Author Archives: Kevin Schaefer

A friend and I were sitting in a dimly lit movie theater a few years ago when two guys in their 20s approached me. I couldn’t tell initially if I knew them, but after a closer look, I realized that neither was an acquaintance of mine. They each bore…

The Netflix series “Special” opens with its main character, Ryan, getting hit by a car and thrown into an existential crisis. The accident forces Ryan, a disabled gay man who has multiple insecurities, to evaluate his identity and pushes him to reinvent himself over the course of the…

“Hello, Peter. What’s happening? Umm, I’m gonna need you to go ahead and come in tomorrow. So, if you could be here around 9 that would be great. Mmkay? Oh, oh, and I almost forgot, ahh, I’m also gonna need you to go ahead and come in on Sunday,…

Here in North Carolina, the weather fluctuates between springtime warmth on Christmas Day to freeze-your-butt-off cold a couple days later. We sometimes get all four seasons in the span of a few weeks, but it’s the wintertime that requires the most preparation. It forces…

In 2021, I kept a log of every new movie, TV show, book, and comic I watched and read throughout the year, as well as notable music and podcasts I listened to. This media diary allowed me to reflect on the various pieces of art and entertainment…

In the new Netflix original movie, “Tick, Tick…Boom!,” Andrew Garfield plays the late playwright and composer Jonathan Larson, whose most famous work is the Broadway musical sensation “Rent.” The film is based on Larson’s autobiographical musical of the same name. It’s a story…

“The internet is a well of humanity if you dig past the surface of it.” Comedian, actor, and filmmaker Bo Burnham said this in 2019 during a writers panel hosted by The Hollywood Reporter. Burnham got his start making YouTube videos in the early 2000s, back when…

I turn 28 on the day this column goes online. Though I thought it’d be fun to publish something on my birthday, I realize that 28 isn’t a particularly special number. It’s one year closer to 30, and it feels like an eternity from the legal drinking…

When we think about key moments in our lives, such as weddings and graduations, most of us have a tendency to wonder how things might have turned out differently. We’ll wonder what might have happened if we’d chosen a different career path, pursued a certain relationship, or moved to…

The worst part about long-running sitcoms is when they hit so close to real life. This is especially true when everyone’s favorite characters leave. Think about when Michael left “The Office,” or when Chris and Ann left the town of Pawnee in “Parks and Recreation.” These moments…