If you’re tracking it per episode, Arrested Development may have more quote-worthy moments than just about any TV comedy ever. One of the most famous is when Lucille Bluth demonstrates her lack of knowledge about things that are common knowledge to everyday people by asking her son, “I mean, it’s one banana, Michael. What could it cost, $10?” Of course, armfuls of the inexpensive fruit can be had for that price, but the character had clearly never experienced grocery stores, or at least not in a long time.
In the last year, she scored five Grammys, went multiplatinum eight times, released the new Bond theme, and was forced to cancel a world tour. Then, she turned 19.
It turns out Billie Eilish is actually in a similar position. Her debut EP, Don’t Smile At Me, was released in 2017, when she was just 15 years old, and her rise to music stardom began with “Ocean Eyes,” which she uploaded on SoundCloud two years before that. So, it would be unsurprising to learn that the now-19-year-old pop star hasn’t spent much time walking up and down grocery store aisles and getting a feel for how much everyday items cost. She suggested that that’s the case in a new Vanity Fair interview, in which she tells a story about the time she paid $35 for what she thought was one standard-sized box of Froot Loops cereal while ordering online. Eilish said:
“I don’t know what things cost because I’ve never been an adult before. And, you know, I grew up with no money. It’s a really weird position I’m in. I feel kind of stupid because I’m like, I don’t know how much Froot Loops are. I tried to order one box of Froot Loops and I was like, ‘Oh yeah, sure. It’s $35.’ I didn’t know that that’s expensive. I ordered 70 [1-ounce] boxes.”
For the record, Walmart lists a 19.4-ounce “family size” box of the toucan-touted cereal at $3.64. It’s possible Eilish bought her Froot Loops from this Amazon listing, which has 70 1-ounce boxes for $35.70.
It’s not exactly clear why this is the case, but the various streaming networks have all attempted — with varying degrees of success — to launch their own astronaut-themed series. In fact, both Apple TV+ and Disney+, launched their services with an astronaut series onboard, while Netflix has created three astronaut-themed shows in recent years. Even Hulu and Showtime have gotten in the game, as well.
If you love shows about astronauts but are selective about which shows to watch, here’s a quick guide to the best and worst currently featured on the various streaming platforms.
7. Another Life (Netflix)
Netflix
Another Life is technically an astronaut drama — Katee Sackhoff plays an astronaut who leads her team on a high-risk mission to explore the genesis of an alien artifact — but unlike the others on this list, it’s less about the space program and more science-fiction. It is more like a bad version of Alien than it is a bad version of Apollo 13, but rest assured that it is bad. Very bad. All one needs to understand about how bad it is that there is a very long rave on the spaceship in one episode. Otherwise, it’s a tepid parade of bad sci-fi tropes, and it never once manages to distinguish itself except in how badly it wastes the talents of Katee Sackhoff. (The series was renewed for a second season, due out in 2021).
6. Moonbase 8 (Showtime)
Showtime
Fred Armisen, John C. Reilly, and Tim Heidecker created this absurdist comedy about three woefully incompetent astronauts living in a simulated moon environment in an effort to earn the right to fly to the moon. The three had to shop the series around for a while, and it only landed at Showtime when the network was desperate for content at the outset of the pandemic. It’s easy to see why it wasn’t immediately picked up. It’s not that Moonbase 8 is that bad, it’s that it is very specific — it tries to find the comedy in the mundane, but it often only ends up highlighting the mundanity. The best and funniest part of the show, in fact, is the bizarre appearance of Travis Kelce — the tight-end of the Kansas City Chiefs — who appears in the opening episode before being hilariously killed off. It’s all downhill from there. (Showtime has not yet picked up a second season of the series).
