One of the major themes that arose out of World War II was how America’s national character helped propel the Allies to victory over the Axis powers. Americans came together and sacrificed by either picking up a rifle and heading “over there” or on the homefront, they did whatever they could to help the war effort.
They bought bonds. They turned their businesses into factories. They rationed items such as meat, dairy, fruits, shortening, cars, firewood, and gasoline.
After living through nine months of COVID-19, one wonders whether today’s Americans would be adult enough to make the sacrifices necessary to win such a war.
While many people have sacrificed during the pandemic, for some, getting them to social distance and wear a mask has been like pulling teeth. This reluctance to sacrifice for the common good has led to tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths.
Courtney Farrar lost his father Dr. Marvin Farr, 81, to COVID-19 on December 1, and used his obituary to illustrate the difference in attitudes between those of the “Greatest Generation” and the selfish anti-maskers he believes contributed to his father’s death.
“He was preceded in death by more than 260,000 Americans infected with covid-19. He died in a room not his own, being cared for by people dressed in confusing and frightening ways. He died with covid-19, and his final days were harder, scarier and lonelier than necessary. He was not surrounded by friends and family.”
The obituary draws a sharp comparison between those who heard the call of duty when their country needed them versus many today who confuse inconvenience for tyranny.
“He was born into an America recovering from the Great Depression and about to face World War 2, times of loss and sacrifice difficult for most of us to imagine. Americans would be asked to ration essential supplies and send their children around the world to fight and die in wars of unfathomable destruction. He died in a world where many of his fellow Americans refuse to wear a piece of cloth on their face to protect one another.”
Marvin Farr had a doctorate in veterinary science, which stands in sharp contrast to those who’ve chosen to promote the spread of the virus.
“He chose life over death. The science that guided his professional life has been disparaged and abandoned by so many of the same people who depended on his knowledge to care for their animals and to raise their food.”
After the obituary went viral, Courtney lashed out at those who’ve played down the deadly virus.
“I’ve spent most of this year hearing people from my hometown talk about how this disease isn’t real, isn’t that bad, only kills old people, masks don’t work, etc,” he wrote on Facebook. “And because of the prevalence of those attitudes, my father’s death was so much harder on him, his family and his caregivers than it should have been. Which is why this obit is written as it is.”
He also pushed back against those who criticized him for turning his father’s obituary into a political statement.
“Well, his death was political,” Courtney Farr wrote. “He died in isolation with an infectious disease that is causing a national crisis. To pretend otherwise or to obfuscate is also a political decision.”
Courtney Farr isn’t the only person to use a family member’s obituary to speak out against those responsible for spreading the pandemic.
In July, Stacey Nagy, 72, blamed the death of her husband, David W. Nagy, 79, on President Trump, Texas Governor Greg Abott, and “the many ignorant, self-centered and selfish people” who refuse to wear a mask.
“Dave did everything he was supposed to do, but you did not,” Stacey Nagy, 72, wrote in the tribute to her husband. “Shame on all of you, and may Karma find you all!”
“Family members believe David’s death was needless,” the obituary reads. “They blame his death and the deaths of all other innocent people, on Trump, Abbott and all of the other politicians who did not take this pandemic seriously and were more concerned with their popularity and votes than lives.”
When the history of America’s reaction to COVID-19 is written, the story won’t be about how America’s heroic national character shone through and helped the country beat the disease.
Sadly, it’ll be about how a lot of Americans didn’t stand up and sacrifice for their communities’ health and refused to listen to science until it came up with a vaccine, then they were all ears.
Young MA proved herself a talented MC well before she first arrived on the scene with her first mixtape Herstory back in 2017. Ever since, she’s been perfecting her flow through her 22-track debut LP, an EP, and a handful of singles. But despite her success, Young MA has also dealt with the occasional run-in with police. Per a report, Young MA was recently arrested and charged with reckless driving.
According to a report from TheShadeRoom, Young MA was arrested for reckless driving around 3 a.m. on Friday morning. Apparently, the rapper was apprehended and charged but has reportedly since been released.
The report mentions that Young MA has yet to confirm the arrest. However, TheShadeRoom seems to think she addressed the situation when she posted an Instagram photo Friday which shows her sipping on a drink and flipping the bird.
In other Young MA news, the rapper has released a handful of projects this year. This week, the rapper appeared on Pornhub’s Christmas mixtape XXXMas where she delivered a song titled “Stuff Our Stockings Santa.”
Before that, Young MA tapped Eminem to kick off her Always Me Radio show. The two discussed Young MA’s 2020 EP Red Flu, where he admitted to being on his third listen-through of the project. “I’m still catching [bars]… When you get your punchlines or however your writing process is, you can always tell somebody who has studied the game and who is a student of it… Your punchlines don’t sound like setups. They sound like punchline after punchline after punchline. That requires a lot of skill and a lot of thought.”
