Month: February 2021

After stepping into the mainstream light with an appearance on Drake’s “Chicago Freestyle” track, Giveon took flight in 2020 and never looked back. The Long Beach singer dropped his debut EP, Take Time a month after the Drake collaboration, and later on in the year, he gave his growing fan base a second EP with When It’s All Said And Done. Now, Giveon is hard at work on his debut album and before that arrives, he returned to When It’s All Said And Done to drop a video for the EP’s standout, “Still Your Best.”

The visual is a fairly simple one: Giveon is seated with an unnamed woman who remains silent for the duration of the video. The words of the song become the foundation of the conversation the singer holds with the woman.

“Say my love is bad / So you let me go,” he sings. “But my love is more / Just wanna let you know.” Due to the straightforward nature of the song, viewers can see and feel the tension between Giveon and the woman, something the singer said was intentional.

“The inspiration behind this video was to make the listener feel like they’re in the room during a very tense conversation,” he said in a statement.

Prior to the video’s release, Giveon teased the release of his debut album in a post to Twitter. In other news, the singer could win his first Grammy award thanks to a nomination for Best R&B Album at the upcoming show.

When It’s All Said And Done is out now via Epic. Get it here.

Mike Lindell has gotten plenty of attention, for better or worse, for his MyPillow company in recent months as the Donald Trump surrogate has peddled in some wild conspiracies about voter fraud and insurrection. He’s lost some clients in the process, but now it seems he’ll be getting some direct competition from someone diametrically opposed to those wild Trump-fueled conspiracies.

Activist David Hogg, a survivor of the Parkland school shooting and March For Our Lives organizer who is often a lightning rod of attention from the right wing on social media, started Thursday by proclaiming it a good day. That was, at first, because QAnon-touting conspiracy theorist Marjorie Taylor Greene would be stripped of her committee positions in the US House of Representatives.

But there was something else brewing as well: Hogg and William LeGate claimed that they were starting a pillow company to compete against another well-known conspiracy theorist: Mike Lindell of MyPillow fame. That guy has long peddled Trump-based crazy theories himself, and apparently Hogg wants to beat him at his own game.

Axios reported on the matter on Thursday, and even snagged a quote from Lindell about how suddenly the pillow market got a bit more crowded.

Details… Hogg wrote that he and LeGate hope to “sell $1 million of product within our first year” and to launch in about six months.

“[W]e would like to do it sooner but we have strict guidelines on sustainability and [U.S.] based Union producers,” Hogg added.

“Mike isn’t going to know what hit him—this pillow fight is just getting started.”

What they’re saying: MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell told Axios in a text Thursday morning, “Good for them…. nothing wrong with competition that does not infringe on someone’s patent.”

And despite the report and plenty of tweets about it, many still thought it was a bit too on the nose to believe. In fact, they spent much of Thursday night reassuring people that they were serious about the endeavor.

Hogg did say on Twitter that it will take a few months to get things up and running here, and he’s only doing this in an advisory role right now. He is, after all, still in college. But the company did get plenty of attention on Thursday, and he’s looking for names to rival MyPillow as well.

Good luck to everyone in the pillow game, an industry that continues to be more complicated and politically tense than most could have ever imagined.

Woodford Reserve is a special brand of whiskey. Why? For starters, the stuff is just plain old tastier than the average bottle of American booze. That’s no surprise for those acquainted with their production process. Much like Irish whiskey, Woodford Reserve is triple distilled in pot stills and blended with column distilled whiskey. For the most part, standard bourbon is twice distilled in one type of still — pot, column, or otherwise (with a million exceptions, of course).

Beyond that, even the entry point bourbon from Woodford Reserve spends six to seven years maturing in heavily charred American oak inside a temperature-controlled warehouse before blending, proofing, and bottling. For comparison’s sake, the average affordable bourbon spends two to four years in the barrel. Jim Beam bottles their much-lauded single barrel Baker’s at seven years. With Woodford, you’re getting extra refined (distilled) and well-aged bourbon even with the entry-level expressions.

All this to say: We’re fans. So we decided to sample the full line and offer our thoughts. Woodford Reserve is fairly unique in that they don’t just make bourbon and rye, they’ve branched out to American malt and wheat whiskey (not wheated bourbon) alongside their Double Oaked expression. They also have a deep bench of limited editions, but we’ll get to that another time.

Let’s rank some whiskey!

5. Woodford Reserve Rye Whiskey

ABV: 45.2%

Average Price: $40

The Whiskey:

This whiskey was a long time coming. Master Distiller Chris Morris tinkered with this recipe for nine years before it was just right. The juice has a fairly low-rye mash bill — for a rye, that is. The bill only calls for 53 percent of the spicy grain. The rest is made up of local corn and malted barley. The whiskey then spends up to seven years maturing at their Versailles, Kentucky facility before its blended, proofed with soft limestone water, and bottled.

Tasting Notes:

Grassy rye comes through with a nice note of sharp black pepper next to mellow pear and marzipan with a hint of cedar bark. The palate really delivers on the pear with a honeyed sweetness while the rye pepperiness ebbs and flows without overpowering the subtler notes of malt, clove, and even fresh mint.

The end is shortish and leans into the sweetness of the fruit with a sharp rye spice counterpoint.