5. Space Force (Netflix)
Netflix
There’s an immense amount of talent involved in the Netflix comedy — Steve Carell, Lisa Kudrow, John Malkovich, Jimmy O. Yang, Tawny Newsome, and Ben Schwartz star in the series created by Greg Daniels (The Office) — but the series ultimately feels like what it is, which is a show based on a Donald Trump brain fart (a brain fart that would later become a reality). Space Force is something of a workplace comedy, only the workplace is full of astronauts, engineers, and command center operatives, and unlike The Office, there is nothing about their jobs with which the audience can relate. It’s a show that viewers will definitely want to like, but it’s so grating and obnoxious that it proves to be almost impossible. (The series was renewed for a second season in November 2020).
4. The First (Hulu)
Hulu
The First stars Sean Penn and comes from Beau Willimon (House of Cards), and the opening episode hooks the viewer in with a massive rocket explosion, killing everyone on board. Unfortunately, the series — about an effort to send the first manned mission to Mars — stalls after the premiere episode as it gets bogged down in uninteresting family drama. Unfortunately, it’s less about the space mission, which doesn’t take off until the finale, and more about the emotional toll a two-and-a-half-year journey to Mars can take on a family, specifically the daughter of Sean Penn’s character. Everything else between the explosion in the first episode and the take-off in the final episode is a relationship drama, and not a particularly good one, at that. (Canceled after one season)
3. Away (Netflix)
Netflix
Away is thematically similar to The First — it’s about the toll a trip to Mars takes on the family of its astronauts — but at least in this one, the relationship and family drama takes place in space instead of on the ground back on Earth. While the astronauts are dealing with their problems at home, they also have problems with which to deal in space, like fixing the water filtration system (an issue the astronauts spend several episodes contending with). It’s designed to be a weepy space drama, and it is at times emotionally affecting, but the show moves so slowly that it’s often difficult to invest too much into the characters at the center of it. (Canceled after one season).
2. The Right Stuff (Disney+)
Disney+
The Right Stuff is based on Tom Wolfe’s nonfiction book about the first Project Mercury astronauts selected for the NASA space program back in the 1960s. As an adaptation of Wolfe’s book, The Right Stuff is a misfire. On the other hand, as a series about the early years of America’s space program, it is entertaining and occasionally insightful. It’s interesting to get a glimpse into the early lives of men who are now well known for their accomplishments in the space program — Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, John Glenn, and Gordon Cooper, among others — but the space exploits in the series are often constrained by history itself. Disney+, meanwhile, rounds off some of the harder edges in the personal lives of the astronauts to make it more palatable for their audience, but in doing so, it sacrifices some of the drama. (The Right Stuff has aired for one season; it’s still unclear whether it will be renewed for a second).
1. For All Mankind (Apple TV+)
Apple TV+
For All Mankind is easily the best of the recent astronaut-themed series, and it’s not close. For All Mankind picks up several years after The Right Stuff (there are, in fact, some overlapping characters) and offers an alternate version of history in which the space race with Russia did not end. In this version of history, the Russians were the first to land on the moon, and the Americans spent the next several years trying to play catch-up by, for instance, trying to land the first woman on the moon or becoming the first to build a space station there.
Like several of the series above, For All Mankind — which stars Joel Kinnamon, Michael Dorman, Shantel VanSanten, Jodi Balfour, and Wrenn Schmidt, among others — is also about the emotional toll the job of astronaut takes on a family, but the alternative history allows creator Ronald D. Moore (Battlestar Gallactica) to introduce women and people of color into the space program while keeping the events in space themselves exciting, intense, and unpredictable. For All Mankind is not just the best astronaut series of the streaming era, it’s the best astronaut television series period, combining elements of Apollo 13 and Gravity into a suspenseful, emotional, and incredibly satisfying roller coaster ride. (For All Mankind has aired one season and has been renewed for a second and third season. The second season will bow in February 2021).
If you join an online whisk(e)y collecting group and take time to peruse the posts, you might be left feeling like in order to enjoy great whiskey you need to have an incredibly high-paying job. Or a trust fund. You’ll see members posting 25-year-old bottles of Scotch whisky and hard-to-find bourbon whiskeys with regularity.
But don’t be dismayed. You can get a lot in the whiskey world before hitting the $100 mark.
