The presidential election is less than 100 days away and if several states’ recent complications with polling sites during their primaries are any indication, exercising your right to vote is as important as ever. According to NPR, voter registration is currently down because of the COVID-19 pandemic and that’s one reason why many musicians are joining together to push young people to vote come November.
Big-name artists like Billie Eilish, DJ Khaled, Saweetie, Diplo, Swae Lee, and more were tapped by iHeartMedia for their new podcast, Why I’m Voting. Kicking off this week and running until November, Why I’m Voting invites musicians to recall their first time at the polls and offer any advice they have for making it as easy as possible. The podcast will also stand as a reminder that citizens aren’t just voting on the next president but they’re also casting ballots for congresspeople, senators, judges, and many other local officials.
Finneas, Billie Eilish’s brother and producer, was the podcast’s inaugural guest. In conversation with the show’s host, Holly Frey, Finneas said he keeps a written list of who he plans on voting for because arriving at the polling station can feel overwhelming: “It’s marginally confusing and it’s not something we’ve done a whole lot of and you’re in a voting booth alone and you don’t want to make a mistake. It felt reminiscent of a driver’s ed test.”
When the pandemic first hit America, live music was one of the first industries affected. Venues across the country shuttered and every summer music festival, from Coachella to Lollapalooza, opted to cancel their 2020 events. Some artists have attempted to put on concerts that adhered to the CDC’s social distancing guidelines, but veteran rock band Smash Mouth decided to do the opposite. Despite the steadily increasing case numbers in the US, Smash Mouth held a full-scale concert in South Dakota with thousands in attendance.
The band performed a concert Sunday as part of this year’s Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota, a 10-day festival that attracts hundreds of thousands of motorcyclists. They took the outdoor stage and performed for thousands, almost none of whom were wearing masks or following the recommended 6-feet social distance guidelines.
An attendee caught a clip of the South Dakota crowd and shared it to social media. In it, lead singer Steve Harwell can be heard addressing fans, saying, “I’ve been going crazy, you know? And now we’re all here together tonight in human once again and f*ck that COVID sh*t.”
Meanwhile, many independent venues across the country risk permanent closure due to the pandemic. According to a study by the National Independent Venue Association, 90% of the organization’s over 2,000 venues say “they will close permanently in a few months without federal funding.” Thankfully, Senators introduced a bipartisan bill titled the “Save Our Stages Act,” which will provide six months of federal relief to independent music and entertainment venues across the nation.
It’s been a long time since Zac Efron did anything High School Musical-related — 12 years, to be exact, since its big screen threequel. He’s not a kid anymore, and he wants to be taken seriously. And to prove it he’s about to play a dad. As per The Hollywood Reporter, the former Troy Bolton will play one third of the grown leads in a remake of one of the biggest comedy hits of the ’80s, Three Men and a Baby.
This will be for Disney+, where you can watch the original, which was the biggest box office grosser of 1987, beating even Fatal Attraction, Beverly Hills Cop II, Good Morning, Vietnam, and Moonstruck. The plot is pretty self-explanatory, involving three swinging Manhattan bachelors — played by Tom Selleck, Steve Guttenberg, and Ted Danson — who wind up in the care of a newborn, with hilarious results. There’s also a drug dealer subplot, which happened a lot in ’80s comedies. Also, Leonard Nimoy directed it, which is wild. A Nimoy-less sequel, Three Men and a Little Lady, followed three years later.
It’s not yet known what two actors will join Efron, or which character Efron will play: Selleck’s architect, Guttenberg’s cartoonist or Danson’s big time actor. Either way, it will be his latest attempt to prove that he’s all grown up, after his portrayal of serial killer Ted Bundy in Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile. He can also currently be seen in the Netflix documentary show Down to Earth, which finds him exploring the world and covering issues of sustainability — a show that nearly killed him. And now, a mere four years removed from playing a fratboy in Neighbors 2: Sorority Uprising, he’ll be fumbling over diapers. They grow up so fast.