Bottom Line:

Look, something has to be in this spot. This really is designed as a solid cocktail base for your rye cocktails. Sazerac anyone?

Overall, this is a mild rye and may not wow rye-heads out there who are used to 99 or 100 percent rye whiskeys these days. That being said, this is delicious — proving just how good this line gets.

4. Woodford Reserve Wheat Whiskey

ABV: 45.2%

Average Price: $39

The Whiskey:

This is a fascinating dram of whiskey. The mash bill clocks the wheat at 52 percent, just above the 51 percent required to officially be a “wheat whiskey.” The rest of the mash bill is comprised of 20 percent malted barley, 20 percent corn, and eight percent rye. It’s an interesting four-grain mix given the high ratio of malted barley. The whiskey then goes through the Woodford process of triple distillation and years of maturing.

Tasting Notes:

You’re greeted with a mix of vanilla next to pears stewed in cinnamon and butter with a note of dried roses and cedar. The palate holds onto those notes while adding in more of the stewed fruit spiciness with hints of chocolate mint and a very distant note of toasted coconut (more so when water is added). The end is chewy and the pear becomes more of a pear stem or core as the taste dries out nicely.

Bottom Line:

This is just an interesting sip of whiskey. It’s also fairly bold and will stand up to hefty cocktails like a boulevardier.

3. Woodford Reserve Malt Whiskey

ABV: 45.2%

Average Price: $39

The Whiskey:

This expression is sort of like Scotland meets Kentucky in a bottle. The mash bill utilizes 51 percent malted barley. So, it’s not a single malt whisky (those are 100 percent malted barley mash bills). The bill is then supported by a big dose of corn (47 percent), and a dash of rye (two percent). The hot juice is then treated as an American bourbon or rye and is aged in new American oak (single malts generally mature in old bourbon or sherry barrels).

Tasting Notes:

There’s a lot going on here. The nose grows from a sense of rummy molasses, dried fruits, and nutty toffee towards soft cedar and a subtly savory fruit like squash. The palate leans into the velvety dark chocolates and toffees with hints of Christmas spices while the sweet fruits fade and the cedar becomes somewhat toasted. There’s an echo of coconut in the background as the fade leads back to that savory fruit with plenty of bitter chocolate and sweet and nutty toffee lingering the longest.

Bottom Line:

This is enthralling. It’s different in all the right ways. It makes for a fine sipper with a few rocks or in a highball. It’s also really rad as a cocktail base and can stand up to big flavor profiles in sours.

2. Woodford Reserve Bourbon

ABV: 45.2%

Average Price: $39

The Whiskey:

This is where everything comes together that makes Woodford unique. The mash bill on this bourbon is mid-range rye heavy with 18 percent of the grain in the bill for support. The triple distilling in pot stills and blending with column distilled whiskey is utilized. And yes, this bourbon rests for six to seven years — taking time to mature before barrels are pulled for blending, proofing, and bottling.

Tasting Notes:

There’s that classic note of bourbon vanilla up top but it doesn’t overwhelm the notes of dark chocolate oranges, dried fruits, spicy tobacco, and a distant wisp of fresh mint. A lovely toffee richness creates a well-rounded mouthfeel as notes of spicy and chewy tobacco mingle with dark chocolate dust, more orange oils, and a touch of cinnamon sticks. The end is pure velvet, lingers for just the right amount of time, and brings the whole sip together.

Bottom Line:

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that mint comes up a lot in Woodford Reserve’s notes. They’re the sponsor of the Kentucky Derby after all and the mint julep is that event’s official cocktail. While this is an excellent julep base, it also works perfectly well as a sipper on the rocks or neat.

1. Woodford Reserve Double Oaked Bourbon

ABV: 43.2%

Average Price: $57

The Whiskey:

This expression takes the standard bourbon above and gives it a finishing touch. The bourbon is blended and moved into new barrels that have been double toasted but only lightly charred. The juice spends a final nine months resting in those barrels before proofing and bottling.

Tasting Notes:

There’s a welcoming aroma of marzipan, blackberry, toffee, and fresh honey next to a real sense of pitchy, dry firewood. The taste drills down on those notes as the sweet marzipan becomes more choco-hazelnut, the berries become more dried and apple-y, the toffee becomes almost burnt, and the wood softens to a cedar bark. A rich spicy and chewy tobacco arrives late as the vanilla gets super creamy and the fruit and honey combine on the slow fade.

Bottom Line:

This is a fine sipper, mixer, and all-around powerhouse whiskey. It makes a killer Manhattan. It works on the rocks or neat. In short… it just works.

As of today, more than 27 million Americans have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, a number that exceeds the 26.6 million Americans who have tested positive for the coronavirus.

This milestone is significant for several reasons. Having one effective vaccine developed and distributed less than a year into a novel virus pandemic is extraordinary, much less having multiple vaccines already going into arms at this point. Increasing numbers of vaccinated people is a sign of hope that we may finally able to get out in front of this virus. Those most at risk—healthcare workers and our elders—are first in line for the vaccine, which means theoretically we should see hospitalization and death rates dropping.

But most notably, having equal numbers of people vaccinated as testing positive for the virus offers us a statistical picture of the risk-benefit ratio of the vaccine. Infectious disease specialists have explained that the vaccines are safe and effective, but some people are still wary. People worry about potential adverse reactions or unknown long-term effects of these new vaccines.

