Mayim Bialik may have benefited directly from Mike Richards’ run as full-time Jeopardy! host blowing up on the runway, but the actress hasn’t spoken publicly about the matter until Monday. In an essay she penned for Newsweek, the former Big Bang Theory star detailed her reaction to the Richards fiasco and her excitement over the opportunity to host the show full-time.
Bialik was a guest host who seemed to score well with audiences, which earned her a shot at hosting some non-syndicated prime time events and tournaments when Richards took over for the late Alex Trebek. But a series of scandals as well as questions about the selection process, which Richards himself was involved in as executive producer, ended his tenure after a brief five-game run as host.
That single day of work has already aired, and Bialik was recalled to take over as guest host alongside Ken Jennings for what’s expected to be the rest of the season while the show figures out what’s next. But in the piece, Bialik disclosed how she reacted to the news that Richards would be stepping aside after she had already started working with him to prepare for the upcoming season.
I didn’t immediately know who the other host was going to be, and after Mike Richards was announced as permanent host, a couple more weeks passed and then everything changed and Mike stepped down.
I think everyone who works with me will say that, as a person who has been acting since I was a kid, I go where I’m pointed and I do the job I’m told to do. I do what’s in front of me. I don’t really follow the news aspect of my industry too much.
Bialik said that, with a long career of acting under her belt, the controversy that was the talk of social media became an opportunity to “help” the show rather than comment on the “complexities of these situations.”
That’s how I approached what was going on. Of course I was in touch with Mike as he was my boss at that time, and I don’t wish ill on him, or anyone. But the complexity of these situations is not something that can be summed up easily. My first response, when all of this went down, was to say to the Jeopardy! team: “How can I help?” Because I am part of this family.
Bialik had a lot to say about how much winning the Jeopardy! job would mean to her, and the things that she’s worked on since her guest hosting stint. It will certainly be interesting to see how she performs in the coming weeks, and what Jeopardy! leadership will do with a second chance to pick a permanent host.
Nelly has been a reigning force in the hip-hop and pop arenas for decades now. Cornell Iral Haynes Jr. first signed to Universal Records in 1999, and kicked off his solo career with 2000’s unstoppable classic Country Grammar, quickly becoming a household name and scoring multiple hits like “Ride Wit Me” and the title track. Then, his 2002 album Nellyville was arguably even more commercial with the massive “Hot In Herre” (which still gets played at clubs) and the ubiquitous “Air Force Ones.”
All this to say, for the last twenty years Nelly has been a dominant presence in the music industry, so the BET’s decision to honor him this year with the “I Am Hip-Hop” award is right on the money. In full circle fashion, Nelly delivered the award to LL Cool J ten years ago, and is now in a position to receive it himself. Pas honorees include Grandmaster Flash in 2006, Scarface in 2015, Lil Wayne in 2018, and Master P in 2020.
“I am honored to receive this award and humbled to be in such great company of past artists who have received this award,” Nelly said in a press release. “I have been blessed to work with some incredible people in my career, making 22 years go by in the blink of an eye. This award isn’t just about Nelly; it is about my fans, BET, and the people that continue to support me and allow me to do what I love to do.”
The BET Awards will air on Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2021, at 9 PM on BET. Tune in then to see Nelly accept his award.
Articles, tweets, and social media posts are all buzzing after Pfizer announced a study that shows low doses of it’s COVID 19 vaccine is safe and effective for children as young as 5 years old, triggering a healthy and robust immune system equivalent to that of teenagers and adults who take the same vaccine in higher doses.
This might seem like great news to help parents, teachers, and pediatricians feel a bit more hopeful as COVID-/Delta outbreaks continue to disrupt education.
For a bit of context: Since schools have begun, even with the mask mandates, child cases have increased by 500,000 since school began.
But with endless debates about vaccine safety, mask mandates, and civic duty vs. oppression, will the vaccine approval really make a dent in the efforts of our health officials? There are a few things that make me wonder if we should be celebrating just yet.
One concern: will parents wait until the vaccine is approved?
Pfizer still needs to submit its data to the FDA before it can really be deemed safe for kids. Even if the information was sent in by the end of this week, the reviewing process could take weeks, even up to a month. Since Pfizer is currently approved by the FDA for 12-year-olds, some parents are asking pediatricians to bend the rules by giving it to their 11-year-olds. Thinking the current dose safe, parents unknowingly are injecting their pre-teens with three times the recommended amount for that age, according to the latest study.