So sure, save up for that $600 bottle of WhistlePig The Boss Hog VII Magellan’s Atlantic Rye. But also know that there’s plenty to savor at a much more affordable price point. To help underscore this fact, we asked twenty of our favorite bartenders to name their favorite whiskeys under a c-note.
Teeling Blackpitts Irish Whiskey
Teeling
Una Green, USBG bartender in Los Angeles
Teeling just released its first-ever peated single malt this month called Blackpitts. At $86, it’s a dreamy, triple distilled, peated Irish single malt, aged in a combination of sauternes and ex-bourbon casks and bottled at 46%. It is like “Ireland meets Islay” — with a lightness to the way it dances on your palate, as the smoky notes linger in your senses.
Perfect for colder weather, campfire, and with a s’more.
If I had just under $100 to spend on a bottle of whiskey, I would rush towards Balcones True Blue Cask Strength. The profile this American corn whiskey creates when paired with angostura and orange oil has me infatuated.
Elijah Craig Barrel Proof is the best whiskey under $100 right now. The mouthfeel of an undiluted bourbon is untouchable by other bourbons that are proofed down. These bottles are typically upwards of 130 proof, aged 12 years and under $100.
Noah’s Mill. Priced around $65 and bottled at around 114 proof, it’s exceptionally well balanced — with the perfect amount of backbone to embellishment. The notes in the profile are discernable and don’t muddy together like they often do when too much water is added to proof down an expression, yet no one note overwhelms.
I hesitate to suggest this one too much for fear that it’ll go the way of the Wellers and become unobtainable, or the Booker’s’ and rocket up in price.
Denver’s Laws Four Grain Straight Bourbon is so delicious. Laws’ bourbon has many complex notes. When drinking this spirit, the palate’s evolution is quite an exciting journey. The sharpness and alcohol are very prominent in the beginning and on the of your tongue there’s some heat, but it quickly evolves into that toasty sweet profile of the malt with tons of vanilla and Carmel notes.
Andy Printy, beverage director at Chao Baan in St. Louis
The best bottle available –or just my personal favorite — under $100 is the Yellowstone Limited Edition 2020. Unlike its flagship expression, this has been finished in Armagnac barrels for a bigger body and far more complex profile. The nose is stone fruit and dank lumber. The palate gives way to woody and tobacco notes with a touch of apple and spice, while the finish leaves you with lingering heat and baking spices.
FEW Rye Whiskey is my whiskey of choice when I feel like splurging. I have a tendency to go for sweeter whiskeys because they are easy to drink neat or on ice and can also blend very well for cocktails, like a whiskey sour or Manhattan.
Willett Pot Still Reserve Bourbon. While the quality isn’t the same as it was when it was a pure single barrel offering, Willett Pot Still Reserve is still an excellent choice for the price. Looking past the unique bottle design, which obviously looks great on a back-bar, the Pot Still Reserve manages to stay rather light for its proof, delivering some sweet honey notes with a backing of rye and cinnamon spices.
Fantastic on its own but isn’t too spendy to be cautious about making cocktails from it.
Jennifer Jackson-Keating, mixologist at Sneaky Tiki in Pensacola, Florida
Woodford Reserve. It has become an iconic brand and the “go-to” bourbon whiskey on every back bar due to its unique, well-balanced taste of wood, caramel, fruit, and floral notes as being just a few of its over 200 flavor components. It was founded by the best whiskey family in America, Brown Forman, and is a brother of the most recognizable whiskey in the world, Jack Daniels.
We recommend Heaven Hill Distillery 7 Year Bottled-in-Bond. This straight bourbon is finished with beautiful notes of oak, burnt orange, and dark cherry. It’s smooth complexity lends well to classic cocktails or consumed neat and is very underrated in the trendy bourbon market.
Glenmorangie 12 Lasanta. Depending on where you live it’s a rare find and a treat. Everyone is always raving about The Macallan, but Glenmorangie is the most underrated single malt that hardly anyone talks about. The dried fruit on the palate along with the sweeter notes of brown sugar make a smooth and enjoyable Scotch for a special occasion.