Here are the numbers as of now:

COVID cases: 26.6 million

COVID deaths: 450,000+

COVID vaccines: 27 million

COVID vaccine deaths: 0

The first vaccines were administered to trial participants all the way back in March, so it’s not like these vaccines are brand new. They’ve been around almost as the virus. (That’s the beauty of mRNA vaccines—they are very fast to develop.) Of course, the masses didn’t start getting them until mid-December, nearly two months ago. In those two months, we have lost 150,000 Americans to COVID and zero to COVID vaccines.

Before anyone says, “But what about that guy I saw on the news who died after getting the vaccine?!” please remember that correlation does not equal causation. The CDC has determined that there is no link between any deaths that have occurred after someone was vaccinated and the vaccines themselves.

It’s just a numbers game. When you have more than a million people a day receiving the vaccine and 8,000 Americans dying of all causes per day in the U.S., some people are going to coincidentally die after getting a vaccine. That doesn’t mean the vaccine had anything to do with their death.

“These medical events occur every single day, including unexplained illnesses,” Dr. William Schaffner, professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center told ABC News. “The question really is, do they occur at a greater rate in the vaccinated population than they do in the general population?”

So far, not even close. One in every 45,000 Americans dies every day. If a million Americans get the vaccine each day, statistically we’d expect around 20 of them to die from causes having nothing to do with the vaccine. And it’s not like doctors just assume someone’s death wasn’t caused by the vaccine. They investigate it each time it happens.

“The CDC, FDA, CMS and the Department of Defense are all collaborating on a series of surveillance activities for medical events that occur after vaccination,” Schaffner said. “They are looking for these events, gathering and investigating them in a very systematic fashion.”

As of now, we have no vaccine deaths out of the 27 million people who have received one or both shots. There have been a handful of allergic reactions, which prompted a stronger warning for people who tend to suffer from anaphylactic allergic responses, but even those were a statistically tiny number. People do have reactions, which are to be expected—pain and swelling at the injection site and sometimes fever, chills, and body aches. Flu-like symptoms are a sign that the body is doing what it’s supposed to be doing to learn how to fight the virus.

We know the risks of the virus are real, not only for death but for severe illness, hospitalization, and ongoing health problems. We know that some patients end up with long-term effects—organ damage, blood vessel disorders, and more. We know that even people with mild symptoms initially can end up with serious lingering issues. Does it make sense to choose something that we know can have long-term effects, can cause serious illness, and can result in death over a vaccine shown to have none of those risks so far and no scientific reason to believe it will?

Anything new in medicine is bound to make people wary, but hopefully this milestone will help more Americans feel good about getting the vaccine. We’re in a race for time, especially against the more contagious variants of the virus, so the faster we can reach a critical mass of people who are fully vaccinated, the faster we’ll be able to get back to some semblance of normal life.

The U.S. is one of only a few countries to have reached this milestone, which is worth celebrating. With so much struggle and suffering throughout this pandemic, we’ll take all the good coronavirus news we can get.

After a bizarre season of NFL football, Super Bowl LV arrives with mixed fanfare. On one hand, there is less buzz this time around, simply because of the logistics surrounding the event. On the other, Patrick Mahomes and Tom Brady are involved, and 100 million people will watch the festivities. In this space, we are centrally focused on the handicapping world and, after a reasonably solid season, Championship Week ended with a split for us. Of course, it probably should have been 2-0 (and we’re still cursing Kevin King and Green Bay’s defensive approach), but there is no time to talk about the past.

As usual, the menu of Super Bowl wagering options is vast and, while we could give out 20 picks, we’ll pivot back to our normal lane with five offerings. Before we get into the final card of the season, let’s take a look at where we are for the full campaign.

• Championship Week: 1-1
• 2020 Season: 51-44-2

Come get these winners.

Leonard Fournette OVER 3.5 receptions

The Bucs have two running backs, Leonard Fournette and Ronald Jones. and they split carries to some degree. It’s been a bit of an adventure trying to project Tampa Bay’s usage patterns when it comes to carries but, if there is one thing that seems clear, it is that the Bucs don’t trust Jones in passing situations, either as a pass-catcher or a pass-blocker. As such, Fournette is a bigger part of the passing game than you might think, and he’s exceeded 3.5 receptions in all three playoff games to this point. Throw in a game script that could require Tampa Bay to throw to keep up with Kansas City, and this is a prop that seems juicy.

Longest touchdown of the game UNDER 46.5 yards

Tyreek Hill is really fast. So is Mecole Hardman. The Chiefs are also terrifying and, of course, the Bucs could break a big play too. With all of that out of the way, this number is really high and people love to root for big plays. We’ll be rooting for the opposite and people to be tackled inside the 10.

Mike Evans UNDER 64.5 receiving yards

Evans isn’t a full-blown “boom or bust” guy, but he has a lot of variance. In short, if he beats this number, it might be by a lot and that perception (especially his mean/average outcome) pushes this number higher than it should be. Because we’re really betting on his median outcome, the Under is the side, and Evans has only exceeded this number in 7 of 19 games this season. It’s a little bit scary that the Bucs may be trailing and playing catch-up, but maybe they’ll throw the ball to Fournette instead.