Second (and this is the big one): will enough parents find the vaccine safe enough, even if approved by the FDA?
According to an interview in the Washington Post, pediatric disease specialist Sharon Nachman said that while the new child vaccine development is a “huge, huge step forward,” she is still “cautiously optimistic” about the news. The vaccine side effects on muscle inflammation in the heart is certainly just one disconcerting aspect, even though officials say the benefits outweigh the risks.
Third: will parents even see the vaccine as necessary?
Many parents see the disease as harmless to young children, considering few report severe illness after receiving diagnosis. Or, they think that alternative methods, like higher vitamin doses, can prevent it.
Twitter
This logic doesn’t take into account that children are still being hospitalized, can still spread COVID to those with compromised immune systems, and reports show that it is, in fact, not harmless.
All of my concerns really stem from a much larger one, which is a widespread lack of accurate information due to fear mongering by unqualified influencers posing as health experts. No new news here, I know, but case and point below.
Special thanks to @scitimewithtracy for patiently debunking.
Personally, I understand the fear. At their core, parents want to do the right thing by their kids. No matter what side of the vaccine debate they stand on, parents are assuming a great deal of risk in their decisions, and I’m sure make no decision lightly.
However, I will leave this tweet from Ryan J. Reilly, showing a jaw dropping visual presentation of the current COVID death toll, as a lasting image indicating what everyone is really risking by not taking action:
Quite stunning to see the COVID death toll represented like this. https://t.co/mae0A9nWDw
The problem with writing about Nirvana is that many people — rock critics, culture pundits, filmmakers, disc jockeys, your college roommate, every rando on social media — have already said pretty much all there is to say about Nirvana.
There have been multiple biographies written about the band, as well as several documentaries, various compilations and box sets, and deluxe reissues of all the studio albums. All this for a band that existed for only six years, and was famous for only three before Kurt Cobain’s untimely death. Surely, the number of words spilled about Nirvana have long since exceeded the number of seconds they rocked upon this astral plane.
And yet, with the 30th anniversary of Nevermind coming up on Friday, the time has come to re-evaluate one of the most beloved, iconic, tragic, and, yes, discussed bands ever. I come not to bury Nirvana, but to celebrate them. They weren’t around for long, but they made so much great music that affected millions of people on a deeply profound level. Let’s try to find out how, and why, this happened.
The lights are out, so it’s less dangerous to count down my 40 favorite Nirvana songs. Here these songs are now, they will entertain us.
40. “Tourette’s”
The narrative on Nirvana isn’t just firmly entrenched; it’s practically etched into the soil, like a faultline. So, we need a palate cleanser. Something that can somehow make this subject seem fresh again. A new angle.
Let’s start with the single dumbest and most incoherent song in their discography. The tune that I used to blast in high school with my friend Mike as we did donuts in his big dumb yellow Ford Saturn. The one in which Dave Grohl earned the right to appear on every awards show in order to “represent rock music” from now until the end of time, because he slams his drums with such awe-inspiring ferocity against Krist Novoselic’s reliably elastic bassline. And then there’s Cobain, the voice of a generation, squealing nonsense like a madman, an individual liberated from inhibition and logic and proper lead singer behavior by unleashing his inner goon.
Listen to this song. Listen to it loud. Nirvana was a rock band. Actually, I’ll rephrase that: Nirvana was first and foremost a rock band. And they were fun! Let me repeat that: THEY WERE FUN. Yes, the Nirvana story is also tragic and profound and culturally momentous. But in the moment, before the context of “the incident” overwhelmed the context of every Nirvana song, people gravitated to this band because they were irreverent and brash. But first and foremost because they were a rock band in the purest and most excellent sense. Let’s celebrate that.
