oh, it is. We should all play this game.
- [28:00]
Saeed Jones
He made me play it once. We went on a boat trip. I did. In Mexico City on the river, where you're stuck on that damn boat for, like, three hours. You can't escape. And then he just pulled out that
- [28:11]
Zach Safford
red Deca said, I'm choosing Emotional Violence on this record with tequila. So one of my favorite questions, though, in there is when you pull a card and it asks the question of, what did you think of the person next to you the first time you ever saw them? So what was that? What's that story of you and Saeed?
- [28:28]
Tanya Melendez
Okay. I can actually. I don't know the exact moment. Like, I can't pin it. Saeed competed in Speech when he was in college at Western Kentucky University. I was a coach at that time in speech. I'm older than y'. All.
- [28:41]
Zach Safford
At Western Kentucky.
- [28:43]
Tanya Melendez
No, I was not at Western Kentucky. I competed for Bradley University. But when Syed and I first met, I was at Seed Hall University in New Jersey.
- [28:50]
Zach Safford
Yeah. Yeah.
- [28:51]
Saeed Jones
And so, by the way, fierce competitors. Like, it was fierce, fierce rivalry. Oh, my God. Speech rivalry.
- [28:59]
Tanya Melendez
Speech rivalries. Let me tell you, Saeed, if we write the enemies to lovers in speech. Oh, my God.
- [29:05]
Zach Safford
That's what it would be.
- [29:05]
Tanya Melendez
Oh, my God. It would be incredible.
- [29:07]
Saeed Jones
Bradley University and Western University were big rivalries.
- [29:11]
Tanya Melendez
Huge rivalries. But, yeah, so I judged Said like, I was a literal judge with a ballot, watching him speak. And let me tell you, this is what I remember, though. Number one, his suits were good. I am such a snob about this. I am a snob. And college guys would show up with suits four times. It was like their dad's bar mitzvah suits. It was insane. And they would look like shit. And so it was just. Which is criminal because Speech girlies are surrounded by gays and would love a straight guy to look good, and so they would look terrible. And Saeed's suit was perfect. The other thing I remember was his hair. Saeed rocked what I call the Sideshow Bob.
- [29:54]
Zach Safford
Sideshow Bob. We need a photo oh, my gosh.
- [30:00]
Tanya Melendez
Oh, my God. There's so many pictures out there. I will find one. His hair, he had dreads, but he was growing them out, so they were at that awkward sort of length. So it was like, I think I
- [30:11]
Saeed Jones
would wear a hairband to kind of try to.
- [30:16]
Tanya Melendez
It was just sideshow Bob in every way. It was absolutely incredible. And then the other thing was, I quickly figured out that I can make said laugh at inappropriate times. This was key. Speech is stressful. It's long. It's a long day, and it is stressful. And so the more you laugh, the better your day goes. That's just the way it is. And I hope any speech kid listening to this remembers that. But we would just talk shit about other people that we shouldn't have been saying and then crack each other up. And I was chain smoking at the time.
- [30:52]
Saeed Jones
You were.
- [30:54]
Tanya Melendez
Saeed would just stand with me in a cloud of smoke while I was chain smoking, and we would just be talking mad shit about everybody. And he would give me so much gossip. Also, Saeed was always the last one back to his bus. So the team would be caught enough to know. And you would hear. You would hear coaches from western Kentucky screaming, saeed, where's Siaee Jones? And Saeed? And I would be like, behind a building like this.
- [31:25]
Zach Safford
For listeners who are not watching this, Saeed just ran out of the studio because he was being dragged too much.
- [31:31]
Tanya Melendez
That was absolutely true.
- [31:33]
Saeed Jones
I was always the last one. Just having a kiki with my girls,
- [31:40]
Tanya Melendez
Just having a great time.
- [31:42]
Saeed Jones
What's the rush? Where do we have to be?
- [31:48]
Zach Safford
Oh, my gosh. Yeah, I'm okay. So my follow up to this is what was it about all that chaos that made you lean in and say, I want more of this from him and build this relationship.
- [32:01]
Tanya Melendez
Oh, my God, Saee. Oh, my God, I love him so much. Okay, don't tell him that. Okay. So the thing about saying, I can't look at you, I'm saying this is like, you know that thing where you start talking with him and your eyes are locked on each other and then he grabs your hands and then you lean in, and before you know it, you're literally like, cuddling standing up. Right. Talking about something. Oh, I can't take it. It's the best to that point.
