With QAnon Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene dominating headlines thanks to her questionable social media history of calling for Democrats to be executed and harassing Parkland survivor David Hogg, fellow Republican Meghan McCain found herself forced to denounce Greene on The View, which she did. Kinda. To McCain’s credit, she opened her remarks by fully agreeing her co-hosts that Greene is a major problem for the party. “She’s a nightmare for Republicans,” McCain said. “I mean, she’s a total whack job conspiracy theorist. Everyone is right, I can’t defend any of the things she’s done or said.”
DEMS SLAM REP. GREENE OVER PAST POSTS: After Dept. of Homeland Security warned of a deepening threat of domestic terrorism, the co-hosts react to pushes for lawmakers such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to be held accountable for some of their comments. https://t.co/f8u2wbJuikpic.twitter.com/JbW214FsWA
However, things took a turn when it came to talk to removing Greene from office. While McCain conceded that Greene is a “different” situation because of her social media posts that incited violence against Nancy Pelosi (and also called for FBI agents to be executed), the conservative View host feels that removing Greene will become a “slippery slope.” McCain then drew a false equivalency between Greene and Democratic congressman Eric Swalwell. Via The Daily Beast:
“I think we should be analyzing congresspeople who are on committees,” McCain said. “Eric Swalwell is accused of sleeping with a Chinese spy and being targeted and he’s on the House intelligence committee and that’s something Nancy Pelosi has refused to deal with. I don’t think someone who has been compromised by a Chinese spy should have access to our intelligence.”
For the record, McCain is incorrectly citing an Axios report about suspected Chinese spy Fang Fang who targeted Swalwell and other California politicians. When Swalwell was alerted of Fang’s alleged spying, he immediately severed all ties with her and fully cooperated with the FBI. He is not accused of wrongdoing and did not have sexual relations with Fang.
After receiving co-signs from the likes of Billie Eilish and Phoebe Bridgers, Arlo Parks is just a day away from releasing her anticipated debut album, Collapsed In Sunbeams. To drum up excitement surround the release, Parks shared some of her music on SiriusXMU’s airwaves, including a delicate cover of Clairo’s Immunity hit “Bags.”
Taking on the cover with a piano and a subdued drum beat, Parks delivered Clairo’s lovelorn lyrics. While Parks gave her rendition of Clairo’s original track, the two young musicians had actually previously worked together on music. Clairo lent a hand on Parks’ single “Green Eyes,” which is about the pains of falling in love with a woman whose family is at odds with their queer identity.
On Parks’ upcoming album, she pens heartfelt lyrics about coping with mental health, as heard on her recent single “Hope.” It’s also a theme that Clairo touches on frequently in her music. Just a few days ago, Clairo shared a lo-fi song about her own struggles with mental health which she recorded on her phone. Posting the acoustic track on Instagram, Clairo wrote, “not sure about you, but my mental health has taken a major dip since quarantine started- at times I feel like i’ve never felt worse. new medication, hotlines, and one scheduled appointment with a psychiatrist later and i’m feeling more like myself again. I wrote this last night and i feel there’s no real reason I should hold onto it.”
Collapsed In Sunbeams is out 1/29 via Transgressive. Pre-order it here.
Always looking for an opportunity to fluff up Zach LaVine’s credentials, the Chicago Bulls this morning swung in to use the stock market memes of the day while also advocating for LaVine’s All-Star bid. As Robinhood paused trading on GameStop, AMC, and other stocks, the Bulls put together a graphic showing LaVine’s stock shooting through the roof, with the caption “ZACH LAVINE TO THE MOON.”
The funnier part might be that Benny the Bull, the team’s inanimate mascot, got in on the skyrocketing LaVine stock and started doling out market advice to fans in the Bulls’ mentions.
LaVine is averaging a career-high 27 points per game in his seventh season and shooting better than 50 percent from the field, finally putting together the type of consistent and efficient season we’ve been waiting for. Maybe on a losing team that’s still not enough for voters to put him in the All-Star game — Chicago has struggled this year despite LaVine’s gaudy scoring numbers, although at 7-10 they find themselves in the morass of teams jockeying for position in the Eastern Conference play-in tournament picture — but you best bet the Bulls’ social media team will work night and day to keep LaVine stock prices high and get more and more people buying high on their scoring star.
Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman is finally getting its due, decades later, beyond the printed confines of the sprawling comic book series, and it’s doing so in a dual way. In 2020, the epic dark fantasy landed on Audible (with James McAvoy as Morpheus, Lord of the Dreaming, Kat Dennings as Death, and Michael Sheen as Lucifer) with the first three graphic novels coming to life in The Sandman: Act I, and hopefully soon, Netflix’s live-action series will roll film. To that end, the streaming service has released the first casting announcements, and there’s a surprise or two on hand.
Tom Sturridge is picking up the role of Morpheus/Dream, but what really sticks out will probably be of more interest to Brienne of Tarth and Game of Thrones fans.
And the beguiling GWENDOLINE CHRISTIE is LUCIFER, Ruler of Hell.
More news from The Sandman soon. But for now, sweet dreams, my lovelies. (6/6) pic.twitter.com/0CNC5euPWe
Gwendoline Christie will take on the Lucifer role, so yep, we’ve got an actress picking up that challenge (and we will have dueling Lucifers for awhile, given that Sheen’s version of the character reappears in the final two graphic novels, which will be covered in the third Audible installment). Christie’s not the only Thrones actor on board, either. Charles Dance (who portrayed Tywin Lannister) will appears as blackmailer/magician Roderick Burgess, and the rest of the cast (so far) includes Boyd Holbrook, Asim Chaudhry, Vivienne Acheampong, and Sanjeev Bhaskar.
Along with Netflix’s announcement, Gaiman tweeted the news with a promise of much more to come: “Seven down, hundreds to go.”
There. A whole set of tweets written just before bed and set to go out when I’m fast asleep. I’m vaguely worried that I’ve mistimed them, but too late now. Here are the first seven members of the #Sandman cast to be announced officially. Seven down, hundreds to go. pic.twitter.com/DksGLyMkBf
Of course, I’m on the edge of my seat to hear who shall portray Death in the live-action series. When we spoke with Gaiman about the Audible series, he spoke highly of Kat Dennings while expressing that he was excited to see her move far beyond what he saw with 2 Broke Girls. “One of the things that I love about her performance as Death is that, with Kat, we get her cheerful side, her funny side, to land a gag,” Gaiman said at the time. “But we also get her deep, we get her angry, we get her very, very real… it’s funny but absolutely heartbreaking… It’s kind-of magical.”
After having listened to Kat as Death in the Audible version of this story, I’m putting it out there: She belongs in this live-action series, too. She’s got the spirit of the character down, and Dennings can definitely pull off the look as well.
Netflix describes the series as fans would expect, writing, “The Sandman follows the people and places affected by Morpheus, the Dream King, as he mends the cosmic — and human — mistakes he’s made during his vast existence.” And at around the same time, an Audible press release announced that The Sandman: Act II and The Sandman: Act III are coming. In the release, Gaiman declared, “It was thrilling to be a part of the fastest-selling Audible fiction title and to watch it break records. I’m excited to discover what other surprises the genius Dirk Maggs has up his sleeve in the next volumes of Audible’s The Sandman.” The comic-book legend added, “It’s like making movies for the ear that go straight to the brain. And soon it will be time to meet the whole family, then to go back to Hell once more, as Morpheus confronts Lucifer in Season of Mists.”
Texas trio Khruangbin are known for their heady and oftentimes instrumental music, as heard on their recently released third album Mordechai. Following the album’s 2020 release, Khruangbin have now shared a visual to their “Dearest Alfred” track along with a remix of the song by acclaimed producer Knxwledge.
Both of the “Dearest Alfred” visuals were created by The Kennedys, a tutored internship program at the creative agency Wieden+Kennedy London. They feature a dizzying montage of various pen pals and include both animated and claymation scenes.