Breast milk is an incredibly magical food. The wonderful thing is that it’s produced by a collaboration between mother and baby.
British mother Jody Danielle Fisher shared the miracle of this collaboration on Facebook recently after having her 13-month-old child vaccinated.
In the post, she compared the color of her breast milk before and after the vaccination, to show how a baby’s reaction to the vaccine has a direct effect on her mother’s milk production.
“The ‘normal’ colour milk is from the day before she had them, the ‘blue’ colour milk is from today – 2 days after she had them. It’s blue from all the antibodies my body is producing as it thinks she’s sick with what she was vaccinated against!” she wrote.
“When she feeds her saliva sends signals to my body to produce more milk with illness specific antibodies!” she added.
According to researchers, Fisher’s hypothesis is correct. A mother’s body can detect if a child is sick through breastfeeding and then pass on antibodies that will help immunize the child through her breast milk.
In 2015, Katie Hinde, PhD, a biologist and associate professor at the Center for Evolution and Medicine at the School of Human Evolution & Social Change at Arizona State University, explained the phenomenon to journalist Leslie Goldma of Mom.me.
“There, it is believed that mammary gland receptors interpret the ‘baby spit backwash’ for bacteria and viruses and, if they detect something amiss (i.e. the baby is sick or fighting off an infection), her body will actually change the milk’s immunological composition,” Hinde said.
“Putting this all together, some scientists hypothesize that this could be one of the ways babies let mums ‘know’ about their condition and mums respond with infection-fighting antibodies,” she continued.
Fisher’s post shows the amazing power of mothers, babies, vaccinations, and breast milk and how they all come together to create healthy children.
However, the post received a backlash from anti-vaxxers who have a hard time grasping the overwhelming scientific evidence that vaccines are safe. In fact, a 2019 study of over 650,00 children concluded that the MMR vaccine doesn’t cause autism.
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Fisher had some strong words for the anti-vaxxers who claimed she was harming her child. She says the “whole point of vaccinations” is to cause your body to “make antibodies and ‘heal’ itself.”
“Don’t come on my post preaching about not having vaccinations and them been poisonous,” she wrote. “I hope your child(ren) never becomes ill with anything serious or doesn’t pass it on to a poor baby waiting to have their immunisations because you don’t believe in vaccinations!”
Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s raunchy “WAP” video was released Friday and instantly broke the internet. Seemingly everyone has offered their opinion of the song, from a Republican Congressional candidate, PETA, to even Tiger King star Carole Baskin. But no one’s reaction was more talked about than Ben Shapiro’s, who read the NSFW “WAP” lyrics line-by-line on his radio show Monday. Of course, there were endless jokes about Shapiro’s read-through once Twitter caught wind of the clip.
At the tail end of the most recent episode of The Ben Shapiro Show, the political talk show host dissected the lyrics to “WAP”, which he called “really really really vulgar.”
It didn’t take long for Twitter to explode with jokes about the clip. One user-edited Shapiro’s voice over the song’s instrumentals, resulting in an ironically dry version of “WAP.”
Finally, many on the internet simply basked in the absurdity of it all.
I can’t believe we live in a world where Ben Shapiro thought that angrily reading out the lyrics to WAP like a pearl-clutching mother at a school council meeting would not be extremely embarrassing for him.
Millions without health care and unable to afford it, eviction crises underway, overall failed Trump response to the Coronavirus, but what sets Ben Shapiro off most are lyrics in a rap song. pic.twitter.com/cBB9iXYDcr
Dave Franco’s recently released thriller The Rental has been dominating the virtual box office this month. The concept for the horror about a home-sharing vacation that goes wrong was inspired by Franco’s personal anxiety around staying in a stranger’s abode. Yet the actor admits its not enough to actually stop him from using apps like AirBnB.
“I still use all of these home-sharing apps,” says Franco. “But I have to admit sometimes I found myself thinking about what could go wrong. It’s only natural. So the concept was kind of pulled from that paranoia.”