Mecole Hardman OVER 24.5 receiving yards

I considered giving out either the full game or the first half total in this game. In the end, I’d lean Under there, but it’s not enough for a play. With Hardman, there is nuance involved, but he is explosive and could cover this with one catch. Hardman could benefit from a shovel pass. He could benefit from a deep ball. There are many ways to get this done. Furthermore, there is noise about Sammy Watkins making an impact but, according to play-by-play data, that would rub off on other options considerably more than Hardman, and he should be on the field plenty, all while Kansas City is slinging the pill.

Kansas City Chiefs (-3) over Tampa Bay Buccaneers

We don’t like to be square in this space, so this pains me. I still think it’s the right side. If the number was 6, or even 4.5, it starts to get interesting, and there is the angle of home-field advantage (if it exists) in Tampa Bay’s favor. However, securing -3 with the best team in the league is the move here. We were square last week on Kansas City and it’s time to run it back. I will give the final caveat, though, that this would not be a play that would’ve made it into “Winners” on a normal week. The line is probably about right because, well, it’s the Super Bowl.

With sports betting becoming more popular by the day, Super Bowl 55 is in line to be the event with the largest volume of wagering in history. It should be noted that sports betting is not legal in every state in the U.S. just yet, but with more and more states adding legal wagering to their docket, the level of interest is sky-high.

To that end, we are continuing a series of explainers on sports betting, following up on a general introduction to the space that explains different kinds of wagers, how odds are calculated, and much more. The second installment is timely when considering the Super Bowl as the backdrop, and it centers on the wide world of prop betting.

What is a prop bet, exactly?

The most common wagers on a sporting event are covered in our general intro, and they are directly linked to the outcome/score of the game. Those wagers include point spreads, over/under totals, and money lines but, again, they are focused on the actual result of the contest in a big-picture sense.

Prop bets (or proposition bets) are wagers that are not directly linked to the overall score or outcome. There are many ways to examine this space, but prop bets gained notoriety from the Super Bowl in many cases, with all eyes fixed on a single game and bookmakers looking for creative ways to entice the public into sinking more money into the action. Prop bets are still far less common than standard point spread bets or total bets, but they are gaining steam, especially in the world of offshore betting, and can be a lot of fun.

Standard Game Props

At this point in 2021, game props are available well beyond the Super Bowl, but they can be quite simple and also a bit more complicated. One type of game prop would be an over/under listing on the longest pass play of the game (over/under 27.5 yards, for example). That means a handicapper could wager on either side of that number for the longest pass play, and the same applies for wagers like shortest touchdown, longest touchdown, total penalty yardage, and more.

That encompasses a great deal of the game prop market, but there are others to consider. For example, a prominent Super Bowl bet is whether the game will go to overtime, with “yes” and “no” offered. These yes/no bets are very easy to track, simply because it is clear whether the event takes place or not. Finally, there are team vs. team wagers that fall under a similar umbrella. Which team will have more rushing yards? Which team will score first? Which team will score last? Which team will kick more field goals? All of these bets could be (or have been) available for any game, with the bettor given the option to choose a side.

Player Props

This may be oversimplified, but player props basically encompass any wager dictated by the performances of individual players. For example, a popular Super Bowl bet is which player will score the first touchdown, with sportsbooks offering sometimes long odds on various players, with only one able to cash a winning ticket. This could also be applied to basketball with which player scores the first (or last) point of the game, or to baseball with the first/last/most home runs of the night.

Those are broad bets that could pay lofty odds if things break just a certain way, but there are also more common over/under bets. The Super Bowl is, again, a good example here, with the ability to wager on the over/under for passing yards from Tom Brady or Patrick Mahomes. Bookmakers build lines for yards (passing, receiving, rushing, etc.), receptions, completions, carries, touchdowns and much more in the football space, with points, rebounds and assists in basketball and hits, strikeouts, and home runs in baseball. This is a more efficient market in recent years, simply because many smart people are now finding value, but these can also be entertaining and a way to track a “game within the game.”

Exotics

This is the area where a gigantic game, i.e. the Super Bowl, really shines. One of the more famous examples is a large market on just how long the national anthem will be, from start to finish, before kick-off. Another could be tied to the coin toss, with people able to wager on “heads” versus “tails.” It can even be as weird as tracking what words the announcers say, or what color someone’s shoes are, or whether the Gatorade poured over the winning coach’s head is green, orange, blue, or a different color.

Yes, this is hilarious and often weird. Yes, it can also be delightful, but it certainly trends more to the “entertainment purposes only” genre of sports handicapping.

As with anything, it would be wise to take it slow when learning the ins and outs of sports betting, and not going overboard for one particular event (i.e. the Super Bowl) is key to managing things in a responsible manner. There are a ton of ways to handicap a big game, though, and they go well beyond the point spread and total, and into the prop market.

Henry Ruggs III is one of the fastest men in football, as he put up a 4.24 in the 40 at last year’s NFL Combine. While he was somewhat disappointed by that number, he’s looking to be more than just a speedster. In his first year with the Raiders, Ruggs had 26 catches for 452 yards and two touchdowns, not making the impact he wanted to consistently but showing the explosive play potential he can bring to the Las Vegas offense.