After taking a week off for the Thanksgiving holiday, our column — and hip-hop — is coming back with a vengeance this week.
Not only did Rico Nasty make her long-awaited debut, but returning favorites Aminé and Blxst dropped deluxe versions of their stellar projects, adding new tracks with features from Saba and Ty Dolla Sign. Meanwhile, a plethora of up-and-coming artists also contributed to the week’s glut of new albums, including Che Noir and Yung Baby Tate (proving that women are in the genre’s driver seat to close out the year).
Unfortunately, one of the tracks we were most looking forward to including was pushed back — then accidentally made available on Apple Music anyway, leading to an outburst from the artist. Happily, a few more tracks came out from all corners of the hip-hop world to make up the difference.
Here is the best of hip-hop this week ending December 4, 2020.
Albums
Aminé — Limbo (Deluxe)
Amine
The reissue of Aminé’s outstanding sophomore album includes new songs featuring Saba, Valee, and Unknown Mortal Orchestra.
Blxst — No Love Lost (Deluxe)
Blxst
Blxst’s deluxe album adds fellow West Coast favorites Dom Kennedy and Ty Dolla Sign, as well as Blxst’s go-to collab pal, Bino Rideaux.
Che Noir — After 12
Che Noir
Producing all seven tracks herself, the Buffalo bomber caps a year that saw her become every bit as prolific as her hometown peers in Griselda.
Dave B — Delicate
Dave B
The Seattle somnambulist offers up another dreamy collection of relatable, late-night musings after 2019’s Bleu.
Read our digital cover story on the DMV punk-rap punisher here.
TisaKorean — Wasteland
TisaKorean
All off-kilter humor and hummable melodies, the irreverent Houston rapper follows up 2019’s Soapy Club with 14 songs of carefree party rap.
YFN Lucci — Wish Me Well 3: Me Against The World
YFN Lucci
Atlanta’s own returns with more syrupy street anthems featuring Mozzy, Mulatto, Rick Ross, and more.
Your Old Droog — Dump YOD: Krutoy Edition
Your Old Droog
Paying homage to his cultural heritage, the Brooklyn-based former Nas soundalike drops one of his most personal projects to date.
Yung Baby Tate — After The Rain
Yung Baby Tate
Said to have been recorded in the aftermath of a bad breakup (by text, no less), Yung Baby Tate’s latest is a defiant declaration of independence.
Singles/Videos
DC The Don — “Worst Day”
Drawing inspiration from Napoleon Dynamite, Milwaukee rapper DC the Don releases a bouncy track that belies its melancholy subject matter.
Homeboy Sandman — “Waiting On My Girl”
Funny and relatable, the backpack rap mainstay laments the long wait every guy goes through on date night.
Jaah SLT — “Intro/What We Do”
A colorful, discordant punk-rap rager gives way to a boastful and melodic statement of self-reliance.
Jackboy — “Man Down” Feat. Sada Baby
Jackboy flies his Florida flag proudly on this street stomper, reeling off violent rhymes with an urgent, almost desperate delivery.
J.I. — “Excuse My Pain”
New Yorker J.I. has been building a significant buzz by blending precise rhymes with a singsong cadence and cold-blooded storytelling.
Prado — “Men In Black”
Women are even taking over hip-hop in Canada. The Vancouver artist spits dismissive disses at unworthy men over a high-energy beat that stops just shy of EDM BPMs.
Rob Vicious (Shoreline Mafia) — “Crash Dummy”
A menacing banger, the Shoreline Mafia member toes the line between party and gangsta rap, warning would-be haters not to step to him.
Sheff G — “No Negotiations”
The Brooklyn drill movement grows again with a bruising anthem that has all the makings of an underground hit.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Trump’s legal “Strike Force” continues to make noise in key swing states, hoping to reverse the results of the 2020 Presidential Election in court, but their latest claim of voter fraud in Georgia looks to have already been debunked — by members of their own party.
Jenna Ellis, a member of Trump’s legal team, appeared on Fox Business on Friday morning to rehash conspiracy theories about fake ballots being counted for President-elect Joe Biden, votes that helped him swing the state blue. Ellis told host Maria Bartiromo that Trump’s team, led by Rudy Giuliani, had uncovered “shocking” video footage of election workers wheeling out “suitcases” full of ballots after hours at the State Farm Arena in Fulton County where ballot-counting took place on November 3rd.
In the video, Ellis claims you can see multiple workers who stayed despite being told to go home, transporting containers of ballots to be scanned and counted, ballots that were shoved under what looks like a counting table.
“Absolutely shocking, Maria,” Ellis says in the clip. “What happened is that at about 10:30 at night in that voting center location, the election officials told everyone to just go home, stop counting. And then four people remained behind. And you can see from the video that they reached under a table, and took out four big boxes of ballots, and kept scanning them through, through the night.”
The only problem with this crackpot theory is that it’s already been called on its bullsh*t — and by Fox News reporters and Republican officials, no less.