Franco even used home-sharing apps leading up to and during production, in some cases using those experiences to inform The Rental‘s script. Wechatted with the actor from his home in Los Angeles about his complicated yet flourishing relationship with homestays and his newfound love for the Oregon Coast.
This is a movie about home rental that really takes place on a single property. How did you start your search for the right spot?
The house is an important character in the movie. So we did a very extensive search up and down the west coast and eventually found this perfect spot in southern Oregon. It is in a little town called Bandon, and the vibe in the area was ideal because there is so much natural beauty that would draw city dwellers into wanting to vacation there. But at the same time, there is the possibility for it to turn ominous under the wrong circumstances.
The house itself is perched on the edge of a jagged cliff literally in the middle of nowhere. I remember when I first scouted the house, I stayed there the night, in one of the bedrooms, and everything really changed in the house when the sun went down. There are so many of these large windows where I started to feel like I was in a fishbowl. And to a degree, it made me feel a little vulnerable, and exposed, like someone could possibly be watching my every move. That experience is what made me realize that it would be the perfect spot for the film.
Did you always have southern Oregon in mind? Or was that a place you found?
I originally set the film in Big Sur, which is maybe Alison and my favorite place in the country. It is logistically very difficult to shoot there though, so when this spot in Bandon became an option. I felt that not only does it have that Big Sur aesthetic, but it felt even grander. It almost made me feel like I was in Ireland. Getting everyone up there was a little bit of a headache — there aren’t any airports close by. The house is at the end of a two-mile dirt road through the woods. So you can imagine how much of a headache it was getting our giant trucks with the equipment down that narrow path. There were obstacles that came with shooting in the middle of nowhere but ultimately it was all worth it.
IFC Films
Had you been to that area before?
I had never been to the Oregon coast before, and I have now fallen in love with it. We look back on our time there very fondly, and genuinely talk about how nice it would be if we could find a way to live there part of the year. The nature. The people. The general vibe made us feel very at home. We stayed in a little cabin on the beach, and every night Alison and I would go out and see some of the sunsets, which were the best we had seen in recent memory. We brought our cat Harry with us, who had never seen the ocean, and he would just look out the window all day long. He has, sadly, since passed, but it was nice to have that time out there with him. It was a pretty special time.
Did you do any trips using home shares leading up to the filming?
Few months before we started filming I did go to an AirBnB in Big Sur with friends from my childhood. One of them brought their dog, and the constant maintenance and stress that came with trying to make sure that the dog didn’t destroy the house, or run away, was such an affecting experience that it inspired me to write a dog into the script. That was a last-minute addition to the plot, and it helped immediately add tension to the story, because they aren’t supposed to have animals on the property. For the rest of the film, the dog becomes a constant concern, and brings with him a whole other level of conflict.
How did you find the place that you and Alison stayed at during the shoot? What did you like about it?
We found it on AirBnB. What can I say? I guess I was trying to explore that mental disconnect that happens when we stay at a stranger’s home. I will say though that my paranoia has reached new heights since filming the movie. Now when I stay in a rental home, there is no question I am getting up on chairs and looking everywhere that there could potentially be a camera or anything like that. I liked that the spot was simple and quaint. It is actually called “The Old Rustic Cabin” and it definitely lives up to the name. I loved that it was on the beach more than anything. It was a nice place to put our minds at ease during a time that was bound to be a little stressful.
How did the cast get along during the filming process — which was already sort of quarantined in that it was remote and just used one set?
Everyone became a family. The smartest thing that I did was really spending the time to vet the cast and crew that I was bringing into the project. I wanted at least three glowing reviews of each person before I brought them on board. Obviously I wanted people that were talented, but it was almost just as important to me, if not as important, that everyone was very nice. And that they were going to work their asses off. So the casting and hiring process was a lot longer than usual, but in the end it made my job a lot easier than it could have been. Not just the work, but it made my life much more enjoyable as well. The group was just really friendly and wanted to hang out and help each other in our downtime.
IFC Films
How often do you find yourself using home shares?
