Running a pharmaceutical company from the clink may seem like more work than it’s worth, but a Pharma Bro’s gotta do what a Pharma Bro’s gotta do. Which is why a group of shareholders is attempting to wrestle control from sleazy hedge fund manager-turned-sleazy pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli, a.k.a. federal inmate number 87850-053, who is doing just that.
Shkreli made a run for the title of World’s Biggest A**hole when he raised the price of Daraprim, a drug used to treat patients with life-threatening parasitic infections, from $13.50 a pop to $750 per pill overnight — yet that’s not even what he’s in jail for. Regardless, as The New York Times reports, former Shkreli ally Kevin Mulleady is attempting to “persuade his fellow shareholders to give them control of [the makers of Daraprim’s] parent company, Phoenixus.” The reason? Shkreli, who is currently behind bars in a federal prison for securities fraud and is not up for release until late 2023, still owns nearly half the company.
“Although Mr. Shkreli is incarcerated at a federal prison in central Pennsylvania, he is legally allowed to vote his shares in Phoenixus, worth roughly 44 percent of the company. He has kept his stake despite being ordered as part of his sentencing in 2018 to forfeit nearly $7.4 million, including his one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan album and a Picasso painting.”
Yes, you read that correctly: Of the many prized possessions Shkreli had seized and sold by the U.S. government in order to pay off the $7.4 million he owes to the courts, the sole copy of Wu-Tang’s Once Upon A Time In Shaolin — which Shkreli paid $2 million for — is at the top of the list.
As far back as 2019, it was being reported that Shkreli was still wielding a large amount of influence over the company he went to jail with the use of a contraband cell phone. Now, shareholders who are fed up with having a convict have such a large say in how the company operates are opting to sever as many ties to Shkreli as possible. The attempt to oust the disgraced pharmaceutical exec will happen on Monday — though they’ve got a backup plan.
“If the activist investors lose the vote, they plan to call for another special shareholder vote. Mr. Shkreli’s shares are in a sort of legal limbo, with a creditor of another Shkreli company fighting to have them taken away and sold. At a hearing last week in that case, the judge granted a request to appoint a receiver to take Mr. Shkreli’s shares, with the aim of selling them to pay off debts.”
Which, frankly, might hurt less than having a government agency sell off the one-and-only copy of Once Upon A Time In Shaolin.
It only takes a few minutes of A Beginner’s Guide To Faking Your Own Death, the new EP from Bronx-based singer-songwriter Jhariah, for you to realize that the project is going to be quite unlike anything you’ve heard before. The epic and enveloping nine-track EP is chock full of theatrical production and massive arrangements that feature strings, horns, keys, and more. Together, the project is a masterclass in musical excess that finds each track building a world unto itself before quickly tearing it down and moving onto the next one.
To celebrate the new EP, Jhariah sat down to talk My Chemical Romance, cooking competitions on TV, and feeling invincible in the latest Indie Mixtape 20 Q&A.
What are four words you would use to describe your music?
Maximalist, indulgent, theatrical, and ambitious.
It’s 2050 and the world hasn’t ended and people are still listening to your music. How would you like it to be remembered?
There are certain albums or songs that always make me feel like I can do anything in the world. There’s really nothing like feeling unstoppable for a few minutes. I’d love for something I wrote to live in the form of that feeling for somebody else.
What’s your favorite city in the world to perform?
I wish I had a cool answer but we’ve really only ever played in New York and recently played Philly for the first time. I’d LOVE to play Chicago though.
Who’s the person who has most inspired your work, and why?
It’s the most obvious answer, but Gerard Way for sure. Everything he does always has such a striking sense of vulnerability while still being so unbelievably ambitious. It’s really hard to do both of those things at the same time, so I’m constantly inspired by the way he approaches realizing his artistic vision.
Where did you eat the best meal of your life?
Oh god, I don’t know there’s so much good food out there! Momofuku Noodle Bar has the best Ramen I’ve had anywhere. I think about that Ramen a lot.
What album do you know every word to?
I’m fully prepared to recite the entirety of The Black Parade, bonus tracks included, at any moment.
What was the best concert you’ve ever attended?
Panic! At The Disco on the Pray For The Wicked Tour was a big moment for me. It’s the most extravagant, over-the-top, exciting stage show I’ve ever seen. Just thinking about it makes my heart race, which is exactly what I want out of every show.
What is the best outfit for performing and why?
I have these plaid Tripp pants I bought for a show once and I don’t think I’ve ever felt that powerful in another outfit. And of course, Doc Martens because they give that little bit of height I need to feel like it’s a show.