Georgia’s election implementation manager, Republican Gabriel Sterling, took to Twitter to put out the fire, assuring the public that his office, as well as Georgia Secretary of State investigators, spent hours combing through the security footage in question and found nothing alarming about the counting process.
The 90 second video of election workers at State Farm arena, purporting to show fraud was watched in its entirety (hours) by @GaSecofState investigators. Shows normal ballot processing. Here is the fact check on it. https://t.co/HVJsvDjDvi
Frances Watson, the chief investigator for the Georgia secretary of state office, also confirmed to fact-checking site Lead Stories that those “suitcases” were actually just average containers you’d expect to hold ballots, and they were empty while sitting under the table.
“There wasn’t a bin that had ballots in it under that table,” Watson said. “It was an empty bin and the ballots from it were actually out on the table when the media were still there, and then it was placed back into the box when the media were still there and placed next to the table.”
As for certain workers leaving while others remained throughout the night, there’s a perfectly normal reason for that too — for anyone familiar with the vote-counting process. The workers who were told to leave were “cutters,” whose job is to open absentee ballot envelopes and verify ballots before they’re scanned. They don’t actually count the votes though, which is what Ellis suggested. The workers who stayed are in charge of scanning and counting and once ballots are open, they must be counted — which is why those people couldn’t leave and continued working through the night. According to Watson, the media and the public were never told to leave, telling Lead Stories that the location “was still open for them or the public to come back in to view at whatever time they wanted to, as long as [election workers] were still working.”
And one of Fox News’ own, reporter Griff Jenkins, verified that claim.
“I just got off the phone with a senior source in the Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office, a Republican, who tells me that they had a designated observer at that spot all night, the entire time, and they’ve seen this video, they’re familiar with the claims, and they said that they’re simply not true,” Jenkins said in a report on Friday morning. “The suggestion that Georgia vote-counters were sent home and ballots were brought in in suitcases, also not true.”
Plus, and this is just pure speculation on our part, wouldn’t people who were trying to commit voter fraud to influence an election try to keep as much of their illegal activity as possible off-camera? If you’re going to do some conspiracy theorizing, at least make it worth our time.
One of Donald Trump‘s most loyal supporters and former campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, has broken from the president’s rhetoric and publicly admitted that Joe Biden won the 2020 election. In a new interview, Conway spoke candidly about Biden and Kamala Harris’ victory, which is in stark contrast to the messaging coming out of the White House. However, Conway did take pains to put Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results in a generous light. Via The 19th:
“The president wants to exhaust all of his legal avenues, as he has made clear many times. His team is doing that, and that is his right,” Conway said in an interview with The 19th’s Washington correspondent, Amanda Becker, that aired Friday. “If you look at the vote totals in the Electoral College tally, it looks like Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will prevail. I assume the electors will certify that and it will be official. We, as a nation, will move forward, because we always do.”
In another surprising move, Conway offered her services to the incoming Biden administration before once again breaking from Trump by emphasizing the importance of a peaceful transition. “You always need a peaceful transfer of democracy, no matter whose administration goes into whose administration.” It should also be noted that Trump has pretty much run out of “legal avenues” and some of his deranged loyalists are now nudging him to “suspend” the Constitution and declare martial law and order a new election, but who’s counting?!
As of this writing, Trump has yet to lash out at Conway’s seeming betrayal on Twitter.
You can see a clip of Conway’s remarks below:
While Conway’s acceptance of Biden’s win is notable, she’s not the first high-profile member of Team Trump to acknowledge the reality of the election results. Earlier in the week, Attorney General Bill Barr contradicted the president’s legal team by telling the Associated Press that the Department of Justice has found no evidence of widespread voter fraud. “To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election,” Barr said.
Kyler Murray and I were supposed to talk about Call of Duty, but the rigors of the NFL season narrows the time to game once the weeks hit double digits. Murray, who regularly streams Call of Duty and as an avid Warzone fan, mentioned several times during our talk that he plays “every day,” but what he seemed to mean was “normally.” In the offseason, that is, not when the second year quarterback is doing everything he can to get the Arizona Cardinals to the postseason.
That means a focus on football, the sport he determined to play after a well-documented flirtation with baseball. So far, that move has been a wise one, as he’s thrived under (or several yards behind) center in his first two seasons as a pro. An electrifying passer and runner, Murray has justified the hopes of Cardinals brass by embracing the quarterback position and delivering breathtaking plays and miraculous last-ditch victories this season alone.
He wasn’t very interested in talking about miracles on Monday, though. His Cardinals had just lost on a last-second field goal on a rainy day in Western Massachusetts, dropping Arizona to 6-5 on the year. Football season is the busy time of year for Murray, of course, and it’s hard not to let the weekly results stay with you when they don’t go your way.
Two weeks ago, Murray pulled off what will likely be the play of the year this NFL season: a last-second Hail Mary to DeAndre Hopkins in the end zone to beat the Buffalo Bills. But success in football is fleeting, and the next two games were close losses for the Cardinals that made joy of improbable victory short-lived.