- [32:28]
Zach Safford
Sorry to interrupt you, but sight is a very physical person. When he feels comfortable and feels seen and feels like he has the space to explore something. So there is, like a physicality to it.
- [32:39]
Tanya Melendez
Yeah, yeah. Like every single time we were in a social situation. We would end up, like, sprawled out on each other, gossiping about everybody else in the room or pointing out who was cute enough to make out with. Or Saeed was telling me who he had made out with that was in the room. Or there are people that you feel very much the chemistry of. We get each other. We're gonna allow each other to have a great time. And with aggressive personalities like ours, do you always know that you love someone when you're willing to share the spotlight? Right. Like, you don't have to dominate a conversation or you don't have to be the one to make the funniest reference or follow up their joke. Right. We have really funny friends, and the ones that we are closest to are the ones that we can't wait for them to own the room, you know?
- [33:34]
Zach Safford
Yeah.
- [33:35]
Tanya Melendez
Yeah.
- [33:36]
Saeed Jones
Oh, my gosh.
- [33:38]
Zach Safford
What's. So this is me speaking very personally. What I love about this, I feel like I'm that character in the Marvel universe where I'm collecting stones. Who was that character?
- [33:46]
Saeed Jones
Thanos.
- [33:47]
Zach Safford
Yes, Thanos. Because every few years I meet someone that knew Saeed Jones in speech and debate, and the very first person to ever flag this for me is my dear friend Eric White, who also went to Western Kentucky. I love her. Eric White, who I knew separate. And I meet people in the wild that are like, Sonny Jones. I remember him. He's kind of this legend. And how you were describing him, like, yeah, of course people remembered him then, and they remember him now. It seems like he's always been who he's always meant to be this entire time. Right.
- [34:15]
Tanya Melendez
He is his mother's son. And we get that. So, yeah. Yeah. It's very strange when I run into someone who knows Said as a public figure and doesn't know him personally. It's very weird. I say that to someone who personally knows Taylor Swift, which is always the thing that makes me laugh.
- [34:37]
Zach Safford
While you do listen to the show. That's why she knows the. That was incredibly. And also, like, you just helped solve an equation for certain Swifties who've been on Reddit trying to figure out the episode in which I shared a certain thing about her. And they're trying to be connected to all these things. You. They should just call you. You could figure out for them.
- [34:53]
Tanya Melendez
Listen, I know how to use the search feature in the Apple update. I'm good. I can find it.
- [34:58]
Zach Safford
Don't tell them this,
- [35:03]
Tanya Melendez
but it's this weird thing, right? Because I don't know a mega celebrity, but I do know a literary celebrity. And A cultural personality, right. And people know Saeed. And so every once in a while, I will run into someone who will mention him in terms of his work time at Buzzfeed or his poetry. And I always have to stop myself and going, I know him. Because that's not the fucking point at the moment. But, yeah, like, the one.
- [35:32]
Saeed Jones
I mean, like, Tanya knew me. Like, we're talking. She was seeing me with my first boyfriends, you know.
- [35:40]
Tanya Melendez
Oh, my God. I almost said a name. I'm so sorry.
- [35:44]
Saeed Jones
I've been. It's. Yeah, same. And I almost did an accent. She knew me, you know, I started speech in fall of 2004. I didn't come out, you know, fully until I was still in the process of coming out in the spring. And my first boyfriend, I think, was that summer. So, like, I remember, like, Tanya was at this very messy summer party. I'm trying to, like, maintain details. This very messy summer party that takes place in Illinois that, you know, everyone comes in costume, and it's just a big, chaotic spectacle. And there was a park across the street from the house that.
- [36:24]
Tanya Melendez
Oh, yeah.
- [36:25]
Saeed Jones
And at one point, I went out into the park with my boyfriend. Oh, no. Actually, before that happened, I was inside the house dancing. And the boyfriend came. Came into the house, swung open the doors. I'm not gonna do the accent.
- [36:41]
Zach Safford
Don't do it.
- [36:43]
Saeed Jones
But he said loud enough over the music for everyone to hear, saeed Jones, sex is on the menu. And I was like, gotta go, y'. All. And we went outside. Cause it was like, where to go. And there was a park across the street. And there was this. Not quite a pine tree, but some kind of conifer. Where I just remember it, like, the needles. Well, just because Some kind of conifer.