St. George Baller Single Malt. This unique special edition is usually well under the $100 mark and brings a fantastically interesting bang-for-buck with ex-bourbon, French oak 3-year-old Californian malt finished in ex-homemade umeshu (Japanese plum liqueur) casks.
Raffaele Dall’Erta, general manager sommelier at Hampton’s Restaurant in Sumter, South Carolina
Angel’s Envy. This bourbon is finished in Port Wine barrels. The extra time in oak that has been saturated with ruby port adds a layer of complexity. Because port is a wine, and vermouth is a wine, I think that Angel’s Envy Manhattans are beyond comparison in the world of whiskey.
Its price range is reasonable, and I think it tastes better than anything else in the same range, and better than some above it.
Hands down, WhistlePig 10-year straight rye. This Whiskey is beautiful in so many ways because of its amazingly smooth, sweet, and toasty notes on the nose as well as the creaminess and long-lasting flavor that stays on the palate.
Obviously, this rye is best neat or with just one rock, but if you dare to try it in a cocktail with the correct mixers, it can make for one of the best cocktails you could ever have.
I recommend Redbreast 12 Year Old and Chivas 12 Year Old. Redbreast 12 boasts the flavor complexity and distinctive qualities of pot still whiskey. Matured in a combination of bourbon and sherry casks, the distinctive Redbreast sherry style is a joy with a great price point.
Todd Johnston, beverage director and sommelier at Marsh House in Nashville
I am personally not much of a whiskey drinker, but Weller Antique 107 is a great example of a higher-end whiskey that is under $100. It has become pretty popular and a bit harder to get because the word got out that it is made with the same mash bill as Pappy Van Winkle. I like it because it is a wheated bourbon and offers a softer sweeter characteristic.
Nathaniel Meyers, mixologist at Sear + Sea in Orlando
My favorite higher-end whiskey is Colonel E. H. Taylor. It’s one of the best bourbons that I have ever had the chance of trying. The flavor profile matches perfectly with an old fashioned or any other way of enjoying bourbon. Usually, you can find the bottle for just under one hundred dollars, and to me, that is a deal for the supreme quality of the bourbon.
I’m really liking Mars IWAI Japanese Whisky right now. I usually drink specific spirits (neat of course) for an extended period of time until I’m bored of them. Right now, I am drinking calvados and Mars IWAI. It’s a Japanese whisky whose mash bill is inspired by bourbon. It’s definitely one of my first recommendations for inquiring guests at the bar. On top of that, it’s well under $100 making it even more appealing.
Mark Phelan, director of beverage operations for 16” on Center in Chicago
Redbreast Lustau Edition. Slightly younger than Redbreast 12 year, but, as is said, age is just a number. Finished for a full year in Lustau’s best Oloroso sherry casks, non-chill filtered, with no added coloring, this whiskey is a symphony of flavor.
The best part? You can actually find it on the shelves.
Last week DaniLeigh sparked outrage for posting snippets of a new song called “Yellow Bone” to social media. See above for the gist of the song snippets and accompanying videos, but even without watching or listening most people can gather that the predominant issue of colorism is what fans and critics were disappointed about. DaniLeigh’s fellow musician, Chika, pointed out how careless Dani’s initial apology tweets were, saying she should know more about the subject and why her “haters” response wouldn’t sit well with a Black audience.
Well, today DaniLeigh did feel the need to make a second apology for the unreleased song and her reaction to criticism, except it’s unlikely this one will go over much better. In the apology she brought up how she’s dating DaBaby, who she calls a “chocolate man” and also references her “dark-skinned friends.” As even The New York Times itself has covered the “I have black friends” myth as a deflection tactic to excuse racist behavior, that is another thing she definitely could’ve researched first before deciding to publicly say.
She also notes that “brown skin women flaunt their skin all the time in music” following that observation up with “why can’t I talk about mine?” Again, this seems to miss the point that women with darker skin are disproportionately attacked and mistreated for it, making the reclamation a political act, whereas the term “yellow bone” does on some level promote colorism, by nature. It’s a good step that Dani wants to acknowledge her actions hurt people, hopefully she can educate herself on some of these matters next time before speaking on them further. Check out her apology video below, and the transcript of it below.