But in talking with Uproxx Sports, he had some interesting things to say about what you can learn from losing, his interest in gaming and maybe even Esports and what year two in the NFL has been like for one of the most exciting players in the game.
I know you’re right in the middle of the season but I know you’re a huge Warzone fan and wanted to see if you had a chance to play Cold War yet?
I usually play every day. I haven’t really gotten a chance to play the new one, but I play Warzone every day. I just haven’t dove into Cold War yet.
What do you think it is about Call of Duty and maybe Warzone in particular that is so attractive to athletes? I think other than sports sims like NBA 2K and Madden, this is the game I hear guys talking about more than anything else.
Honestly, I think it’s just the camaraderie. It’s a fun game for everybody to play. Me and my boys play every day, we have a friendly competition but at the same time it’s a thing everybody gets to do together. So I think that’s why everybody loves it so much.
Do you have a gaming setup you bring on the road with you? I know especially this season there’s a lot of downtime when you travel to road games, do you bring a system with you?
Nah. Especially with COVID, obviously in the hotel that’s all we can do so that would be a good time to. But me playing quarterback, I don’t ever bring the system unfortunately.
What have you been spending your time with on the road? Are you finding new hobbies or reading more or really just focusing on game plans and the task at hand?
Obviously we’re in the thick of the season and every game matters. Unfortunately we just lost yesterday, obviously. But for me, you know, I play quarterback so my time is spent more so just game plan, taking care of my body, eating right. Then off the field, whoever I have time, all I can do is really game and sit in the house.
This offseason has been one of the weirder in recent memory, but for you it was the first where you only had football to focus on. Did that ability to focus help things this summer?
As far as like the play?
Yeah, in prepping for a season. You didn’t have to worry about baseball or anything but playing for the Cardinals. I was wondering if you noticed a difference in your offseason with just one thing to focus on?
Yeah, like you said, this was really my first offseason to really focus on football with playing other sports, which I think was good for me. I also think the natural maturation of going into year two, having played all 16 games last year, seeing all the things I probably could have saw in my rookie year. Having lots of ups and downs, going into this year, I think there was expected to be a jump. I know me, personally, I expected to be a lot better and I think we have been a lot better. Obviously, like I said, we’re in the thick of the season. We’ve kind of let a couple slip that we thought we should have won. But, individually, I’ve played a lot better than I did last year. But I expected to, obviously, going into year two. It was another year to grow and get better.
I wanted to ask about your wideouts. You’re playing with Larry Fitzgerald, who has been a longtime NFL vet. Is there anything you’ve learned from him that’s helped you make that leap in year two?
Fitz, he’s like a big brother. He doesn’t really kind of school me on the field, he kinda knows I have that natural feel for the game. I love the game. He more so, everything he tries to teach me has been off the field. And I think that’s just a testament to the type of guy that he is.
Comfort when you’re a young quarterback is so important, that ability to trust who you’re throwing to will make a play for you. Obviously you got a big boost with Deandre Hopkins this year, and I’m thinking about the Hail Mary against the Bills a few weeks back. Does it change your confidence in that kind of play knowing you have a guy like Hopkins to throw it to?
Yeah, I mean, me personally I think he’s the best in the league. He’s one of those guys that you just have to give him a chance, put the ball anywhere in his vicinity and good things happen. Acquiring him, it changes the whole dynamic of our offense. We got a lot better the day we got him, so I’m glad he’s on my team.
When a play like that happens, I know everyone always asks ‘What is your reaction?’ But it’s been a bit of time now, have you been able to reflect on how improbable it was or was it easy to sort of just move on to the next game?
Honestly, it was a quick turnaround. We really didn’t have much of a choice but to get over it because we played the Seahawks that next Thursday. So, that’s a divisional game and that was a crucial game that obviously we came up short in. We didn’t get time to dwell on it or really soak it in. It kind of just happened, and I was just as surprised as probably everybody watching it was. But it’s obviously a cool deal.
You’re taking part in the My Cause, My Cleats campaign for the NFL and I wanted to ask about the design you picked. You’re working with the Call of Duty Endowment and I know you said it was in part because of your grandfather.
My initial reason, like you said, my grandfather served in the army and the navy. He was close to me, close to my mother. And the Call of Duty Endowment charity helps veterans secure high-quality jobs after their service, which is hard to find. So that was the main reason why.
I wanted to ask about doing these sort of promotional things and work during your pro career. Have you gotten used to this kind of stuff or has the pandemic made it a bit different this year?
Yeah, I’ve done a couple things throughout this season and having to do everything through Zoom and not being able to meet or talk to people in person, it’s all been different. I think everybody had to be very versatile through this time, but we all understand the circumstances and the challenges. But it’s been fun, it’s been weird but like I said, it’s a unique situation and I’ve just tried to make the most of it.