Ruggs is part of a long line of great receivers to come out of Alabama, as he was drafted in the first round alongside Jerry Jeudy, and shared a receiver room a year ago with Heisman winner DeVonta Smith and Jaylen Waddle. While it’s all love with the guys he calls his “brothers” from Tuscaloosa, they also like to poke at each other. We got a chance to speak to Ruggs on Thursday on behalf of Panini about his rookie year, watching Smith winning the Heisman, what he hopes to see from a new college football video game, and being asked to draw a cat on a trading card.

But first, we got to pressing matters, like Jeudy claiming he beat Ruggs by five yards in a 100 yard race.

So earlier today I talked to Jerry Jeudy and I asked him to give me a question for you and so here’s what he’s got: “How do you let Jerry Jeudy beat you by five yards in the 100 when you run a 4.24?”

And you should have asked him: Why does Jerry Jeudy ask for a 10-yard head start whenever we want to race?

Ahhh, okay. See he didn’t disclose this information.

See, we didn’t … we never really raced, because those five yards that he supposedly beat me by was what he wanted for head start.

See that’s good to know, I got to get both sides of the story, man. Looking back at your rookie season, how did you feel that went and where do you feel like you can look to improve as you go on the next season?

It was it was definitely a start. And I mean, it’s a lot to grow on and a lot to get better at, and those things will get better. But, I mean, it’s just like I said it was a learning experience, and it was something to grow on.

Something else that I talked with Jerry about was just that wide receiver room you guys had at Alabama last year. Obviously you two and then Jaylen and DeVonta. I mean, what was that experience like being in a room with that much talent and and how did that push each of you to kind of be better and be great

I mean, it was fun. It was all love in the room, it wasn’t wasn’t any jealousy about who’s getting the ball who was doin’ what. It was all about, you know, just as receivers us making plays and it always made us better to be, you know, to criticize each other, lift each other up, and compete with each other in all aspects.

What was it like for you watching DeVonta this season and seeing him go on to win a Heisman Trophy?

I love it. I was excited for him. He’s like my brother and for him to be a part of that group that we started and just continue that legacy of what we started, it was just, it was exciting. And we knew what he had in store we knew he had to offer and for him to just go out and show it like that, it’s all love.

You mentioned this year being a learning experience for you. If you were going to talk to the DeVonta and Jaylen about what to expect when they come into league, what’s some advice that you would try to give them?

Just always be on top of everything, and make sure that you’re going about everything professionally. This is a business and, I mean, it’s still football, but it’s not the same game as you’re used to.

I saw you tweet about the news that the college football video game is coming back. What would you want to see in that because you’ve obviously been through what college football is really like and what would you want to see a new college football game look like?

I mean, I don’t think it was too much wrong with it back in the day [laughs]. I want to see it kind of similar to how I was back in the day, but a little modernized with the graphics and things like that. I mean, it’s a lot, it’s a lot that you can add into it, but I would definitely keep like the little mascot games and the things like that. And make sure you’re able to play back a couple of years because I know a lot of us guys missed out on playing, playing that game and being in that game.

Yeah, I know you’re partnered with Panini for a shoot and a card signing. I got to ask, is drawing a cat on a card the weirdest autograph request you’ve ever gotten.

Uhhh, yes. Yeah, that would probably one of the weirdest ones. When I got it I just looked at it was like, “Okay, [sighs].” Especially since I’m doing them all digitally on my phone with my finger. And it was just like, “Okay, how am I going to do this? What, what am I going to do?” So, you know I gotta just like, I just draw a face, and to me at first the face didn’t look like the cat, so I put the little whiskers on it and then that’s when I had to write “meow” on the side to give you that little extra detail.

I was gonna ask was that just to make sure people knew that this is a cat?

That was exactly what it was. That was that detail just to let you know [laughs].

If you can pick a play from your rookie year to be on a card that you would want kind of immortalized in that way, is there one that stands out for you that you’d really like to see on a card?

Uhhhhhh, I’d probably say the catch from Kansas City game, not the touchdown catch but the other one, the first one.

And then with the Super Bowl coming up, you’ve faced the Chiefs twice and y’all got them in one of the games. If you are going to talk to the Bucs wide receiver room and let them know kind of about the approach to that to Chiefs secondary, what’s the kind of scouting report you would give them on on facing that group?

Just always be aware of everything. They’re a complex defense that likes to move around and likes to disguise different things so you always have to be aware of where the safeties are and what the corners are doing pre snap and post snap.

You have a pick for the game?

A pick for the game? That’s hard, that’s definitely hard. But it’s hard to go against Tom Brady, though.

We like Animal Planet star Forrest Galante a lot around these parts. We’ve profiled him, featured his writing, and even gotten him publicly buzzed. All for one simple reason: We believe in his mission and the sincerity of his efforts to protect animals worldwide.

But Galante isn’t just a modern Indiana Jones, looking for once-thought-extinct animals. He’s also a highly-analytical thinker and, as such, ready to attack the issue of conservation from a variety of angles.

Enter Charly Jordan, one of the most prominent influencers on Instagram (4.2M) and TikTok (5.1M) — with a massive platform and the ability to reach an enormous swath of young people. Though recently embroiled in controversy over the very ill-advised choice to travel to Rwanda during the pandemic (for which she’s repeatedly apologized), Jordan’s passion for wildlife is undeniable. Galante took note of that enthusiasm and saw an opportunity for the social media star and her cadre of high-profile friends to aid animal conservation efforts.