“Hey guys, it’s DaniLeigh. I just wanted to address what’s going on with me right now. I think it’s super important, because I definitely feel super misunderstood. My song ‘Yellow bone is what he want,’ I think people twisted it into thinking, like, I’m trying to bash another woman, another skin tone, that was never my intention. I wasn’t brought up like that, I never looked at my skin as a privilege. I never looked at me as ‘I’m better than somebody because of my skin tone.’
I see brown skin women flaunt their skin all the time in music, why can’t I talk about mine? If you look at me, I’m light-skinned, I’m a yellow bone. In my opinion, that’s just what I am. So, it wasn’t something that I looked at so deeply. Which, I can see why people will take it deeply, so I understand and I’m sorry that I wasn’t sensitive to the topic when I wrote my comment ‘why are you guys taking so personal?’ Because, it can be a personal thing to certain people, because colorist is a real thing so I do get it. But I’m not that. I’m not a colorist. I’m not a racist. I date a whole chocolate man. I have beautiful dark-skinned friends.
Skin isn’t something I even see, it’s not something that I look at. I don’t live for the internet because people don’t know me. So that’s why I thought it was important to speak on, because you don’t know me, it’s like, let me tell you guys what I meant by this. Hopefully you guys can watch it with a open heart, a genuine mind, and try to get past it. I’m sorry, again, if I offended people — who are truly offended — I’m sorry. I’m going to just keep grinding, keep doing me, keep posting me. I hope everybody has a great Sunday. It’s all love.”
Sunday was a big sports day with the NFC and AFC Championship games in Green Bay and Kansas City as well as seven NBA games on the schedule, but in the morning a lot of the conversation on social media was about the debut of the trailer for the upcoming Godzilla Vs. Kong movie.
Because the title of the movie is literally Godzilla Vs. Kong the trailer sparked a lot of conversation about who would win in the fight — along with some who think this will be a Batman Vs. Superman situation where they ultimately team up together, but that’s not super important. The trailer shows the two legendary monsters going toe-to-toe in a number of situations, like on an aircraft carrier that Kong is sleeping on to in the city, and it shows them having pretty even battles.
With the Nets off on Sunday, Kevin Durant had some time to watch the trailer and develop thoughts, and is among those that had some very strong thoughts on the trailer, including noting he has no idea how Kong would stand a chance in this fight.
The trailer certainly seems to indicate that Kong will, indeed, put up quite the battle and could win — especially since he can apparently block Godzilla’s blue fire attack — but Durant is having none of it. He did note that Godzilla is getting up there and in need of load management, but make no mistake, this is a GOAT and Kong should be no challenge.
He definitely needs to be load managed. He’s been at it for a century https://t.co/auk4iawolX
There’s also an entire thread of tweets in which KD is appalled at the notion that people think Batman’s a trash superhero, and now I really want Durant to just start a movie review podcast that never discusses basketball but talks about movies like they’re sports. He clearly has a passion for this and is always ready to embrace debate.
For much of November and December, the Republican party was busy either asserting voter fraud in the 2020 election or keeping quiet, hoping not to enrage outgoing president Donald Trump. That changed on January 6. After the failed MAGA coup, which resulted in five deaths, much of the GOP suddenly gained some nerve, belatedly standing up to Trump and his cronies’ baseless fraud claims. But there’s still a handful pretending as though there’s something to these assertions, and lately they’ve been going on news shows and humiliating themselves. One of them is Rand Paul.
“George, where you make a mistake, people coming from the liberal side like you, you immediately say everything is a lie, instead of saying there are two sides to everything” — Rand Paul is still pushing The Big Lie pic.twitter.com/V6yg3rJG1i
The Kentucky senator went on ABC’s This Week, where he became increasingly agitated when host George Stephanopoulos kept grilling him on his position. It started with the host asking his guest to say if he believed the election was stolen. It was a yes or no question, but Paul gave a longwinded answer anyway, suggesting that the dozens of failed lawsuits followed by Trump and his minions were unfairly thrown out and that “the debate over whether or not there was fraud should occur.”