- [37:12]
Zach Safford
So specific,
- [37:15]
Saeed Jones
because all the branches went almost all the way down to the ground. And so we crawled under them in hats. And so then when I came. And of course, everyone had seen this dramatic exit. And so, of course, when I come back in, my hair is full of pine needles. Oh, my God, Tanya's in the room. It shows up in a poem in Prelude to Bruce. Cause I think I was, like, pulling, like, when people talk about, don't get a Christmas tree. Cause you'll be pulling pine needles out of the. Yeah, it was me. Tanya was there.
- [37:46]
Tanya Melendez
Yeah. This is the kind of sex capade that one hears about frequently when you're friends with Saeed and her witnesses.
- [37:57]
Saeed Jones
Those were the years.
- [37:59]
Tanya Melendez
The thing is that, like, again, I was older. I'm older. So I am, like, watching this with Affection. Right. Like, I had my era. The 90s were great. The 90s were incredible. And we didn't have social media, so nobody knows about it. It's fantastic. Right, so. So when you're checking those Facebook memories, I do as well, by the way, Zach, I also check mine every day, which means I see those. Like, that party will come up in June. Yeah, it will come up in June, and I will remember.
- [38:30]
Zach Safford
I love that. Well, thank you so much for indulging me in this little tea time. Maybe we should have a segment where we invite dear friends to the show.
- [38:38]
Saeed Jones
I think we've just invented a new
- [38:41]
Zach Safford
segment for this show because it is. I love. I love hearing stories of our friends about ourselves. I think it's really, really fascinating.
- [38:52]
Tanya Melendez
Yeah.
- [38:52]
Saeed Jones
And me running to the buses as my coaches were like, I totally forgot. And the moment you said it, I like, I felt the tightness of my shoes as I was running across campus.
- [39:02]
Tanya Melendez
The way Dawn Lowry, coach extraordinaire, would sigh. She would just go, tanya, wearisite
- [39:12]
Saeed Jones
in the cut, baby. In the cut.
- [39:13]
Zach Safford
In cut. Under the coniferous trees.
- [39:19]
Tanya Melendez
Doing some gardening.
- [39:21]
Zach Safford
He's just doing some gardening. Gardening. That's not. Anyway, let me stop. Let me stop. Tanya, I am enjoying this so much. Would you be willing to stay for Vibes are on. Vibes are off with us?
- [39:30]
Tanya Melendez
Yes, please. I would love to.
- [39:32]
Zach Safford
All right, well, let's take a quick break, listeners. Do not go anywhere. We will be right back with Vibes are on. Vibes are off with our dear best friend Tanya.
- [39:44]
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Zach Safford
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- [41:20]
Zach Safford
All right, listeners, we are back. And before we end the show, as always, we love to talk about aspects of culture in which the vibes are on and the vibes are off. And today we have an expert and a goddess of culture with us, and we must know. Tanya, vibes are on. Vibes are off this week for you.
- [41:36]
Tanya Melendez
Okay, I'm gonna start with vibes are off.
- [41:39]
Zach Safford
Yes. Go for it.
- [41:40]
Tanya Melendez
My vibes are off for people who get on social media and ask vague questions. Do not come onto Al Gore's interwebs and ask me what TV show should watching. That is the wildest shit I've ever seen. There are and I'm not. I've done the research, so I know this number. The top 10 streamers. 38,000 seasons of television.
- [42:10]
Zach Safford
That is a tremendous amount.
- [42:12]
Tanya Melendez
Yeah. So when you say, throw out a wreck, I'm going to sell you go die in a fire. That's insane. So the vibes are off. Be specific. What you want? Do you want a comedy? Do you want, you know, et cetera, et cetera.
- [42:28]
Zach Safford
Tanya, thank you so much. I recently encountered this in a text message from a friend who I love, who texts me out of the blue because they were snowed in and said, what movie should I watch today, girl? Like, what do you want to watch? Something that's in theaters now that is out in the process. You want something happy. You want something sad. Sad, sad. You want something horny, like. Like give me parameters because there's just so much content. I agree.
- [42:52]
Tanya Melendez
Give me comps. Give me comps. Right. I'm happy to do this labor for you, but you gotta give me something.