Over the course of months, a project developed. Forrest brought Jordan, her boyfriend Tayler Holder, singer Jason Derulo, and other social media-focused celebrities on a series of COVID rapid-tested day trips to the Santa Barbara Zoo, the Turtle Conservancy, and Wolf Connection. There were no backers and no money was exchanged — it was just an idea to connect a new audience to hands-on conservation programs.

So far, Galante’s plan has worked. Social posts from these animal encounters have garnered millions of views — driving the conversation forward with a new generation. This week, we spoke with both Galante and Jordan about the project, the future of conservation, and the importance of vetting wildlife experiences.

Forrest, I understand your history with wildlife — and we’re big fans around these parts — but Charly, can you speak to when these issues became passion points for you? Just kind of give me the whole rundown.

Charly: When I was 18 years old, I decided that I wanted to travel the world. I’ve always been very passionate about nature but being born and raised in Las Vegas, there’s not much going on there besides a city and gambling and all that, so the first time I really got to travel and see wildlife, I was just so fascinated. In awe. And I had the amazing opportunity of living in Costa Rica for a couple of years growing up, where nature was abundant, which taught me a lot about what it was like to be truly happy.

As soon as I graduated high school, I basically just freelance traveled for two or three years. Each place that I went, I was working with tourism boards and just independently meeting up with animal conservancy groups, doing beach clean-ups, stuff like that. Eventually, I started wanting to really take it more seriously. I had an amazing opportunity to start working with critically endangered species. But right as I started doing that was kind of when COVID hit and I wasn’t able to travel as much anymore, I was stuck in LA a little bit.

At that point, I really wanted to connect with other people who were passionate about the same things, so I got connected with Forrest. I’d heard amazing things about him through a bunch of mutual friends, and we finally got to meet up and talk and everything that he is doing is something that, long-term, I would love to do. His job is my dream job. And I look up to him so much. It’s been an incredible experience — being able to work with him and learn from him and be able to go to all these incredible sanctuaries and learn about critically endangered species, specifically.

Forrest: To add to that, Charly’s one of the biggest influencers in the world on social media. We came together through mutual friends and when Charly and I sat down, I realized in speaking to her that she was genuinely interested in drawing attention to wildlife issues and not, no offense Charly, but not just “in a cloud,” as they say. It was a beautiful pairing — because Charly was so passionate and interested in promoting this and she has such an incredible following and, even more, she’s tied to this network of people that all have these massive social media followings. That’s not usually where you expect to see a lot of wildlife science communicated on a grand scale.

So we put our heads together and said, “How do we promote conservation and wildlife science to this mass audience? Let’s do it in a fun and engaging way with these celebrities from social media.” That was what kicked it all off. It was just a campaign with which to bring awareness to good wildlife causes.

Charly, I know that social media influencers… there are a lot of perks and tons of privilege to your lives, but people are definitely ready to call you out when you slip up. Sometimes rightfully so. Why was it important to go straight to an expert like Forrest, even though you have a huge platform of your own?

Charly: Sharing awareness is the power of social media. The ability to communicate with people who might not otherwise know about this stuff. That’s the first step to change on a massive scale. So being able to take something that is so unique that Forrest does — that most people never get the chance in their lives to ever see or experience — and being able to show people on a mass scale what that really looks like and bring appreciation to it, because it’s not always super easy to combine those things, has been a really powerful experience.

Forrest, one thing we’ve always appreciated about you is how methodical you are and thoughtful you are about the details of helping animals. What do you encourage people — let’s take, for instance, people who look at Charly and want to get involved — how do you encourage them to vet those organizations?

Forrest: Studying minutiae is what I do. That’s why I’m successful in the field. And so I think looking at the minutiae of these organizations, is important, right? You could go and look at… shit, I don’t remember the name of it, but Joe Exotic’s Tiger King Zoo [The Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park], right? And be like, “Wow, this is great! It says conservation all over the homepage and he raises tigers!” And that can be very easy to look at and think it’s a good cause. But when you look at the details — Where are these tigers? How many are there? How are they kept? — and you dig deep enough to see people getting pictures with the sedated cubs, you realize that anyone could slap the word “conservation” on something and it doesn’t actually mean they stand for it. So it becomes important to take a deeper look into what the organizations you’re supporting are and what they stand for and seeing whether or not they have credibility.

One of the things that I did with Charly, we went to a variety of different places. Zoos have had a bad rap in the media for the last couple of years, which is absolutely outrageous. I can understand why — when there are things like a Tiger King Zoo — but we went to the Santa Barbara Zoo, which is a small, privately funded zoo. It’s AZA-accredited [Association of Zoos and Aquariums], right? So you hear “privately funded” and you think, “Oh, this is some rich guy with his collection of animals.” But then when you hear AZA accreditation, that means that it’s a legit organization It means they follow very strict animal welfare protocol and standards.

So it really just takes kind of peeling back that first layer of exposure to an organization to just use common sense and go, “Oh, look these animals are kept really nicely. They’re really happy. These people actually reintroduce animals in the wild or in the case of the wolf sanctuary I brought Charly to, Wolf Connection, they bring kids in and help use wolves to rehabilitate the kids. In the case of the Turtle Conservancy, they donate tons of money to conservation around the world and protected lands and reintroduction programs. So it’s really actually quite simple to remove the face value of these places and dig into whether or not common sense dictates whether they’re a good organization or not.