But Stephanopoulos wasn’t having it. “I have to stop you there,” he said. “No election is perfect. But there were 86 challenges filed by President Trump and his allies in court, all were dismissed. Every state certified the results.”
Paul seized upon the fact that a disturbingly large number of registered Republicans still believe the election was stolen, despite the complete lack of evidence to suggest why, and even after numerous Trump associates admitted there was no proof. Stephanopoulos still stood his ground, outright saying “they were fed a ‘big lie’ by President Trump and his supporters.”
After that, Paul tried to make it a partisan issue, saying liberals have been calling people like him liars when “there’s two sides to everything.” But his host wasn’t having that either. “Sir, there are not two sides to this story. This has been looked in every single state,” Stephanopoulos replied.
And so there you go: Rand Paul refused to say the election wasn’t stolen but he also refused to say it was stolen, and he said he won’t be “cowed” into, well, taking a stand on either.
One of Paul’s first public critics was fellow senator and former presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar, who cracked, “As I listened to Rand Paul, George, I just kept thinking, man, this is why Joe Biden won.”
Amy Klobuchar: “As I listened to Rand Paul, George, I just kept thinking, man, this is why Joe Biden won.” pic.twitter.com/nRkwPVvjts
Every federal court decision, every Trump-appointed judge who ruled, every Trump-appointed Supreme Court justice ruled in a way that proves Rand Paul is lying. This is not about ideology; this is about Truth. https://t.co/VfZRDzN9xq
Some took issue with his belief in equivocation, even if the two sides aren’t equal.
Rand Paul is longing for the old days of both-sideism. News media’s role is not to simply provide a platform for Rs and Ds, but to report the truth and hold the powerful accountable. The election being stolen is not an opinion. It is a lie. (Cc @jayrosen_nyu@JamesFallows) https://t.co/sUaYOaOsgq
— Tom the Dancing Bug, by Ruben Bolling (@RubenBolling) January 24, 2021
Meanwhile, around the same time Rand Paul was asserting voter fraud, fellow Republican Chris Christie was essentially telling people like him to finally shut up already.
“This election was not stolen … there were no type of irregularities that would have changed the result in one state,” Chris Christie says, adding that Republicans making the claim are trying to score “political points” with people Trump “lied to.” https://t.co/oQYlmOfsHGpic.twitter.com/HcW8pihN1k
Tom Brady is headed to his 10th Super Bowl, as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will get a home game against either the Chiefs or the Bills after traveling to Green Bay and taking down Aaron Rodgers and the top-seeded Packers.
Brady had a rather wild game, throwing for 280 yards and three touchdowns, but he also had three interceptions in the second half that allowed the Packers to hang around and make it a tight game. Early on things were great for the Bucs, as they rolled up 21 first half points, 14 of which came as they targeted Packers CB Kevin King who had a rather disastrous outing. First, it was Mike Evans who got behind King in the red zone and then Scottie Miller managed to beat him on a backbreaking long touchdown to end the first half (that also ruined first half under bets in horrific fashion).
King wasn’t alone in having a rough night in the Packers secondary, as they were far too willing to bite on play-fakes all game, never more apparent than on this touchdown to Cameron Brate who was uncovered in the end zone.
Rodgers had some answers, but struggled to consistently find holes in the strong Bucs defense, particularly in the second half, as they got pressure on Rodgers an awful lot to keep Green Bay from capitalizing on Brady’s three interceptions. Still, Rodgers finished the day with 346 passing yards, three touchdowns and one interception (which led to the Miller TD before the half. He threw some darts and dimes as he tried to will the Packers back into the game.