- [42:59]
Zach Safford
Yeah. And it's labor to that point. We do this show in which we do recommend things. At the end of the day, Sight is toiling away in his library, in his house, trying to find the right poem. That takes a tremendous amount of work, not just in the moment, but in the moments leading to that moment. You know, same television film. It requires you know, a dedication that you have, Tanya, of watching things so that you have an opinion.
- [43:21]
Tanya Melendez
Yeah. And reading critics. Always read critics. Great critics. Alan Semplewell, Dan Feinberg, Mo Ryan. There. Okay, the vibes are on. If we're gonna. We're gonna stick to romance for a second. The vibes are on with. And I'm gonna say a couple of names, indie authors. And I say that because the. The main huge published authors, the Rachel reeds, the Sarah MacLains, those authors are out there. You can find them easily. Go to the Barnes and Noble. They're there. But this is a genre that has so many great indie authors. If you love gay hockey or straight hockey, you want Arie Barron or you want Brenda Rothert. If you want rom coms, you want Sarah Whitney. If you want paranormal, you want Genevieve Jackson. If you want poly paranormal, you want Ciara Rowan. These are such great books. Go find them. Do the work to find the indie authors on Instagram, on booktok, whatever it takes. Find the people who have curated lists. You can look for. Great, diverse, incredible, moving, touching, funny romance. It's all out there. Go track it down.
- [44:32]
Saeed Jones
I love that.
- [44:33]
Zach Safford
I love that. That perfect.
- [44:34]
Saeed Jones
Zach, you want to go next?
- [44:36]
Zach Safford
Yeah. So my vibes are on for this episode. With Valentine's Day falling on a Saturday, I would like to put in a petition that Valentine's Day should always be the second Saturday of every February if we must have it. Because Valentine's Day just works better for everyone involved if it's on a weekend. Here are examples. One, if you are in a relationship, it's a Saturday night. Hopefully you can find somewhere to eat or do something. You don't have to worry about getting off of work if you don't work the weekends. All of that. That fantastic. Saturdays are the best nights to go out to a fancy dinner because Valentine's Day is supposed to be potentially fancy. But number two is the most important reason. If it falls on a Saturday and if you are single and you're upset about it, you can go to a bar, you can go to a club, you can go to so many events and assume that people there without a visible partner are then single because people are so worried. On typical nights out, do they have a boyfriend? Do they not? What's going on? If it's on a Saturday, doesn't matter. If they're out and about, they're ready. So I think it should always be on a Saturday. I think it's a perfect time. It should.
- [45:35]
Saeed Jones
You're like, it's the one night of the year. We can safely assume all the men cheating on their partners are at dinner
- [45:41]
Zach Safford
with are at dinner with that partner. Thank you. Go be with them. So that's my petition to the culture. Like Thanksgiving is what the fourth Thursday of November, Valentine's Day should be, Second Saturday. My vibes are off if you were invited to a dinner party or to dinner with friends. So if you have mutual friends and a friend's in town and your other friend finds out, you know, sometimes you. You have people visiting and sometimes you're like, I just wanna meet with this person. And then someone else finds out and they're like, can I tag along? If you were tagging along, you were signing up to do labor, to do work. You have to show up. The dinner's not about you. It's about the person that set up the dinner that's visiting. So my vibes are off of people who show up to dinners or dates and don't come prepared to have a conversation, to contribute, to give anything back. Same to go with Valentine's Day. This is a two way street. Now we're on a holiday. If I'm planning dinner, you should also show up with something in hand to be equal to the evening. So mutual support is important.
- [46:36]
Saeed Jones
Ooh girl, I will text you. Cause I have some. See? But yes, if you are the plus one to a dinner party, a house party, you better not. First of all, as soon as you walk into that door, you need to
- [46:49]
Zach Safford
thank the host 1000%.
- [46:51]
Saeed Jones
You need to introduce yourself and you need to thank the host. Don't spend the whole night in the corner with the wine glass in your hand talking to your two friends.
- [46:58]
Zach Safford
Uh huh.
- [46:59]
Saeed Jones
You better make the rounds. Make the rounds, bitch. Don't play with.
- [47:02]
Tanya Melendez
It's a social event. It's social. Be social.
- [47:05]
Zach Safford
Yes. So those are mine, Saeed.