Charly, do you find that your audience has an appetite to have these conversations and look at animal interactions on a deeper level? Are you getting people responding in your comments who are excited to learn about this stuff?

Charly: A hundred percent. I think it’s about the type of people you attract, right? With social media, it’s just a mass of people, so it’s kind of hard to tell. But within my followers on Instagram, groups of people are interested in different things. And one of those, which I’ve really been focused on for a lot of my career, is conservation. So that’s a huge part of why people follow me. It’s been really cool to have conversations each time we’ve gone to a sanctuary or a zoo. I film an entire YouTube video, like the one I just posted two days ago already has a hundred thousand views, and the conversations underneath, are where we get to talk about the Channel Island Fox and people say, “Oh, I live in Santa Barbara too. It’s crazy. I’ve never even been to the zoo.”

Education really is the first step. I think the world that we’re living in — specifically my generation and maybe the one below me — is very removed from the natural world sometimes. At times, I don’t even know what to do with my influence. It’s a lot of responsibility and it’s really important to me that I put the right things out there.

I used to get very frustrated when people really wouldn’t understand how to properly treat animals. And I realized, “Man, it’s probably because they’ve just never even seen or witnessed anything like that in their entire lives.” My goal is to get people to learn, to understand so that they hopefully take the initiative to get involved.

Forrest: What I do in the TV space, right? Steve, we’ve discussed at length. I’ll spend a million dollars, six months prep work, two months in the field, get dysentery and sunstroke and malaria and go through all this here, and then I’ll put that out on, say a platform like Discovery Channel, right? And this is not to bash Discovery Channel. That’ll get four and a half, five million views. Which is great — those are huge ratings. But then I can do something where I partner with Charly and a couple of these people and all we do is go to the wolf sanctuary for the day and that gets seen by like 200 million people across platforms and still carries a conservation message. It’s very digestible and you don’t have to spend 40 minutes of your show explaining it the way that I do when I make nature films and documentaries. There’s a place in the world for both, without any doubt. But it’s amazing to see what kind of impact we can have by bringing people like Charly and all of these friends she has who have these massive followings and just spread animal awareness in conservation.

As I said — 200 million people in a day versus the nine, 10 months, and millions of dollars that I spend to reach four or five million on the Discovery Channel. I mean… it’s mind-blowing, really.

Charly: You can’t reach everybody… but when he’s talking about these short snippets, it at least does get people that are interested that maybe have absolutely no idea where to start. It reaches them. And that’s just the beginning, a little bit to chew off versus watching someone like Forrest and feeling like, “Man, I don’t even know how I would get to this place or how I would see these animals!” His expertise and level can make things seem very unattainable. So when you make it a little bit more relatable and create that bridge where it’s more of a gradual learning process versus going to the farthest extreme all of a sudden, it’s a nice little stepping stone to just get more people involved.

Because ultimately, this is our planet. And we’ve got to keep it safe. This is where we live, so let’s make it nice.

I think there’s a great case to be made for the sort of mainstream access to ideas about conservation that you guys are both talking about. Every movement requires radicals and people out on the leading edge and also a mass of more generally interested people, right?

Forrest: Part of this campaign was to make sure that everywhere we went and everyone that we supported was reachable by the general population. You can’t all come to the Galapagos with me to hike up a volcano and search for an extinct animal, but everybody can go visit the Wolf Connection. And here are the links and here’s how to do it and here’s why it’s good for the world. And that’s what we have the privilege of being able to do with Charly and her friends — make that obtainable for all.

So Quentin Tarantino is apparently a huge fan of Joker. During a three-hour podcast for Empire with fellow director Edgar Wright, Tarantino couldn’t stop gushing about the Todd Phillips film, which he called “profound.” While he did have some criticisms about Joker being a little “one-note” and starting a trend of taking “great movies from the ‘70s and redo[ing] them as pop-cultural artifacts,” the Pulp Fiction director absolutely loved the final scene where Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker shoots Robert De Niro on live TV and he bemoans anyone who didn’t see in a packed theater. “You got a hand job as opposed to great sex… [or a] threesome,” Tarantino said before launching into a diatribe on the film’s climax. Via The Playlist:

“He’s not a movie villain. He doesn’t deserve to die. Yet, while the audience is watching the Joker, they want him to kill Robert De Niro; they want him to take that gun, and stick it in his eye and blow his f*cking head off. And if the Joker didn’t kill him? You would be pissed off. That is subversion on a massive level! They got the audience to think like a f*cking lunatic and to want something [they would never normally want]. And they will lie about it! [“Audiences] will say, ‘no, I didn’t [want that to happen]!,’ and they are fucking liars. They did.”

While Tarantino obviously loves Joker even while acknowledging its flaws, another legendary director felt the complete opposite way. During a candid interview to promote Mank on Netflix, David Fincher had harsh words for Joker‘s portrayal of mental illness. “I don’t think anyone would have looked at that material and thought, yeah, let’s take [Taxi Driver’s] Travis Bickle and [The King of Comedy’s] Rupert Pupkin and conflate them, then trap him in a betrayal of the mentally ill, and trot it out for a billion dollars,” he told The Telegraph while sharing his disbelief at the film’s box office success.