39. “Milk It”
In Utero is my favorite Nirvana studio album. The so-called “confrontational post-fame record,” In Utero is the defining example of a musical act reacting against their own popularity by supposedly making an album so abrasive and noisy that fair-weather fans will hate it (but in reality most of them will end up loving it anyway). There are so many In Utero homages. Pinkerton is Weezer’s In Utero. Kid A is Radiohead’s In Utero. Yeezus is Kanye West’s In Utero. Reputation is Taylor Swift’s In Utero. Happier Than Ever is Billie Eilish’s In Utero (though her version of abrasive is actually going softer). But you can’t top the original In Utero, because this album is not nearly as unlistenable as journalists speculated months before it was released in 1993. Produced by — I mean “recorded” — by legendary indie gadfly Steve Albini, In Utero never gets more obnoxious or gross than “Milk It,” in which Cobain croons with a straight face, “Her milk is my shit / my shit is her milk.” Even as a teenager I knew this was the equivalent of belching in a friend’s face for effect. Which is to say, enjoyably obnoxious and gross. No wonder it was Albini’s favorite track from the record.
38. “I Hate Myself And I Want To Die”
Another sick joke. This one was buried on the 1993 masterpiece The Beavis And Butt-Head Experience, one of the best-selling comedy records ever, along with tracks by Aerosmith, Anthrax, Megadeth, Sir Mix-a-Lot, and Jackyl’s immortal “Mental Masturbation.” Only this joke didn’t age well. And was it actually joke in the first place? “That pretty much defines our band,” Cobain said not long before he actually did hate himself enough to die. “It’s both those contradictions. It’s satirical, and it’s serious at the same time.”
37. “Rape Me”
An even bigger provocation than “I Hate Myself And I Want To Die,” since the band didn’t cave on this one and actually put it on In Utero. Though, depending on where you lived, it might have been listed as “Waif Me” on the back cover. (One of the only good things about the decline of physical media is that Walmart no longer has final say on tracklists for blockbuster LPs.) During his final album promotional cycle, Cobain was asked time and again to explain that “Rape Me” did not endorse rape. (Even in the ironic ’90s, the media didn’t really get irony.) Rather, it was sung from the perspective of a victim defiantly daring her attacker to do her harm, so that karma might eventually do him in at a later date. Upon Cobain’s death, it was also possible to read the song as a comment on celebrity, in which case the listener is implicated as the attacker. Either way, this is only the second best parody of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” on In Utero — the opening riff is total self rip-off — after the album-opening “Serve The Servants.”
36. “Radio Friendly Unit Shifter” (Roma version)
After Cobain took his own life, the most popular Nirvana music in my peer group was Roma, a classic bootleg of a concert performed in Rome on Feb. 22, 1994. As far as we knew, this was the final Nirvana show ever, performed the same night that he attempted suicide for the first time by taking 50 painkillers. In reality, the show occurred a week before the final Nirvana show with Cobain, and nine days before the suicide attempt, which did take place in Rome. In our defense, Google didn’t exist back then. Also, we were dumb teenagers who fetishized the death of our hero, and we pored over Roma for clues about why he eventually did what he did. We would get high, pile into someone’s car, and listen to Roma over and over. Clues, however, were not forthcoming, and not only because we were looking in the wrong spot. Roma was simply a pristine recording of a pretty good Nirvana gig that scarcity elevated to the status of sacred text. I still have that tape, which is still mislabeled as “Nirvana’s Last Show!” Even though I know better, the opening track, “Radio Friendly Unit Shifter,” always puts me on the lookout for potential insight into Kurt’s frayed psyche.
35. “Jesus Don’t Want Me For A Sunbeam”
In the mid-’90s, people joked about Cobain’s suicide like they had about the Challenger explosion a decade earlier. It was such an awful, shocking event that you couldn’t really think about it in an earnest, straightforward way without risking your own trip into the abyss. I think a lot of people felt cheated in the aftermath of his death, and as a coping mechanism they immediately set about contextualizing Nirvana specifically and alt-rock generally as adolescent kiddie stuff that they had outgrown. I remember once confiding in a friend about how Cobain’s death had affected me deeply, and continued to bother me long after the fact. “Oh, you’re one of the mourners,” she scoffed, which prevented me from bringing up Cobain’s name again in public for years. Instead, I just listened in private to MTV Unplugged In New York, the go-to album for all of us mourners, and got choked up whenever this Vaselines cover came on.
34. “Downer”
At the start of MTV Unplugged, Cobain famously takes a shot at his fans when introducing “About A Girl”: “This is off our first album. Most people don’t own it.” It’s funny because it’s true: Most people still didn’t own Bleach in 1993. (This was back when owning an album was a sign of true fandom.) An album like In Utero would seem unpalatable only to an audience that had never heard “Downer.” In Utero is the sound of a band sounding sloppy on purpose. Bleach is organically sloppy.