In a statement alongside his remix, Knxwledge praised Khruangbin’s music, saying, “I’m just a fan like everyone else. They are so unique; the sound they have just resonates with the sounds I grew up loving and most influenced by. Beautiful progressions with perfect minimal, yet so powerful, lyrics. What more can you ask for?”
Speaking about the making of the two visuals, Khruangbin’s Laura Laura Lee Ochoa said they wanted the highlight the importance of sending physical mail:
“In a year where communication has a new spin of importance and focus has been put on the postal service, we wanted to make a video highlighting that sentiment for a song based on letters my grandfather sent to his brother. Working with The Kennedys, we were able to highlight these feelings from a variety of perspectives and through a variety of mediums–which felt important to the project. I’ve been a big fan of The Kennedys since working at W+K, as it gives creatives that lack work experience a chance to gain some amidst the beautiful chaos of real agency life, and feel extremely proud for the opportunity to work with them on such a meaningful project. Our Zoom call with them presenting us their ideas for the video was one of my favorite moments of quarantine–I felt incredibly inspired and humbled. This project ended up being two-fold: the original video for ‘Dearest Alfred’ and a remixed video for the remix of ‘Dearest Alfred’ by Knowledge. I love what we made together.”
Check out Khruangbin’s “Dearest Alfred” video and the Knxwledge remix video above.
Mordechai is out now via Dead Oceans. Get it here.
Houston’s ongoing saga with Deshaun Watson doesn’t seem to be slowing down, as the Texans now reportedly are committed to fixing their relationship with Watson rather than trading him, despite his widely reported trade request. The news that the Texans don’t want to deal Watson came from Aaron Wilson of the Houston Chronicle shortly after Houston announced its new head coach.
Deshaun Watson has requested a trade from the Texans, according to league sources. Has a no trade clause in his $156 million contract. Texans don’t want to trade Watson and want to repair the relationship. This is a big step in the disconnect between Pro Bowl passer and Texans
Though it remains to be seen what new head coach David Culley can do for the Texans’ fortunes, the problem is Watson’s trade request does not seem to solely be based on wanting to win elsewhere. Houston has a new general manager and head coach, so if it were just about a fresh start after the Bill O’Brien era, one would think Watson would see things through for another season with new leadership.
Instead, the nature of Houston’s GM and coaching searches is among the things that really bothered Watson. A new report from Charles Robinson of Yahoo! Sports does signal that the Texans have optimism about Culley potentially connecting better with Watson than O’Brien could, but it’s hard to say whether that’s still possible.
1. A ton of Culley advocates coming out of the woodwork in a text-a-thon who are over the moon with the #Texans hire. Describing Culley as a big energy, positive culture guy who connects with players. A few have said that if DeShaun Watson has open ears, Culley will reach him.
With a no-trade clause and his status as the team’s most important player by far, Watson seemingly holds the leverage here, but of course, the Texans don’t have to act now. With the new braintrust in place, they seem to want to try one last time to convince Watson to stay put. Then again, the last time a professional sports team in Houston took this approach, they ended up parting with their star player, anyway.
In an exceptionally rare move, Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Republican Senator Ted Cruz agree that there needs to be an investigation into the investment app Robinhood after it made a controversial decision to stop retail investors from buying GameStop stocks on Thursday morning. Citing “recent volatility,” Robinhood is restricting transactions for stocks that have been targeted by Reddit users. As of this writing, stocks like GameStop and AMC can’t be purchased, however, they can be sold. It’s this odd discrepancy that caught the attention of AOC who tweeted out a link to a Motherboard article on Robinhood’s abrupt move to control the chaotic market situation.
“This is unacceptable,” AOC tweeted. “We now need to know more about @RobinhoodApp’s decision to block retail investors from purchasing stock while hedge funds are freely able to trade the stock as they see fit. As a member of the Financial Services Cmte, I’d support a hearing if necessary.”
Not even ten minutes later, Cruz retweeted AOC with the message, “Fully agree.”
The GameStop stock fiasco has been a viral sensation due to its hilarious randomness that’s been perfect for meme-ing. It’s also demonstrated some of the absurdities of the stock market and how it’s not an accurate measure of America’s economy despite proclamations from the previous administration.