(Via The Playlist)

In the early days of the pandemic, people across the country flocked to grocery stores to stock up, fearing the worst. I remember rolling my cart into my local Ralph’s, on the eastside of Long Beach, California, and the store was seriously picked over. The paper products aisle was like a ghost town and shoppers all had thousand-yard stares.

Everyone looked at each other seemingly thinking, “Do they have the virus?”

My heart caved when I got to the checkout aisle and saw the checker in a facemask with black gloves. There was a newly-installed clear shield that stood between us.

I remember thinking to myself, “All of these workers are going to get sick. Some will die.” I can’t imagine the stress and anxiety these people on the front lines felt, especially in the early days of the pandemic. The worst thing is that most had no choice. You can’t just quit your job in the middle of a pandemic and hope to find new work.

They were all sitting ducks.

My experience at the Ralph’s on Los Coyotes Boulevard inspired me to write an op-ed in Upworthy posing the idea we should have tip jars at our supermarkets. That way we can all thank the employees for the extreme risk they’re taking so we could feed our families.

Photo by Tod Perry

Eleven months later, my local Ralph’s is being closed by its parent company, Kroger, because it refuses to pay $4 an hour in “hero pay” imposed by the city. Long Beach, the second-most populous city in Los Angeles County, is the first in America to give a mandated raise to its grocery store employees who’ve risked everything for their jobs.

Kroger is also closing a Food for Less in North Long Beach, a low-income neighborhood where discounted food items are a necessity, especially in these times.

On January 19, the City Council unanimously approved the 120-day hero pay ordinance. It applies to chain stores with 300 or more workers nationally and with 15 employees per store within the city, that devote 70% or more of its business to retailing food products.

It was signed into law the next day by Mayor Robert Garcia.

The ordinance comes at a time when grocery stores are making record profits due to the pandemic.

“Grocery workers are going in every single day and risking their life being exposed to the virus,” Long Beach Councilwoman Mary Zendejas said. “Grocery businesses are experiencing a boom in their industry, they are making profits, record profits, on the shoulders of their employees, and they are not willing to share the profits with them.”

Kroger said its sales rose 30% in March and increased more than 20% in April and May. It also reported a 92% boost in online sales in Q1 2020.

The company provided a $2 an hour bonus for its employees at the beginning of the pandemic, but it was phased out.

“As a result of the City of Long Beach’s decision to pass an ordinance mandating Extra Pay for grocery workers, we have made the difficult decision to permanently close long-struggling store locations in Long Beach,” a company spokesperson said in a news release. “This misguided action by the Long Beach City Council oversteps the traditional bargaining process and applies to some, but not all, grocery workers in the city.”

What’s even more irksome is that the stores are scheduled to close on April 17, 89 days into the 120-day period. Why not just wait it out an extra month?

Garcia vows to fight back against the Kroger closures because he believes it has the responsibility to compensate its workers for the extra danger they faced while the company raked in record profits.

“You have a corporation that, according to the Brookings Institute, they’re making double what they normally make, they’re making off the pandemic. And they’re making it off the backs of these workers,” Garcia said at a news conference at the Food 4 Less location slated to be closed.

“I don’t think anyone who has shopped, over these last six months to a year, can look into the eyes of one of these workers and tell them that they don’t deserve an additional few bucks an hour for the incredible work that they’ve been doing during this pandemic,” he continued.

The pandemic is a serious topic for Garcia who lost both his mother and stepfather last year due to COVID-19. His work for the vaccine rollout in the city of 467,000 has been applauded by Governor Gavin Newsom and it was called a “model for the state” by The New York Times.

Kroger is well within its rights to shut down stores to avoid paying its employees a state-mandated bonus. But it’s bloodless of the company to thank its employees — who heroically pulled it through the pandemic — by endangering their jobs.

A report in Safety and Health found that “grocery store workers who interact with customers may be five times more likely to contract COVID-19 than their colleagues who don’t have direct contact with customers.”

It also found that 24% of grocery store employees experienced at least mild anxiety associated with work.

“After all the hard work I’ve done to feed the needy families and everything and risk my life and my family’s lives at home and they don’t want to pay $4 extra an hour for four little months,” said Robert Gonzales, who has worked in the industry for 26 years, and currently works at the Food 4 Less slated to close.

“And then it’s over. What is the reason for this? You’re going to hurt the elderly, the homeless people. We give donations every week to the homeless and needy families and they want to take that away” he added.

“To ask the North Long Beach community to make a choice: Jobs with dignity or food on the table. That’s an unfair choice that the Kroger company is issuing to our community,” Rex Richardson, vice mayor of Long Beach, said.

Garcia says the city will fight back against Kroger in court, but it’s unclear what the legal system can do to stop a business from deciding to close its doors.

In the coming months, as the number of vaccinations rises and the number of cases falls, we will all happily put the pandemic era behind us. I hope that I can grab my cart and pull into my local Ralph’s one day this summer and see them taking down the protective shields that stands between myself and the checker as well as the stickers on the floor that say, “maintain a six-foot distance”

But I most look forward to seeing the smiles on the checker’s faces because, for the first time in ages, they won’t be wearing masks. I’ll tell them, “Thanks, we couldn’t have made it without you.” Let’s hope that Kroger comes to the same realization, too.