The Five Spot: Oh No, I Have The 'Sushi Glory Hole' Song Stuck In My Head

Also: Travel shows and beef collusion

The Five Spot is a weekly Friday roundup where I rank and riff on my five favorite things from the week. Most of the entries will be about film and TV, but there might also be ones about weird local news or sandwiches I ate or anything else, really. The whole thing is an exclusive for paid subscribers, so if you want to read the top four entries, you can do that by upgrading…

Off we go.

FIVE: Imagine that

My biggest problem with the Lonely Island guys is that their songs are too catchy. It’s been an issue for many years and it always ends the same way: with some hilarious and juvenile phrase banging around in my head for many days in a row. The worst example of this was when I had every line of We’re Back running on a loop in my head with such force that I struggled to keep them from escaping my mouth. (Click that link if you don’t remember the song. You’ll see why this was not ideal.) And then I was safe for a while because they all left SNL to pursue their own projects, and yes, this is where I tell you to watch Popstar again even though it, too, is loaded with catchy songs full of silly phrases.

All of which is to say, dammit, I have the Sushi Glory Hole song stuck in my head. It’s been there all week, ever since I heard it on Sunday morning, the day after it premiered on SNL as part of the Lonely Island mini-return. I say “dammit” here with my tongue firmly inside my cheek because it is a really funny bit and I’m very glad it exists. But do be careful watching it if you haven’t seen it yet. If you have the type of flypaper brain I have where things that buzz around sometimes get stuck and can’t break free, you might find yourself muttering things like “Sushi glory hole, imagine that” out loud to yourself in a public place. It’s a legitimately well-made and well-delivered song — Andy Samberg and Akiva Shaffer are honest-to-god good rappers, which is one of those “too many talents in one body is not fair to us regular saps” things that drives my love-hate feeling about Ryan Gosling — about eating sushi through a hole in a bathroom stall. I’ve watched it maybe 35 times this week. I’m gonna watch it again now.

Two notes before I move on, for my own sanity if not yours…

ONE: The repeated “hear us out… hear us out.. where you going… hear us out” thing is both my favorite part of the video and also almost exactly how I feel explaining the entire concept of this song to anyone who hasn’t seen it.

TWO: I have already used this screencap like five or six times in group chats and text exchanges. I expect this number to increase exponentially over the next few weeks.

Might wear suspenders and a comically short/wide tie this weekend just to see how it feels.

FOUR: Please allow Al Pacino to explain exactly what happens when you die