Who’s your favorite person to follow on Twitter and/or Instagram?
Definitely Myron from Pinkshift (@meedbons), his social media presence is completely unhinged and I look forward to it every day.
What’s your most frequently played song in the van on tour?
In the idealized version of a tour I’ve dreamt up, the song is “Bang The Doldrums” by Fall Out Boy or “Fast In My Car” by Paramore. Will have to revisit this once I learn how to drive, acquire a van, and go on my first tour with it.
What’s the last thing you Googled?
A long string of variations on “Now that’s the problem right there, your carburetor–” in an attempt to find this obscure twitter video from 2017. Funnily enough, answering this question helped me to find it, so thank you Indie Mixtape. That was gonna bother me all day.
What album makes for the perfect gift?
Any Watsky album. They do such an amazing job at packaging, I think you’d have to appreciate it as an art piece even if you never listen to it.
Where’s the weirdest place you’ve ever crashed while on tour?
Is this all an elaborate game to remind me that I haven’t toured? Fine, I’ll go play some shows across the country. Will that make you happy?
What’s the story behind your first or favorite tattoo?
My first tattoo is of a mini keyboard on my right arm. On it, the first chord of the first song on my first album is marked with dots. I really like having a reminder of where everything started wherever I go. Something about it is very grounding.
What artists keep you from flipping the channel on the radio?
Honestly, I love most of the music in the top 40! Obsessed with the way Olivia Rodrigo is killing it right now, Lil Nas X literally cannot miss, and Dua Lipa never seems to get old.
What’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you?
My parents tolerated me loudly learning how to sing and tracking over 3 records in my bedroom. They endured 5+ years of unrelenting noise before I moved out. The nicest thing they ever did for me wasn’t being supportive or encouraging in the process, but refraining from making almost any comments at all so that I wouldn’t be self-conscious about them hearing me.
What’s one piece of advice you’d go back in time to give to your 18-year-old self?
Go to less open mics and spend more time on Twitter. The problem isn’t that your music doesn’t fit in, you just haven’t found the right place for it yet.
What’s the last show you went to?
Recently saw my friend Pictoria Vark perform on a rooftop in Brooklyn!! It’s the first show I’ve attended in over a year and the performances were so great! The entire time I was just in disbelief that it was happening.
What movie can you not resist watching when it’s on TV?
I don’t even have cable, but if I did, It’d be purely for watching cooking competition shows.
What would you cook if Obama were coming to your house for dinner?
Tax dollars or whatever politicians eat, I guess.
A Beginner’s Guide To Faking Your Death is out now. Listen here and pick up a tape or merch via Chilwwave Records here.
Tory Lanez’s surprise appearance at Rolling Loud during DaBaby’s set angered fans and became one of many of that set’s controversial talking, but it may have also violated Megan Thee Stallion’s restraining order against the Canadian rapper. TMZ reports that the Miami and Los Angeles Police Departments were contacted after the set due to the fact that Tory’s presence backstage may have put him within 100 yards of the Houston rapper who accused him of shooting her in the backs of both feet last summer.
As DaBaby performed immediately after Megan, there may have been some overlap between the technical crews, backup dancers, and other stage personnel — and that might have included Tory Lanez, who DaBaby brought out in a mascot costume before a dramatic reveal to perform their collaboration “SKAT.” Meanwhile, TMZ’s sources report that Megan and her management were perturbed to learn that DaBaby performed one of his collaborations with Meg, “Cash Sh*t,” right before bringing out Lanez. Many fans interpreted the move as belittling her criminal case against Tory and provoking her due to her disapproval of DaBaby’s public shows of support for Tory in the wake of the shooting.
Jack Antonoff’s solo project Bleachers is gearing up to release its third album, Take The Sadness Out Of Saturday Night, this Friday, and just before the record comes, he’s dropped a new song. If you’ve been following along with the massive pop single that kicked off the album, “Stop Making This Hurt,” and the other music he’s already shared, like the saxophone-spiked “How Dare You Want More,” then this new track, “Secret Life,” will feel like something of a left turn.
It’s more akin to the softer, folksier music he’s been helping artists like Clairo, Taylor Swift, and Lana Del Rey make, and the latter joins him on background vocals for the song. The track is a subtle rebuttal of celebrity an the pressures it can bring, but probably also works for anyone who is just wishing for a few moments — or months or years — away from the rest of the world to focus on their relationship. Jack is singing with a totally different, slower and softer vocal tone that gives the music a sense of levity, and he sounds great in this register.