I don’t use home-shares extensively, but I have been staying at AirBnBs for a handful of years now. I like them for the obvious reasons, like visiting a city or town and feeling more integrated into the town and lifestyle. You just feel more like a local when you are staying somewhere like that as opposed to a hotel. Since starting this movie people have asked me if I have any nightmare stories, and the truth is I haven’t really.
I do have a hotel horror story. I was staying in a pretty dingy one while working on a pretty small movie. I went out to work, and house cleaning turned over my room. I woke up, and there was a splotch of dried blood next to my face. I checked my body and I was not bleeding, so that was someone else’s blood obviously, and the “brand new” sheet that they put on my bed that morning. I called up production and asked them to give me a new hotel, because I draw the line at sleeping next to a stranger’s blood.
What kind of places do you like to stay when you use AirBnB?
I am really drawn to houses that are very isolated and in nature. Generally speaking, when we go on vacation, we aren’t the type of people who want to walk around and see all of the sights. We are more the kind of people who just want to lounge and read all day by a pool or by the ocean. We are looking to just turn our brains off as much as possible. The more remote the better. The primary goal is to spend time together, because during the rest of the year there is a lot of travel and work, which means that we don’t get to see each other as much as we would like.
Where would you like to go next and stay at a home share?
Joshua Tree is one of the places that I would like to go back to soon — I haven’t spent a lot of time there. But I love how strange it is. There is a weird vibe there, it feels like a different planet in a way. I love the rock formations. I love just getting lost in the park and seeing where you end up, because you could go there 50 times and end up somewhere different each time.
The fastest way to play the new Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater reboot is by eating a burrito Tony Hawk himself would enjoy. That’s because Chipotle and Activision, which is releasing a remastered version of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 And 2 this fall, teamed up for a promotion to get fans of handheld meals and skateboarding video games something they’ll all enjoy ahead of the game’s release in September.
Chipotle announced on Monday it would add a ‘Tony Hawk burrito’ to its menu as part of an event it will host on its Twitch channel on August 14 in which fans can buy a burrito and unlock the THPS 1 And 2 demo.
To be completely transparent here, the ‘Tony Hawk burrito’ isn’t exactly a custom menu item. It just seems to be his order at Chipotle: a chicken burrito with brown rice, black beans, mild salsa and guac. But if you’re willing to eat like Tony Hawk — and be one of the first 2,000 people to order it through the Chipotle app starting today — you’ll get the Warehouse demo of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 And 2 for PC, Xbox One or PlayStation 4.
If you miss out on the chance to play the demo, you can always watch the event itself and try to snag a free burrito for the effort. On Friday at 2 p.m., fans will get a better look at the remastered Tony Hawk when the game’s namesake hops on Twitch to play it along with skateboarder Jagger Eaton and actor Finn Wolfhard while they give out 5,000 free burritos along the way. We already know what the soundtrack will be for the game, but seeing how the first two games play on modern consoles is certainly intriguing, free burrito or not.
Believe it or not, there has been a lot of controversy lately about how people cook rice. According to CNN, the “outrage”was a reaction to a clip Malaysian comedian Nigel Ng posted as one of his personas known as Uncle Roger.
It was a hilarious (and harmless) satire about the method chef Hersha Patel used to cook rice on the show BBC Food.
Uncle Roger DISGUSTED by this Egg Fried Rice Video (BBC Food)
In the spilt screen video with Uncle Roger on the left and Patel on the right, the comedian critiques Hersha’s process with comments such as she’s “draining rice with colander! How can you drain rice with colander? This is not pasta!” While the video was meant to be a joke, it sparked an outcry of people taking offense to her culinary approach to cooking rice. CNN describes the reaction as a “firestorm of dismay and disbelief.”
Leading up to rice-gate there have been instances of white chefs being accused of cultural insensitivity in their cooking methods. This tokenism is not considered overt racism, but is more of a subtle symbol represented by a cavalier nature of approaching the culinary traditions of a culture one might not fully understand or be sensitive to. A New York City restaurant had to close its doors less than a year from the day it opened due to a white chef proclaiming they would serve clean Chinese Food.