That said, AOC and Cruz are correct that there needs to be a federal investigation into what exactly has been happening the GameStop stocks and Robinhood. Late Wednesday evening, former Wall Street professional Alexis Goldstein wrote an lengthy explainer that’s been gaining traction due to its deep dive into how Robinhood acted as a “fig leaf” in a battle that wasn’t a “David vs. Goliath” situation where everyday people were sticking it to hedge funds. Instead, Goldstein details how the GameStop squeeze was still hedge funds vs. hedge funds with Robinhood playing a questionable role as “populist” facilitator that demands further scrutiny.
In a late-breaking development, it sure looks like AOC is not interested in working with Cruz at all, but she’s “[h]appy to work w/ almost any other GOP that aren’t trying to get me killed.” (And the failed MAGA coup fallout continues.)
I am happy to work with Republicans on this issue where there’s common ground, but you almost had me murdered 3 weeks ago so you can sit this one out.
Happy to work w/ almost any other GOP that aren’t trying to get me killed.
Over in one corner of the internet, a whole lot of wild stuff is going on involving Reddit, GameStop, day traders, the Robinhood app, people making money in ways that people who already have money do not like, and more. In another, NBA fans are allowed to start voting for players to make the 2021 All-Star Game in whatever form that ends up taking amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Unsurprisingly, some team was going to use the former as a way to juice numbers for someone on their team with aspirations of becoming an All-Star. That honor ends up going to the Indiana Pacers, which are among the surprise teams in the league due to their 11-7 record that has them sitting in third place in the Eastern Conference.
A major reason for this is Myles Turner, the standout center who has spent this season racking up blocks like people in Ben Roethlisberger’s mentions. As a result, the Pacers did some quick photoshop work to one of my favorite memes, “Stonks,” and made the following:
time to show that r/pavers is just as influential as r/wallstreetbets
Turner certainly has a case for being an All-Star selection — in addition to his work protecting the rim, he’s finding other ways to impact games, averaging 14.1 points, 6.8 rebounds, 1.3 steals, and a league-best 4.2 blocks in 32.4 minutes a night.
In most cases, we’re more concerned with the liquid inside a bottle than the bottle itself. If a whiskey, rum, tequila, gin, or vodka is high-quality, we don’t care if it comes in the ugliest bottle of all-time. We’d still drink it.
Serve our favorite bourbon whiskeys in an old hat and we’d still probably take a sip or two.
But while we spend most of our time focused on the spirits themselves, we can still find time to appreciate vibrant, unique, and overall cool bottle designs when we see them. Especially when they give off midcentury, Mad Men vibes. This is doubly true when the spirit also happens to be delicious.
We’ve rounded up twelve of our bottle designs ever created below. Consider these “investments in the look of your bar cart.” While we’re not doing our usual tasting notes, we vouch that the juice inside is definitely worth tasting, too.
This expression from the island of Barbados was aged for a minimum of ten years in oak casks. This creates a nuanced, well-balanced nutty, and vanilla-filled expression that’s perfectly suited for slow sipping on the rocks.
The Bottle:
At first glance, the bottle image appears to be warped. But the bottle itself is warped and slumping to one side. It’s a tribute to the ancient, leather sacks pirates once filled with rum. And if you can’t appreciate that little bit of #brandstory, then you’ve gotten too jaded for your own good.
Dave Phinney hand selects each barrel that goes into this blended bourbon. They come from three different distilleries — one in Indiana, one in Kentucky, and one in Tennessee. It’s matured in new, charred American oak barrels before bottling.
The Bottle:
The bottle itself is black and opaque, so you can’t see the spirit inside. It’s adorned with a black and white image of a literal chair on fire (hence the name). The “given to me by a wandering stranger” vibe is spooky, interesting, and perfect for showing off.
This award-winning vodka was made from corn and water from the cascade mountains. It’s naturally gluten-free, distilled, and filtered five times, and comes in a sleek decanter instead of a regular bottle.