The Bucs would take a 31-23 lead late in the fourth quarter, but Rodgers had plenty of time to try and find a game-tying touchdown. After a dime to Marquez Valdes-Scantling set them up near the red zone, Green Bay would get to a first-and-goal from the 8 and it seemed like we were certain to get at least a critical two-point conversion attempt with the game on the line.
However, after two failed pass plays, Rodgers threw another incompletion on third down when many felt he should’ve tucked it and run — although Devin White was spying him and almost assuredly would’ve run him down short of the goal line. On 4th and goal from the eight with just over two minutes to play, Matt LaFleur made the rather stunning decision to kick a field goal to go down five, rather than letting Rodgers play for a touchdown and, if they failed, still having Tampa pinned deep and just about the same situation on their hands if they got a stop.
It was a rather dumbfounding decision in the moment and one that will surely haunt the Packers and LaFleur for some time, as Brady and the Bucs never gave the ball back, thanks in large part to a third down pass interference call on King, who was caught grabbing Tyler Johnson’s jersey.
Pretty hard to complain about the Kevin King PI call when you see it like this. pic.twitter.com/VqF4wUvuyA
There was plenty of uproar about the DPI flag, which was somewhat warranted given all the jersey tugging and hand contact allowed during the game, but that stretch and pull of the undershirt made it too obvious not to call and the Bucs were able to run out the clock and end the Packers Super Bowl dreams. The loss was brutal for Green Bay, who had to have felt they had ample opportunity. The end of the first half TD looms large, as does their inability to turn the Brady turnovers into consistent points and punish those mistakes. And on top of all of that, they’ll have to stew over the field goal choice inside the 10 that will yield an awful lot of conversation and frustration for the next year.
The Bucs, meanwhile, have to feel great to escape a rollercoaster Brady game, with some of his best throws of the season but also some of his worst. The defense looks the part of a championship unit and was without their starting safeties for most of the game and still had as much success as they did. Now, they’ll await another high powered offense in the Super Bowl at home, as they’ll face either Josh Allen and the Bills or Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs.
Morgan Wallen has become the first artist to spend multiple weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard album charts in 2021. The singer’s second album, Dangerous: The Double Album, held on to the top position on the charts for a second week, selling 159,000 equivalent album units in the week ending on January 21. Of that number, 133,000 units came from streaming and 22,000 from pure album sales.
Wallen’s second effort is now the first country album to spend two consecutive weeks at No. 1 since Chris Stapleton’s Traveller in 2015, and the first country album to spend its first two weeks at No. 1 since Luke Bryan’s Kill The Lights effort, from the same year. Dangerous also becomes the fourth album within the past 12 months to earn 150,000 units or more across multiple weeks, joining Taylor Swift’s Evermore, Juice WRLD’s Legends Never Die, and Lil Uzi Vert’s Eternal Atake.
It’s not Wallen’s first album to accomplish this feat. Dangerous did the same, setting the record for the biggest streaming week ever for a country album, blowing past the record of 102.26 million streams that Luke Combs’ What You See Is What You Get set in October 2020.
It’s been over half a week since Donald Trump left office, and things are already different. His successor, Joe Biden, was quick to repeal some of his more damaging (or simply absurd) acts, and he’s vowed to finally use federal powers to really combat the still-rampaging pandemic. Then there’s Dr. Anthony Fauci, longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infection Diseases, who repeatedly earned the previous president’s scorn for refusing to whitewash COVID-19’s destructive powers. He’s spent much of the last six months muzzled by Trump, but now that Trump is gone, he’s doing press again. And he has some chilling stories about his own nightmarish 2020.
Among the outlets Dr. Fauci spoke with was The New York Times, and they asked him about, among many other things, the death threats he received, by people unhappy that he trying to save their lives during a once-in-a-century pandemic. When asked if he was ever shot or confronted, Dr. Fauci said he wasn’t, but that he once received a letter sent to his home office. And when he opened it “a puff of powder came all over my face and my chest.” Thankfully, it was nothing. But it still left some scars:
That was very, very disturbing to me and my wife because it was in my office. So I just looked at it all over me and said, “What do I do?” The security detail was there, and they’re very experienced in that. They said, “Don’t move, stay in the room.” And they got the hazmat people. So they came, they sprayed me down and all that.