I wanted to ask about the Cardinals and this season. You’ve been one of the more exciting teams in the league to watch. How satisfying has it been to work with Kliff Kingsbury and put in place a system that’s maybe defied some expectations among NFL skeptics?
Yeah, man, you’re catching me at a bad time because we started off hot and now, like I said, we’ve let a couple games slip away that we feel we should have won. I’ll tell you this: it’s not easy to win in this league. Like you said as far as the offense being exciting the team being exciting, we have a lot of great talent, a lot of great coaches, a lot of great guys in the locker room. But as of late, we’ve just gotta find a way to finish. I guess as far as excitement goes, I definitely think we’re one of the more exciting teams in the league, but that doesn’t matter much in my eyes.
OK, this is the part of the interview where I reveal that I’m a Buffalo Bills fan.
[laughs]
Obviously that Hail Mary was tough for me, but I have to say it’s one thing I’ve learned is when you have a player on your team who can do something like that, losing games in tough ways somehow feels better because you feel like you can win games like that, too. I wonder if that same thing translates into the locker room, too? When you know you have a talented team, when you know you have great players, is it easier to bounce back from tough losses because you feel you can do the same thing to other teams?
Man, honestly no. The close ones sting the most. Like yesterday, just the way the game kinda turned out, I don’t know if you got to watch it or see it. That stings. Then you have to get on a five hour flight back to Arizona and all you’re thinking about is the loss and maybe what we could have done differently.
And obviously the Bills were in the same boat. They had 45 seconds, you think you have the game wrapped up and we throw a Hail Mary. Hop catches it, and then they’re on a five hour flight back to Buffalo. So it’s crazy how the game works.
Is there something to learn from that? I know there’s always a cliche that you can learn from tough losses, but is that true? Or is it just something to endure, and you overcome it and try again next time? Are there actual lessons to find in losing?
Man, I’m not a big fan of losing. I will say I think there are in some cases. I think you have to learn from every loss, but not make it a thing. I don’t want to make losing a thing. But I guess you can say there’s something to learn from a loss.
I wanted to ask about Warzone again. Any favorite modes or guys you like to hook up with? Any teammates that are good?
Yeah, Warzone is my favorite if we’re talking Battle Royale. But if it’s multiplayer, I grew up playing Search and Destroy.
As far as teammates, Chase Edmonds, he’s good. Christian Kirk, Chandler Jones. We got a lot of Warzone players, or Call of Duty players on my team. So we all like to talk crap to each other.
Have you taken any interest in Call of Duty League or ever thought about investing in esports? I know a number of athletes that are big gamers have taken that step.
Oh, for sure. We might have something on the way that I can’t really speak on yet, but in the offseason I play every day. If I wasn’t an athlete, I’d probably be a gamer.
Boosie Badazz has pissed off a number of celebrities this year. Back in April, he ruffled the feathers of Jay-Z and Dwayne Wade after making transphobic comments about Wade’s daughter. Now, it looks like Boosie is having a quarrel with Mark Zuckerberg — and he’s willing to take it to court.
Bossie’s Intsagram was deactivated back in August after the rapper posted a pornographic photo to his feed and he’s still locked out of his 10 million follower account. Speaking to VladTV in an interview about the incident, Boosie said being locked out of his Instagram page has caused him to lose out on several brand deals, so his solution is to sue Zuckerberg for $20 million:
“And I got over 200,000 people writing statements who have done way worser things than I put on my Instagram. I got porn stars, I got all people who have done way worser things than my Instagram. Their Instagram has been given to them, taken back and given to them over and over. This is my first time my Instagram ever been taken back, taken from me. So you can give two million people their Instagram back for the derogatory things they did and I didn’t do nothing but post a girl with an emoji over her.”
Continuing to talk about the lawsuit, Boosie said he thinks Zuckerberg is discriminating against him. “This is discrimination,” he said. “Something is wrong, somebody must be mad because I said their name wrong and they chastise me. […] And my Black people are starting to tell me that ‘Boosie, this man is a racist. He knows you affect the Black community and make them smile every morning. Why he’s not giving you your page back when he gives all these people their page back? He might be trying to stop us from smiling.’”
It’s been a volatile year around the country, in more ways than one. Just as the pandemic was taking hold in America during the summer, there was an uprising among citizens against the type of police violence that has taken the lives of so many Black Americans. Athletes and celebrities around the world joined the cause, with numerous NBA stars throwing their support and influence behind the cause.
It resulted in a brief work stoppage during the first round of the playoffs in Orlando, as players put pressure on the league and its owners to enact concrete plan to fight racial injustice. Beyond that, individual teams and players have enacted their own initiatives to battle injustice.
The Boston Celtics, for instance, announced a 10-year, multi-million-dollar plan in partnership with the Shamrock Foundation that will focus on education and outreach. Celtics star Jaylen Brown is helping spearhead that plan, and on Friday, he talked more about how he plans to continue the work required to rectify racial injustice, even though there will be a change in White House occupant next month.