Check out “Secret Life” above.
Take The Sadness Out Of Saturday Night is out 7/30 via RCA. Pre-order it here.
Things on the Lizzo front have been relatively quiet as of late, but it turns out part of the reason for that is because she’s hard at work on new music. In fact, she just revealed that she’s working on new music with Mark Ronson and Philip Lawrence, the latter of whom is best known for his work as part of the songwriting/production team The Smeezingtons, alongside Bruno Mars and Ari Levine.
In a recent TikTok video, Lizzo responds to a comment that reads, “I HEAR AN ALBUM IS COMING.” Talking while moving the camera around to show off her surroundings, Lizzo lays the sarcasm on thick and says, “A album? Absolutely not, I’m not making no f*ckin’ album! I’m not in a studio. This isn’t Mark Ronson. This isn’t a whole board. I’m not hanging out with songwriters like [Lawrence]. [laughs] I’m not making a f*ckin’ album! Where you get that from?”
Did you think that Adam Driver “demanding” that John Oliver please stop airing his unquenchable thirst for the Girls actor would end the obsession? No way. Oliver has, however, taken an on-air breather after his Facetime confrontation with Driver, who he has referred to in all manner of absurdly dirty ways. Things grew rather, uh, grim in 2020, too, with Oliver diving into otherwise entirely bleak Coronavirus updates to declare that “Adam Driver fever” is the only infectious disease that should be going around while referring to Driver as a “f*ckable redwood,” “brooding mountain,” and “big unwashed buffalo,” among other things. Endless followups arrived that included, “Sneeze in my McFlurry, you pensive bison. Ravage my lungs, you relentless hillock.”
Had John Oliver had enough yet at that point? Nope. He went on to declare, “Chokeslam me to hell, you nasty shed” and “jam your mandible claw down my throat, you irredeemable steer.” So, if you instantly thought (as I did) of how John Oliver would react to Adam Driver’s new Burberry ad, in which he shirtlessly frolics in the ocean and turns into a centaur, well, you weren’t alone. Apparently, Oliver’s obsession still runs wild, and one can imagine that he can’t handle the ad.
Last Week Tonight was quick to make an announcement, rather than make us wait until Sunday for the full effect. On Twitter, Oliver the show announced that “[a]fter an unexpected development that will require John’s full attention, there will be no new episodes of Last Week Tonight for the foreseeable future.” In doing so, the show retweeted a quote of the “I quench that thirst” lyrics from the Burberry commercial’s song, FKA Twigs’ “Two Weeks.” Oh boy.
After an unexpected development that will require John’s full attention, there will be no new episodes of Last Week Tonight for the foreseeable future. https://t.co/Nr7SSw8zgC
— Last Week Tonight (@LastWeekTonight) July 27, 2021
Well, Last Week Tonight is still scheduled for an episode this Sunday night, so we’ll see what type of on-air reaction Oliver reveals. Surely, it will look something like this…
DaBaby may not understand why what he said at Rolling Loud was so harmful to so many people, but he’s certainly beginning to feel the consequences. His “Levitating” collaborator Dua Lipa said his words “surprised and horrified” her and a fan-made version of the song featuring Megan Thee Stallion is not only rapidly growing in popularity but fans are also calling for it to replace the official version. Today, things got really real for DaBaby, as his combative attitude toward the backlash has now begun to affect his pockets.
BoohooMan, the online retailer which has grown to be one of the most popular fast-fashion hubs thanks to its collaborations with rappers like DaBaby, Quavo, Swae Lee, cut ties with the North Carolina rapper, making a statement on Instagram. The full statement reads:
BoohooMan condemns the use of homophobic language and confirm we will no longer be working with DaBaby.
Diversity and inclusion are part of the boohoo Group’s DNA and we pride ourselves on representing the diverse customers we serve across the globe.
We stand by and support the LGBTQ+ community, and do not tolerate any hate speech or discrimination in any form.
For his part, DaBaby has repeatedly tried to address the comments but his defensive posture in both statements has tempered their reception among fans, who seem to believe that he’s been less than sincere. Maybe seeing consequences outside of a few sternly-worded tweets will recontextualize the backlash for him, helping him to reconsider his words’ impact past just his intent.