- [47:08]
Saeed Jones
Okay, the vibes are on. I got to see Charli XCX's mockumentary. It's titled the Moment It Comes out from A24. It is about Charli XCX preparing for the Brat tour when she is then asked to make it into a concert for and possibly based on true events. And then all the chaos that ensues. I went with eight friends because my New York gays don't play. We were half and half when we left the theater. And the reviews I've read have been similarly divided. I think everyone agrees Charli XCX gives an incredible performance. So I would say the vibes are. And there was also a trailer for another A24 movie she has coming out soon. So it's clear that I think she's about to be an indie film darling. And she was really good. And shockingly, one of the best scenes in the movie is when she unexpectedly runs into Kylie Jenner in a fancy hotel in Ibiza. And I was like, I don't know.
- [48:15]
Tanya Melendez
Wait, is this. This is scripted, though? Yeah, it's scripted.
- [48:19]
Saeed Jones
It's scripted. Yeah. That's what. And then it gets wackier and crazier and everything. I really enjoyed. I can't wait to see it. I will say don't go into it expecting it. It's not like the Renaissance, you know, film.
- [48:33]
Zach Safford
Yeah, right.
- [48:34]
Saeed Jones
And in fact, it's mocking those types. So if you want to relive the glory of the Brat Tour, you will be disappointed. This is not what it's about, but I really loved it. Vibes are off. If you're in New York, you've probably noticed over the last few months that Newsmax has become the standard news station in yellow cab taxis in the city.
- [48:56]
Tanya Melendez
What?
- [48:56]
Saeed Jones
And I also see a lot of ads for whatever the news before CBS that Bari Weiss was doing. You'll see a lot of ads for that. I've started to see some local politicians here calling it out. Cause they're like, what? You know, like, why is this the case? I don't know how it happened, but I don't like it. The vibes are indeed off. So, yeah, that's dark.
- [49:17]
Tanya Melendez
Far off.
- [49:17]
Zach Safford
The free press, the taxis. That's not passed.
- [49:20]
Saeed Jones
Part pass. Yeah.
- [49:22]
Tanya Melendez
That's disgusting, actually.
- [49:24]
Saeed Jones
You know, you're on your way to your lovely Valentine's Day dinner, and then you gotta look up and it's like, ugh.
- [49:29]
Tanya Melendez
Also, it's been over an hour and I haven't said fuck ice, so I'm past due.
- [49:33]
Zach Safford
There we go.
- [49:34]
Tanya Melendez
Fuck ice.
- [49:34]
Saeed Jones
Fuck ice. There we go. There we go. Well, Tanya, thank you so much for joining us. This has been.
- [49:43]
Tanya Melendez
This was so, so wonderful. I'm so excited that I finally talked to you, Zach. And I love hanging out with y' all every week, even when I don't participate. So this is a double.
- [49:56]
Zach Safford
Well, you're now open door policy. You can come in whenever you like.
- [50:00]
Tanya Melendez
Excellent.
- [50:00]
Zach Safford
There are no borders here. Cross whenever.
- [50:04]
Saeed Jones
Fantastic listeners. What vibes are on and off for you this week? Check in with us@vibechecktitcher.com. And that's. That's the show. Thank you for tuning into this episode of Vibe Check. If you love the show and want to support us, please make sure to follow the show on your favorite podcast listening platform and tell a friend or two. It's still Black History Month so feel free to white guilt. You know your friends. It's anti black not to listen to the show technically. As always, huge thank you to our producer Chantel Holder, our executive producers Camille Stanley from SiriusXM and Brandon Sharp from Agenda and Marcus Home for our theme music and sound design. And special thanks to our my good friend engineer Casey Holford. He's been so helpful today. Shout outs to our Patreon producer Julia Leo for all of her help and Aisha Ayoop who's going to make some. Well, I'm always scared of the memes she makes, but given the content of this episode, I'm especially nervous. And thank you to our intern Morgan Johnson. And of course we want to hear from you. Don't forget you can email us@vibecheck stitcher.com and keep in touch with us on Instagram @vibecheck underscore pod for direct access to our group chat. You can join our patreon@patreon.com VibeCheck also, Vibe Check listeners can now get a free 3 month trial on the SiriusXM app by going to SiriusXM.com VibeCheck again, that's SiriusXM.com VibeCheck stay tuned for another episode next Wednesday. Bye.
- [51:45]
Tanya Melendez
Siriusxm podcasts.
- [51:53]
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