I asked Jaylen Brown how he was going to move his fight for social justice forward this season. Here’s his full answer: pic.twitter.com/ehDvZ9xShn
The NBA, as an institution, was a vocal and visible proponent of the Black Lives Matter movement this year, printing the BLM logo on the court in Orlando, allowing players to display social justice messages on their jerseys, and generally encouraging players to speak out.
But Adam Silver has indicated that the league likely won’t be quite as visible about it in the coming season, amid concerns that messaging fatigue might dilute or undermine those efforts. Still, it’s clear that players like Brown and scores of others will continue to use their platform to bring awareness, education, and actionable change for disenfranchised communities across the country.
JB Smoove is widely known as one of the great Hollywood nice guys. I’ve heard this a lot, from our entertainment writers, but I’ve also seen it firsthand. When my dad was dying, Smoove dropped him a nice tweet (in those earlier, friendlier days of Twitter) that my pops got a kick out of. Small mercies like that make a big difference when facing cancer.
This week, Smoove leveled up his nice guy game, joining with BIC and Good360 to donate 200,000 razors to those in need. The promo efforts around this donation opened the door for me to hop on the phone with Danny Duberstein himself. We chatted about quarantine, his newfound passion for vertical hydroponics, and the need to become more resilient and resourceful during tough times.
I also thanked him for my dad’s favorite TV moment ever:
“It may not be such a good idea, the whole ‘flip it’ thing.”
“I like it, man. I like it!”
***
First off, I have to thank you. When my dad was dying of cancer, you have a line from Curb that was his favorite joke ever. And when he was really sick, we watched it, over and over — just this one clip. And then you tweeted something nice at him and it made his day. And I just want to thank you for that genuineness that you always bring.
That’s all we do, baby. I love it, man. Oh, man. That warms my heart, man. The purpose of what we do, man, and that’s what humor does. It’s long-lasting. So I’m happy that I’ve got a chance to do that, man. I always try to lend myself, if I can, to these moments. So I’m happy that your dad got a chance to enjoy that, you know?
I’ll never forget him quoting, “Flip it. Topsy turvy this motherfucker.” So thank you again, for that.
I’m happy to hear that, man. So happy to hear that.
Speaking of you doing good, you’re involved in a giving initiative right now. You want to tell us how that came about?
Yeah, man, sure. I’ve been campaigning with my guys at BIC for a while, and they always come up with these amazing opportunities to give back. We’ve done it several times. And what we just did on Giving Tuesday was just an extension of that. Giving Tuesday, of course, we all know as a global generosity movement. What we’re trying to do is unleash the power of people and organizations. We want to try to transform our communities. And then of course the world, man.
I partnered with BIC and we’re going to do a donation of 200,000 BIC Flex 5 razors. That’s going to Good360.
And Good360 is doing some amazing things, man. Of course, it’s up my alley, man. They are an organization. They distribute highly needed products and donations to people overcoming challenges in their lives. Of course, we know this year is a very important time to give back because everyone’s dealing with… It’s 2020. Everyone’s dealing with the pandemic. And 2020 has been rough, man, believe me.
Normally every year I have this huge New Year’s party. In 2019, when plans for ringing in 2020 came around, we put some boots to 2019. Because 2019 was bad also. And we were like, “2019, get out of here. We’re putting the boot to you.” We said, “2019, get the hell out my face.” Who would know that 2020 would be like, “Okay, I’m waiting for you!”? 2020 has been rough, man, but this was the perfect opportunity for Good360, the perfect opportunity for BIC to get everybody, keep us going, you know what I mean? And Good360 has already distributed over $200 million worth of goods in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. So this is all needed, needed, needed.
I love that you bring up we need to be more community-minded, socially-minded right now during a difficult time. Is that a mindset that you’ve had always? Has that been your approach? You know, I told the story of you doing something touching for me when my pops was sick. Is that something that has just kind of always been your way of thinking?
Always. This has always been my thought process always, man. I’m a guy that wants everyone to win. And I want everybody to at least have the opportunity to win. That’s my main thing. You know what I mean? It’s one thing to want everybody to win, but all the best people don’t always win. Sometimes bad people win. But we want to make sure everybody has the opportunity to win. And that’s always been my mindset, man. Because I think everybody could bring their A-game, everyone could bring the effort — if they have the opportunity to do that.