Following the damning testimonies from Capitol Police officers at the January 6 commission hearing on Tuesday, Geraldo Rivera was in no mood for Sean Hannity‘s usual antics as he accused his Fox News colleague of “gaslighting” the MAGA insurrection. During a tense panel that also included right-wing commentator Dan Bongino, an exasperated Geraldo let loose on Hannity, who attempted to steer the conversation towards the security situation at the Capitol and not why the building was attacked following a Donald Trump rally. Via Mediaite:
“I think you’ve been, with all due respect and I love you, gaslighting, changing the subject,” said Rivera. “The subject is January 6th and what happened to the United States Capitol and why it happened. Those two things. The fact that the Capitol was targeted and that the prime instigator – the one who unleashed the mob – was the President of the United States. For god sakes, Sean…”
However, what followed was substantive as Hannity interrupted Rivera to take offense at the accusation. From there, the two men argued about the Black Lives Matter protests as Hannity demanded a commission for those riots.
You can watch the segment below:
Dan Bongino, Geraldo Rivera, and Sean Hannity have a heated argument about the Jan 6 riot. pic.twitter.com/scxNDpRr4n
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) July 28, 2021
The “gaslighting” accusation marked the second time on Tuesday night that Rivera threw bombs on a Fox News program. Earlier in the evening, he went on The Five and proceeded to blast conservatives refusing to get the vaccine.
“If you are unvaccinated and you are going around without being tested, you are an arrogant, selfish SOB,” Rivera said. “I am absolutely in the camp of no shirt, no shoes, no vaccine, no service.”
Lorde hasn’t historically been a huge collaborator, as none of her albums have credited feature guests on them — although they feature contributions from people like Jack Antonoff, Tove Lo, and Clairo. She’s certainly not opposed to collaboration, though, and in fact, she just gave her pick for somebody she’d like to work with: Harry Styles.
She made the reveal during a new episode of Vogue‘s “73 Questions” series. When asked, ‘Who’s an artist that you’re dying to collaborate with,” she briefly paused to give the question some thought before answering, “I kinda want to talk to Harry Styles.”
Speaking of collaborators, Lorde revealed the best piece of advice Antonoff has ever given her, saying, “Once, he said to me, ‘Don’t let me ruin your life more than I already have.’ [laughs] He’s a nut.”
She’d probably also be keen to get in the studio with (or at least meet) Arcade Fire, as one of their shows was her pick for the best concert she’s ever been to. She said, “I wanna say Arcade Fire at Coachella. I was 17 and I was in the crowd and I had never seen anything like it, it was incredible.”
Bill Murray played Bosley in 2000’s Charlie’s Angels but was replaced by Bernie Mac for the sequel, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, after supposedly not getting along with co-star Lucy Liu. There’s been years of rumors about the animosity between the two, including a production assistant on the original movie claiming that Liu called Murray a “f*cking c*cksucker” after he rewrote a bunch of scenes without telling anyone,” but the actress set the record straight on the “Asian Enough” podcast.
Liu didn’t want to “get into the specifics,” but she recalled that “when we started to rehearse this scene, which was all of us in the agency, we had taken the weekend to rework that particular scene and Bill Murray was not able to come because he had to attend some family gathering. So it was everyone else, and we just made the scene more fluid. I wish I had more to do with it but I didn’t, because I was the last one cast and I probably had the least amount of privilege in terms of creatively participating at that time.” During the scene, “Bill starts to sort of hurl insults,” the then-Ally McBeal star said, and “it kept going on and on. I was, like, ‘Wow, he seems like he’s looking straight at me.’ I couldn’t believe that it could be towards me, because what do I have to do with anything majorly important at that time?” This is not the first time that one of Murray’s co-stars has described him as being difficult to work with, or even a “bully.”
Liu continued:
“I literally do the look around my shoulder thing, like, who is he talking to behind me? I say, ‘I’m so sorry. Are you talking to me?’ And clearly he was, because then it started to become a one-on-one communication. Some of the language was inexcusable and unacceptable, and I was not going to just sit there and take it. So, yes, I stood up for myself, and I don’t regret it. Because no matter how low on the totem pole you may be or wherever you came from, there’s no need to condescend or to put other people down. And I would not stand down, and nor should I have.”
Liu, who will soon appear in Shazam! Fury of the Gods, clarified that she has “nothing against Bill Murray,” and he was “perfectly nice” when they saw each other again during an SNL reunion, but “I’m not going to sit there and be attacked.”
You can listen to the podcast below.
On our #AsianEnough podcast, she discusses some of the challenges of navigating a career and “moving the needle” for AAPI representation while mainstream American culture continues to otherize and sexualize Asian women.
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JenLD
(@JenLD6) 