The Bottle:
The decanter bottle is designed by industrial engineer Karim Rashid and looks like one of those awards this vodka has been racking up.
One of the most awarded gins in the world, this German spirit is made using 47 botanicals and herbs found in the Black Forest. These include unusual ingredients like lingonberries and honey pomelo.
The Bottle:
At first glance, this bottle doesn’t seem all that interesting. But it’s the simplicity and classic old-timey look that make it special. The gin is encased in a brown bottle with a stamp-like label that features a coat of arms-like image with a monkey in the center.
This Diageo-owned brand really moves around a lot before it reaches your bottle. It’s distilled at the New Bernheim Distillery, aged for fifteen years at Stitzel-Weller, and bottled in Tullahoma, Tennessee.
The Bottle:
This elegant, timeless bottle looks like an expensive decanter. Square, uniform, and perfect for a shelf. Pure Mad Men — that alone might be worth the price of the juice inside.
This añejo tequila was aged between 24 and 28 months in Cincoro’s underground cellar. Aging for this amount of time, especially underground, imparts rich charred wood and vanilla flavors to this highly sippable spirit.
The Bottle:
Sure, you’re going to pay a little more to get your hands on this elegant, sleek bottle. But most of that is the juice itself — which is high quality. The bottle definitely grabs eyes, though — it’s tall, visually pleasing, and the perfect addition to your tequila shelf.
Citadelle is a French gin brand that’s been produced since 1996 by Maison Ferrand, a brand more well-known for its Cognac. This heavy juniper flavored gin also has 18 other herbs and botanicals to give it a unique, well-rounded flavor perfect for your favorite gin & tonic.
The Bottle:
There’s something classic and homey about the Citadell bottle. It’s blue, elegantly designed, and adorned with an eye-pleasing white label. Feels like something from a Gatsby party.
In the whiskey world, even though it’s one of the most popular brands, Jack Daniel’s doesn’t really get a lot of respect. Its flagship whiskey is cheap, sweet, and perfect for mixing. But its 94-proof Single Barrel Select with its robust, rich, subtly sweet flavor is more a sipper than a mixer — in fact, we’ve given it a lot of shine this year.
The Bottle:
Another whiskey that comes in a decanter, Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel Select is simple, clean, and classic in its design.
Nixta Licor de Elote is a corn liqueur produced in Jilotepec, Mexico. It’s sweet, rich, and was designed to be used by bartenders as a cocktail ingredient. As such, it’s well suited for mixing into tequila-based cocktails — though quite pleasant to sip on its own.
The Bottle:
Take one look at this bottle and you absolutely know what you’re in for. First of all, it’s shaped like an ear of corn. Secondly, there’s an image of corn on the label. It doesn’t get much cornier than that. But damn, if this doesn’t look cool.
This 100% organic spirit is made using 100% Blue Weber agave. It’s aged for ten months in French limousine casks. The result is a refined, well-rounded, rich tequila with a nice mix of vegetal sweetness and buttery caramel.
The Bottle:
Each bottle is a work of art. The yellow skull with the fire and devil was created to pay tribute to the Day of the Dead celebrations.
Yes, this is a celebrity whiskey brand. It was created by spirits entrepreneur Brent Hocking and rapper Drake. It’s a blend of high rye bourbons that were mixed to create a rich, balanced, easy to sip whiskey.
The Bottle:
This elegant, streamlined, futuristic-looking bottle might look more like a bottle of cologne than a whiskey. But that just means it will pop even harder when it’s displayed in your liquor cabinet or on your bar cart.
At first glance, you see all flash and no substance. But this award-winning 100% Blue Weber agave tequila is incredibly well-made. It’s double-distilled before aging to produce a mellow, sweet tequila perfectly suited for slow sipping.
The Bottle:
This extremely unique bottle is shaped like the head of a jaguar. It’s bright, vibrant, and decorated with chaquira beads. If you can afford to give this one away, it makes a gift that won’t soon be forgotten.