In lieu of the backlash sparked by the surprisingly controversial video, Nigel Ng and Hersha Patel posted a follow-up video to try and defuse any uprising spawned by the rice-cooking incident.
Uncle Roger Meet Egg Fried Rice Lady (@Hersha Patel)
In the clip, Ng says,”Hey instagram! Guess who I just had dinner with?” The camera pans right to reveal Patel. Ng continues saying that in an upcoming post, “Uncle Roger” will be going to Patel’s residence for her to cook rice the “right way.”
It is official. We are offended by rice. It is a shame about the polar ice caps, racial injustice, the unexplainable logic to not wear a mask to prevent the spread of COVID-19, rising sea levels and a less than functional White House (which is the most polite way I can put that). But let me tell you, nothing grinds my gears more than someone who cooks rice in a non-traditional way. On that note, I am going to cook spaghetti and break the noodles in half before I put them in the boiling water. And because I am a rebel, I might let it cook so it is slightly beyond a dente. Take that, Italy.
Unless you’re Jared Leto and have just returned from a two-week internet-free retreat, you’ve probably seen Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s “WAP” video which took the internet by storm Friday. The NSFW song and video sparked a wide array of responses, from a Republican Congressional candidate saying the rappers are a result of children “raised without God” to Tiger King star Carole Baskin saying the video “glamorizes the idea of rich people having tigers as pets.” Now, even PETA has joined in on the “WAP” conversation.
PETA tends to release a statement any time a celebrity uses exotic animals for promotional purposes. Last year, Justin Bieber told the animal rights organization to “suck it” after they criticized his purchase of exotic cats. Now, PETA has spoken out about the leopards that appear in Cardi and Meg’s “WAP” video, saying they aren’t “Okurrr” with the cameo. According to Billboard, PETA critiqued the use of animals as props in a statement released Monday:
“If Tiger King taught us anything, it’s that tigers and other wild animals are abused for music videos, selfies, and gawking roadside zoo visitors. So if real animals were used instead of computer-generated imagery, the message sent is that animal exploitation is Okurrr—and it isn’t. If Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion really care about pussy liberation, they wouldn’t use suffering big cats as props.”
So far, neither Meg nor Cardi has responded to the organization’s statement but it should be noted that live animals were added in through green screen or CGI and it doesn’t appear that the leopards were ever physically on set.
Some of the artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
One of the reported reasons why black-ish creator Kenya Barris signed a deal with Netflix, besides the $100 million payday, was the “creative differences” he had with the Disney-owned ABC over a shelved episode of his Emmy-nominated sitcom. The episode, about Dre (Anthony Anderson) telling his infant son a bedroom story that “conveys many of Dre’s concerns about the current state of the country,” was shot in November 2017 and was scheduled to air on February 22, 2018, until it was removed from the schedule. But it will finally be released on Hulu, owned by… Disney.
“We were one year post-election and coming to the end of a year that left us, like many Americans, grappling with the state of our country and anxious about its future. Those feelings poured onto the page, becoming 22 minutes of television that I was, and still am, incredibly proud of. ‘Please, Baby, Please’ didn’t make it to air that season and, while much has been speculated about its contents, the episode has never been seen publicly… until now,” Barris wrote in a statement. The episode is available on Hulu now.
“I cannot wait for everyone to finally see the episode for themselves and, as was the case nearly three years ago, we hope it inspires some much-needed conversation — not only about what we were grappling with then or how it led to where we are now, but conversations about where we want our country to go moving forward and, most importantly, how we get there together.”
On top of black-ish, which continues to air on ABC, Barris’ lineup of shows includes Freeform’s grown-ish, ABC’s mixed-ish, and Netflix’s #blackAF; he is also writing the screenplays for the Comedy to America sequel Coming 2 America (I’d be furious if that weren’t the title) and The Witches, based on the Roald Dahl book of the same name.
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