Did they test the powder?
Yeah. It was a benign nothing. But it was frightening. My wife and my children were more disturbed than I was. I looked at it somewhat fatalistically. It had to be one of three things: A hoax. Or anthrax, which meant I’d have to go on Cipro for a month. Or if it was ricin, I was dead, so bye-bye.
Dr. Fauci said he has no idea if Trump ever found out about the incident, and he never told him about it either, even though Trump spent many of his rallies railing against Dr. Fauci. Who was I going to tell? What good would it be to tell anyone? Also, it was under F.B.I. investigation, and they don’t like you to talk about it.
That said, Dr. Fauci was clearly furious about how, some decades into his career, he had become a target of violent people who’d been fed misinformation about the coronavirus. He said he started getting Secret Service protection as early as late March, mere weeks into when the pandemic went next level in the U.S. That they were endangering not only his life but his family’s life as well got him so mad that the normally unflappable Dr. Fauci even dropped a mild cuss word into an NYT interview:
It was the harassment of my wife, and particularly my children, that upset me more than anything else. They knew where my kids work, where they live. The threats would come directly to my children’s phones, directly to my children’s homes. How the hell did whoever these a*sholes were get that information? And there was chatter on the internet, people talking to each other, threatening, saying, “Hey, we got to get rid of this guy. What are we going to do about him? He’s hurting the president’s chances.” You know, that kind of right-wing craziness.
Elsewhere, Dr. Fauci talks about knowing early on into the pandemic that Trump was going to always downplay its severity. He took particularly umbrage with his obsession with questionable miracle cures, like the infamous hydroclorothiazide.
[I]t was clear that he was getting input from people who were calling him up, I don’t know who, people he knew from business, saying, “Hey, I heard about this drug, isn’t it great?” or, “Boy, this convalescent plasma is really phenomenal.” And I would try to, you know, calmly explain that you find out if something works by doing an appropriate clinical trial; you get the information, you give it a peer review. And he’d say, “Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, this stuff really works.”
He would take just as seriously their opinion — based on no data, just anecdote — that something might really be important. It wasn’t just hydroxychloroquine, it was a variety of alternative-medicine-type approaches. It was always, “A guy called me up, a friend of mine from blah, blah, blah.” That’s when my anxiety started to escalate.
In another interview, with Ted Koppel for CBS News, Dr. Fauci said that, despite all this, he “got along very, very well with him, and that it was the more loyal members of his staff who were the ones who got into his face. Still, the relationship sounds surreal. Trump would curse him out in his rallies, threatening to fire him, whipping his supporters into chants of “Fire Fauci.” Trump would get mad that Dr. Fauci had consistently higher approval ratings than him. “And then,” Dr. Fauci told Koppel, “when I would see him in the Oval Office, he would act like everything was fine.”
SZA’s 2021 is already off to a great start and it seems like things will only get better for her. Fans of the singer are completely in love with her latest single, “Good Days,” as it recently cracked the top-10 of the Billboard singles chart. According to a post on her Instagram story, it looks like an exciting remix to the track with Frank Ocean could be on the way.
SZA reposted a screenshot of fan’s tweet that said, “Good days by SZA ft. Frank ocean would literally cure corona.” She captioned the photo and said, “Imma ask [watery eyes emoji] lol.” If the remix becomes a reality, the song would be Frank Ocean’s first new musical contribution in nearly a year.
SZA
SZA’s tease about the “Good Days” remix comes after she asked fans to submit videos to her that would possibly appear in the song’s music video. The request resulted in a Gmail inbox filled to its capacity after the email she provided received nearly 2,500 videos. She did clarify that the video would not entirely be composed of videos that her fans sent, adding, “it’s PART of the video .. jus part.”
More recently, the singer set up a phone hotline that she said would be used to “TALK CRY OR WHATEVER” with fans. You can read her post about the “Good Days” remix above.
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