Our minds jump to SNL when we hear the term “sketch comedy.” Or maybe to earlier variety shows like The Carol Burnett Show or Your Show Of Shows. Chappelle’s Show, In Living Color, Kids In The Hall, The State, and Key & Peele are others that have defined the form in the last 30 years, but as veteran sketch performer (and writer and producer) Keegan-Michael Key makes clear in his new Audible Original podcast, The History Of Sketch Comedy (which is now available), sketch predates screens, stretching back centuries, woven into storytelling and theater. It’s a fascinating journey and one Key takes his time taking listeners through, tossing out references and stories about more modern sketch performers and shows along the way.
Before you go dive into the podcast, though, let’s explore the battle of craft vs. topicality in sketch and one of Key’s own creations, Luther The Anger Translator, his hidden backstory, evident durability, and relatability, as told by Key when we spoke recently. Though first, please do indulge us as the conversation begins, as all conversations should when featuring someone from Detroit, with a question about coney dog allegiances.
I’m not from there, but I’ve been and I feel like it’s required that I ask anybody with Detroit roots: Lafayette or American?
Oh, American. I actually just switched over. I switched over. I don’t know what happened to me. It might be an issue of cleanliness for me now. There’s something about the grittiness of Lafayette. I think that the word grittiness could also be interpreted in other ways. You know what I mean? [Laughs]
There is a theatricality to Lafayette that doesn’t exist at American, though. There’s always this little guy… there’s a guy there, who for years would order a carton of milk and he would bring a plastic glass, like a cheap plastic glass. He would take the milk carton and open it and then he’d pour the glass. And somehow he could manage to get the stream of milk a foot and a half away from the cup and still be pouring it into the cup. So I will always appreciate the theatricality of it. Where else do you go to a restaurant and order, “I’ll have a carton of milk, please?” Just so I can watch this spectacle. That’s something that Lafayette will always have going for it.
That’s craft, right there. That’s like a hotdog cocktail. That’s great.
Exactly, exactly.
So, with the podcast, it was interesting the way you started talking about the roots of sketch comedy in one of the later episodes, the proverb about planting a tree, and the Bob Odenkirk/Birthday Boys analogy. Is the podcast, itself, your effort to speak to the future and plant the seeds for the future of sketch comedy? Because you really go in-depth on the entire history of sketch comedy here. Not just, “it all started with SNL.” Like, you go all the way back to the ancient Sumerians.
Yeah. I think that what we wanted to do was to put together a fully rounded history of this particular art form. It only occurred to us in the midst of making it that there was this interesting thing where you kind of say, “Well, gosh, at the end of the day, performance is performance.” Whether you’re watching on a screen or you’re watching live in a theater space, that dynamic should always exist. There will always be one person watching another person tell a story. And so there was a bit of a desire… I would say it kind of came to us that it would come full circle like that as opposed to… it wasn’t by design. If that makes any sense.
It does. Speaking of SNL, which is obviously the focal point of sketch comedy. The cliche is it’s never as good as you remember it. I try to cut it some slack because of the craft that’s involved. And so I wonder sometimes if the craft of sketch gets lost behind the topicality of these shows.
I think sometimes the craft does get lost. I think as we get swept up into the tide of topicality, there are certain things… Especially on SNL during a cold open, there are things that you want to include that are a touchstone for that week that everybody in society has experienced at large. So you kind of want to make sure… “let’s make sure we get that joke in or that observation in,” and sometimes the structure, that very foundational structure of “premise plus escalation equals sketch” does get lost a little bit. I think to expound on it just a little bit more, there’s the craft and the craft is always at the crossroads of one other thing, which is, is it going to make an audience laugh? Is it making me laugh? And I think sometimes when we’re dealing with topicality, this maelstrom of things that are ripped from the headlines that we’re trying to include all of that… we might get shortsighted. And I’m not talking about SNL in particular, just when you’re doing topical comedy in general, that sometimes we do lose that piece of the craft a little bit. A little bit. I would say it’s minutia. It’s negligible. But I agree that we do sometimes get swept away by recent events. And then we loosen our grip on form and structure a little bit.