I’m a big proponent. I’m also a Boys’ and Girls’ Club alum. So I’m always planting these seeds, trying to make sure everyone has a swing at the ball, at least. Everyone should have at least a swing at the ball. I’ve always been involved with those positive moments in my life, where I will always want to make sure I give back on something large scale like this, or something as small as walking to the airport and seeing someone who just wants a good word and just wants some advice or some direction. I’ll stop and talk to them for 15 minutes. I missed my flight one time making sure this one guy had the right frame of mind. I missed my flight. I missed my flight one day. But I thought about it after, maybe it’s something about me missing this flight that was…
I ended up meeting another business associate. On that same day, I didn’t meet him, but I did a movie with Cameron Crowe called We Bought a Zoo, with Matt Damon. And that day I missed that flight, this was so funny. So that day, I missed that flight, right? And when I got back from that trip, I got an audition call for We Bought a Zoo. I go in for the audition, and Cameron says, “Hey man, I saw you at the airport. I saw you at the airport. I didn’t walk up to you. I just wanted to observe you and your movements. And I saw you in the airport. I just watched you talk to people. I watched you move around. And so I said I wasn’t going to say anything to you. I didn’t want to meet you there. I wanted to bring you in for an audition for this role. But I wanted you to be the same guy that I met through my vision of you, as opposed to meeting you personally.”
He said, “I wanted to feel your energy.” That’s kind of how he does it. And I got to the audition. He said, “Hey, I saw you at the airport.” I said, “Oh, wow.” I said, “What day was it?” He said, “Last week.” I said, “Oh yeah. Yeah.”
So it’s crazy how you end up where you’re supposed to be at. Sometimes you need a little push. But sometimes these are moments that I cherish, that people want to see your character. They want to know who you are, exactly. You know what I mean? And seeing this opportunity right here — with BIC and Good360 — it just keeps going, man. It’s kind of like I’m racing in a relay race and I’m passing the baton to myself. You know what I mean? And I just keep passing that baton to another version of me.
I love that visual.
Keep it the way it’s going, you know what I mean?
That’s beautiful. Now, you’re associated with maybe the most neurotic human alive, in Larry David. And you’ve been in quarantine, which makes us all neurotic. When I watch five or six episodes of Curb, I know I get more neurotic. So I imagine you living it, you’ve gotten a little more neurotic. What is the JB Smoove quarantine routine?
Oh, man. What we do is, my wife I, my wife Shonda, we are very simple, man. Believe me, we are very simple. We just like what we like, and we love who we love. We’re vegans, of course. We like simple things, man. We like RVing. We like to cook. We have our own garden in our yard that we cook off of. We get our little vegetables and we do that, man. We’ve been keeping it really easy-breezy, man. You know, maybe once in a while, we have a big yard, so we’ll just have a little social distancing picnic with another couple. We’ll just have some wine by the fire feature. We just keep it real simple, man.
I think some of us are built for these moments. We’re the helping hand you need. And everybody’s not built for these kinds of obstacles. And sometimes you just need to hear that you can get through it. Sometimes you just need to hear it. And sometimes it comes in the smallest form. But we’ve just been taking it easy, man. I take little Zoom jobs here and there. Of course, we started shooting Curb already. I’m back to work-work.
You’re taking it as it comes; seeing the bright side.
I think all of this is weird because I feel like, even in the midst of this craziness we’re going through, I think it allowed people to sit the hell still for a minute. Of course, we don’t want the loss of life attached to it, but still it felt like people needed clarity a little bit. I think that goes along with everything that’s going on, the COVID, the political stuff, anything and everything that you can attach this 2020 to, somehow in the midst of it all, we’ve got to come out clearer minded and knowing your path even greater. Knowing your path. And I think a lot of people got clarity with a lot of things, and I think we needed that.
Now, let me ask you this, you talk about growing your own food. I’m very into growing my own food. Do you find that COVID and just the idea that society can be knocked out makes you want to be more self-reliant? Is that a piece of it?
Oh yes indeed, man. You have to be resourceful in this moment. You have to figure out… It’s kind of like those squirrels, man. Those squirrels are really good at that, man. They got so organized. They will make sure that rainy day is covered. They got some seeds planted. And I think that’s the main thing is to plant enough seeds that you can get your mental and your physical can make it through. Some people can get their physical right but their mental ain’t right. They can’t deal with all this. You’ve got to have a balance of both. You’ve got to have your health. Your mental health, your physical health is going to be the benefit of you making it through all this.
Your temperament’s got to be right and I think you’ve got to be able to brush things off and understand that, especially when you’re dealing with people because people are going to be people. We have to figure all that out, and then you’ve got to know who to deal with and who not to deal with. I think we have to make sure that all your physical and all your mental bases are covered, and then the rest of the stuff you kind of deal with on a single basis. But I can say that eating right and keeping your mindset right has helped greatly in this pandemic stuff. As long as we all can stay healthy enough and stay safe, I think we can get through this, and we can get back to some normalcy.
Was there anything that you learned during the quarantine that you hadn’t done before? I know a lot of people got into bread, or if you had a favorite cocktail you learned to make, some favorite dish, you learned to make?
This garden, this is our first garden. We’re only maybe two months in with this garden. So we have a vertical garden, which is built by a company called LA Urban Farm. So it’s not the typical garden where you use dirt and all that stuff and compost. This is a vertical garden.
Vertical hydroponic, right?
Exactly.