33. “Stay Away”
In Lynn Hirschberg’s classic 1992 hatchet job of Courtney Love that ran in Vanity Fair — which prompted Cobain to make a scary recorded threat over drug allegations that proved to be more or less true — there’s a scene nobody remembers in which Kurt sighs over seeing a metalhead dude wearing a Nirvana T-shirt outside of a 7-Eleven. Nirvana’s relationship to metal has always been contentious, and among their many contradictions. Cobain’s small-town upbringing in Aberdeen ensured that Kiss and Aerosmith was implanted on his DNA, but he also associated the music with the bonehead machismo he sought to escape. In retrospect, however, the fact that anyone can enjoy Nirvana as simply a band who kicks tons of ass has helped them to translate to younger generations, including scores of rappers who have connected with Kurt’s messianic posturing and outsider rebelliousness. Started from the bottom, and here we are now, entertain us. Among the rappers in the Nirvana cult is Post Malone, who performed a well-received livestream of covers last year in which he listed this Nevermind deep cut as one of his personal favorites. (He even tattooed it on his face!)
32. “Negative Creep”
Total metal song, and among the finer examples of Kurt in “deranged stoned redneck” mode.
31. “You Know You’re Right”
When Rolling Stone‘s David Fricke met Cobain for the last major interview of his life in the fall of 1993, it was backstage at the self-described “shittiest show of the tour” at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago. What isn’t noted is that this concert was the only live performance of the “last” Nirvana song, “You Know You’re Right,” which was laid down in a studio just about two months later. Judging by the bootleg — which you can find in a few minutes with a simple internet search — the gig actually isn’t too bad, and “You Know You’re Right” is jammy and knotty and seething. It also sounds like a continuation of the In Utero sound, and probably not an indication of where Cobain might have headed had he lived. Though, of course, nobody will ever know for sure.
30. “Scentless Apprentice”
Revisiting old Nirvana interviews, I had forgotten how introverted Dave Grohl used to be. Yes, I mean that Dave Grohl, the mayor of contemporary rock music, the man even Foo Fighters agnostics can’t help but like. Watch a Nirvana interview from 1993 and Grohl barely says a word. Nirvana wasn’t his band, it was merely a band he joined, and you can see him defer time and again to his bandmates. At the same time, when you listen to the second and third Nirvana albums, there’s no question that he ranks among the very greatest late-band additions in rock history. (David Gilmour to Pink Floyd is the only example I can think of that edges him out.) For “Scentless Apprentice,” Grohl wrote the riff, a rare instance for a Nirvana song. (Cobain later hinted that he only used the guitar lick to make his insecure bandmate feel better, and then he liked the final result.) But it’s the drum part that makes the song. If you only listen to the drums, you instantly know it’s “Scentless Apprentice.” The same can be said of so many classic Nirvana songs, and so few other iconic rock tunes. That’s the Grohl effect.
29. “Territorial Pissings”
Another small shock of rewatching Nirvana interviews is seeing how extroverted Krist Novoselic was. He’s usually the funniest and most talkative guy in the band, always quick with a snarky ’70s arena-rock reference or passive-aggressive dig at the media. On stage, his lanky, 6-foot-7 frame swings to and fro like one of those inflatable air tube dancers you see at used car dealerships. He’s the unlikely “most rock ‘n’ roll one” in the band. And then there’s his iconic pisstake of The Youngbloods’ “Get Together” at the start of this song, a rare instance in which his court jester quality was harnessed on record.
28. “Been A Son”
Now when you see Novoselic — which isn’t often, and sadly might involve some weird right-leaning political message — there’s an unmistakable sadness about him. You can see it in this appearance on The Tonight Show from 2014. He’s muted and faded, like he’s no longer a whole person. Maybe he’s no longer accustomed to being in the public eye; maybe it’s something else. “I looked at Krist and Kurt as soulmates,” Grohl once said. “The two had such a beautiful, unspoken understanding of each other. Those two guys, together, totally defined the Nirvana aesthetic.” In musical terms, this meant that Novoselic played the role of a steadying presence, with unflashy playing that could hold a song together with subtly melodic bass lines, as you hear on this track.