Does that come from a want to just be on people’s minds and to continue being in the conversation? Or is it more internal? Is it more of, “I’ve got something to say about the situation right now, and this is the way I say things through sketch comedy?” You guys worked in some political stuff in Key & Peele. What’s the motivation when you have to kind of break those rules a little bit to meet the moment and the topic?
Well, the one thing is, Jordan [Peele] and I were, in a manner of speaking, by necessity pushed into a certain direction, which was that we had to write things that resonated with us at a deep evergreen level. So most of our observations, most of them, not all of them, most of our observations on Barack Obama were the fact that we shared a similar history to him and similar social dynamics to him in our lives. Being raised by single parents, being biracial in this society were things that made us fascinated to write about him. And so as you’ll notice in sketches like Luther and Obama, a lot of what’s going on is that it’s more an observation and an exercise in learning about who he is as a person. If that makes sense. We could have done that without him being the president. We could’ve just done a study on mild-mannered African-American men. Right? But the sketch wouldn’t have held as much weight. And the reason it resonated with so many people is because it was about the leader of the free world, and the fact that he happened to be a man of color, and all of the racial dynamics that exist in our country in specific.
But the necessity was that we knew how long it would take us to write and record the sketches. So we couldn’t do topical things for the most part. We had to find overarching human themes to work from, and large, long-standing tropes to work from as opposed to being able to stay in this kind of ephemeral immediate place. You get into that shoehorn place when you’re going, “I really want to get the topicality in there. I’m going to sacrifice a little bit of the craft.” You know? Or, “I could work probably a little bit harder on this setup and maybe find an even more clever way to present the premise, but I really don’t have the time.” And the thing is we were very fortunate that Jordan and I had the time. We had a 13-week writing process for two months of shooting. And it was actually a luxury, it was wonderful.
Thinking about the podcast and some things that have advanced the form are amazing performers, but also amazing sketches that just transcend time. And Luther is one of those. Years removed from it, how did the relationship change between you and that character once it hit big? Once it broke out and you’re doing the correspondence dinner with Obama?
It’s interesting. That’s an interesting question. It didn’t change my relationship with the character much at all, to be quite honest with you. He always lived within strict parameters. It’s very much the opposite of a lot of other characters that I played, where we wanted them to grow and wanted to see other aspects of their lives. Whereas he always stayed in that same place. The only time he pushed the parameter was when the other person… and the one time that we did it most successfully, obviously, was where Barack Obama himself was getting agitated and angry during his speech. And then I had to calm him down. And that’s the furthest we ever pushed the parameters of that character. Because really he is, I guess to use psychological terms, we were just providing Barack Obama with an id. Because it almost seems like he was so controlled and so graceful that he was only superego. He was only a precise thinking person who thought things out, and we just wanted to provide him with an id. So in a manner of speaking, I was just providing that for him. We didn’t get to learn any other aspects of Luther’s life.
We discussed it quite a lot. He has a whole backstory; he’s from my hometown, he’s from Detroit. He wanted to be a motivational speaker when he was a teenager, he was the one black guy on his lacrosse team. I had a whole backstory for the guy. He actually served a singular purpose.
With that singular purpose and with that success, when it pops do you start thinking about, “okay, where’s the off-ramp? How do we make sure we don’t overdo this?”
Yeah. It is a consideration. I haven’t had to explore it too much recently. I always wanted to do a retirement video for him. Or does Joe Biden need his services? Maybe Luther can go work for the Biden-Harris administration. He can jump between both of them. He can work for Kamala too, if he wanted to. I always wanted to see if there’s a world where Luther has a sandwich board that says, “Will get angry for work,” or, “Will get angry for food.” I do think there is a chance of him being worn out, but we certainly haven’t reached that yet. We certainly haven’t reached that. I think he has actually a very long shelf life because, again, he’s much less a person than he is a quality that exists within every human, and that won’t go away.
Absolutely. This is great. Thank you so much. Always a pleasure to talk with you.
You too, Jason. Next time you go to Detroit, go get a carton of milk at Lafayette.
‘The History Of Sketch Comedy’ Audible Original podcast is available now.
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