Topical cream

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Unfucking the news

And current events

Topical cream

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It gets you our two cents topical cream.

The murder of Michelle and Rob Reiner is a small story relative to the massacre in Australia and the shooting at Brown University that unfolded over the

same dizzying news cycle. And I say small because it's a family tragedy. It's a family story with the

most gruesome and heartbreaking of endings. The tragic nature of the crime and the notoriety of its

victims made it a cycle-dominating event, but it was Donald Trump, once again, who turned this into a cultural moment.

And it's on this moment that I want to reflect.

His reckless musings on the tragedy symbolized something greater than the ramblings of a malignant narcissist.

The post itself was an encap of sorts, a punctuation mark on an era that had long been in decline.

It wasn't a eulogy for Reiner, clearly, but it is part of the American cultural eulogy.

Rob Reiner, or more specifically Rob Reiner movies, represent an important period in popular culture.

So while his career extended from the 1960s through present day, the peak of his influence was as the director of some of the most cherished Hollywood properties from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s.

Now, before his directorial debut with This Is Spinal Tap in 84, he was a marginal comedic actor whose most prominent role was as Archie Bunker's son-in-law known to generations as Meathead.

It was a fantastic role in one of the most important sitcoms in modern history,

but a far cry from the type of fame and notoriety that his father Carl enjoyed.

Now, few would have imagined that Rob Reiner would fill his father's legendary shoes,

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