That’s what I use, too.
We have three of those.
Oh, wow.
Oh, we’ve got three of those bad boys. We love it. We basically invite our friends over… We’ve got so much stuff, we invite our friends over to go shopping. We tell them, “Bring a little basket with you and just like pick off the garden. Get some greens, get some chard, get your mixed greens, get your cauliflower, get your kale, get your mustard greens, get all the stuff you need, get your butter head lettuce, get your onions.” We’ve got everything we need on that boy. We have all our herbs. We invite friends over all the time. “Listen, just come over with a shopping bag, because we’ve got so much that we are willing to share it,” which is also great. You share what you have.
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Thank you so much for your time and energy. I really appreciate it.
Yeah, man, all best to you, man. Stay safe, man, and we should definitely meet in person one day.
I can’t wait.
Especially with that story about your dad, man.
We’ll flip it together. We’ll topsy-turvy the motherfucker. I appreciate you. And I appreciate all you do.
When I interviewed 91-year-old Holocaust survivor Ben Lesser a few months ago, I was blown away by his story. I also felt dismayed hearing him explain how Holocaust education is sorely lacking in so many places. Right around the time of our interview, a report came out that our younger generations have a shockingly woeful understanding of the Holocaust. Nearly two-thirds of Millennials and Gen Z participants in a 50-state survey didn’t know that 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis. Nearly half couldn’t name a single concentration camp.
If we lose that history, we are less likely to recognize when the precursors to such atrocities repeat themselves. Additionally, the victims and families of victims of the millions of men, women, and children who were systematically tortured and killed in the 40,000 concentration camps and ghettos established during WWII deserve to have their experiences remembered and acknowledged.
The largest Nazi camp complex was Auschwitz, which included concentration, extermination, and forced-labor camps. Of the estimated 1.3 million people who were sent to Auschwitz, 1.1 million died there between 1940 and 1945. Nearly five years, and more than a million people murdered in just one camp complex. The statistics alone are mind-blowing.
Such large numbers are hard to wrap our minds around. That’s why individual stories like Ben Lesser’s matter so much. He himself is an Auschwitz survivor, and his descriptions of what he experienced there are difficult but important to hear.
But what makes the Holocaust especially chilling is the premeditated, factory-like automation of the killing. Camps like Auschwitz were built for the purpose of exterminating as many human beings as possible as efficiently as possible. Men, women, and children crammed into cattle cars like sardines. Men, women, and children stripped and shaven. Nazi soldiers making split second decisions of who was strong and healthy enough to be worked to death and who would be marched straight to the gas chambers.
While individual stories are vital, so are broader visuals that help us understand the scope of what took place. Perhaps paradoxically, some of the most powerful visuals from the Holocaust don’t include people themselves. I remember the first time I saw a photo of an enormous pile of shoes from a concentration camp—there must have been thousands of them. That image stuck with me more than any other when I was first learning about the Holocaust. Each pair of shoes belonged to a person, and seeing them systematically yet carelessly tossed into a huge heap encapsulated the inhumanity that kept piling up as Nazi killings kept going and going.
Those who have visited Auschwitz remark about the size of the place—how it keeps going and going and going—but that’s hard to capture in photographs. Thankfully, the Auschwitz Museum has an educational tool for those of us who haven’t been there to get a sense of the scale of it—a panoramic, interactive tour of the grounds.
The panoramic tool lets you click arrows to move around the grounds, where you see row after row of buildings, some of which still stand and others where you can only see parts of the brick and chimneys. There’s a “read more” link in each area that describes a bit about what you’re seeing. You can click the link in the tweet or go here to take the interactive tour.
The size of the space is one of the most impressive elements of the experience of visiting the authentic site of th… https://t.co/yuNxDV2FKJ
— Auschwitz Memorial (@Auschwitz Memorial)1607087560.0
The Auschwitz Memorial Twitter account used the word “impressive” to describe the size of the grounds, which feels like a bit of an odd word choice, but the scope and size of it really is incredible. Imagine the resources that went into creating this place, solely dedicated to destruction and dehumanization. Imagine the number of people it took to run it, to go along with a plan so heinous and horrific that we consider it one of the very worst chapters in human history.
And it really wasn’t that long ago. I recently spoke to a living, breathing human being who was taken to this place by train, who watched his siblings’ incinerated ashes fall from the sky there, who barely survived the of savagery and genocide that took place on that soil.
As difficult as it is to digest, we need to learn everything we can about the Holocaust. We need to understand that such atrocity happened in one of the most advanced, cultured societies at the time. We need to see what led up to it, how propaganda and prejudice fueled it, how people allowed it to happen. We need to know what hatred can lead to—not just on an individual level, but on a mass scale.
We need to look at the entire Holocaust epic, learn how it played out in all its systematic horror, and vow—continually—to never allow ourselves to even flirt with the opening act.
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!!! Who else ready for this new 
(@RedsArmy_John) 