27. “Dumb”
The observation always made about Kurt Cobain’s songwriting is about how simple it was. This was by design, as it maximized the catchiness of his songs, to the point where you can sing along with Nirvana tunes by the end of your first listen. But this simplicity also concealed impeccable pop craftsmanship under the guise of punk primitivism. One of his sweetest love songs, “Dumb” is also loaded with clever wordplay and affecting melodicism. “My heart is broke but I have some glue / Help me inhale and mend it with you.”
26. “On A Plain”
A Nevermind song that seems like an In Utero song, at least in terms of the sentiment. This is Kurt saying, “No one I think is in my tree,” a tongue-in-cheek ode to rock-star arrogance written before he actually “got so high, I scratched till I bled.” Then again, maybe it’s not arrogance so much as loneliness and isolation. Before teenage angst can pay off, one must learn to cry on demand, even if you already feel bored and old.
25. “Dive”
“On A Plain” can also be construed as a drug song, in the same way that virtually every Nirvana tune can be construed as a drug song. And not a “party” drug song, but a seedy, Lou Reed kind of drug song. The influence of this on Nirvana listeners over the years has probably been neutral-to-negative, given the ambivalence toward self-destruction that permeates this band’s music, biography, and iconography. This is not “uplifting” music in the sense of inspiring onlookers to be better people. That’s not a criticism, necessarily, as I don’t think great art has to inspire anything. It’s just recognition that for all the wonderful things about Nirvana — many of which have already been enumerated! — there’s also unresolvable darkness. Which is why Nirvana is a band you visit; you don’t really want to live inside this music. Also, it might be bad luck to name your excellent band after an Incesticide track, just saying.
24. “Polly”
The Cobain-penned Incesticide liner notes are rightfully regarded as the single most pointed criticism by a multi-platinum band of its own fanbase ever. “At this point I have a request for our fans,” they read. “If any of you in any way hate homosexuals, people of different color, or women, please do this one favor for us — leave us the fuck alone! Don’t come to our shows and don’t buy our records.” The diatribe was inspired, the notes continue, by a woman being “raped by two wastes of sperm and eggs while they sang the lyrics to our song ‘Polly.’” So, while Nirvana can be toxic in large doses, it should also be noted that Nirvana fans could also be toxic to the band.
23. The Meat Puppets Suite From MTV Unplugged In New York (“Plateau”>”Oh Me”>”Lake Of Fire”)
Of course, Nirvana also had a positive influence on a generation, in that they exposed millions of people to great albums like Meat Puppets II that they might not have otherwise heard. And not only did they evangelize for underground music, but Cobain in particular, in addition to being a genius songwriter, was also a gifted interpreter who could uncover fresh beauty and unexpected emotional resonance in other people’s songs.
On Meat Puppets II, these songs are super-fried hippie-punk anthems that wobble wondrously on trucker speed at 4 a.m. The Nirvana versions draw on the influence of Mark Lanegan’s woefully underrated 1990 solo debut The Winding Sheet, which has a similar vibe of funereal gravitas cut with the high lonesome sound of an early ’70s Neil Young acoustic set. (The Winding Sheet also includes a rendition of Leadbelly’s “Where Did You Sleep Last Night?” with Kurt on backing vocals.) Whereas Meat Puppets dance drunkenly around questions of mortality, Cobain cuts right to the heart of the matter with his resigned, unwavering vocal.
22. “Molly’s Lips”
Kurt As Brilliant Interpreter, Part II (Happy Version).
21. “Sappy”
In the Rolling Stone cover story about Nirvana from 1992 — the one where Kurt wears the “Corporate Magazines Still Suck” T-shirt — there’s a digression set in an Aberdeen bar where two yokels talk about Kurt Cobain.
“Yeah, I know the Cobain kid,” one guy says. “F****t.”
“He’s a f****t?” asks the other guy, who then brags: “We deal with f*****s here. We run ’em out of town.”
That’s the place where a song like “Sappy” — a.k.a. “Verse Chorus Verse,” one of Cobain’s most incisive feminist statements, and the greatest Nirvana song never to make a proper album — comes from. In some sense, it seems like he was always trying to tell off the yokels he left behind. “Sappy” lays out the sort of conventional gender roles — man has the power, man keeps woman like an insect — that defined his world as a kid, and that he took a lead in trying to deconstruct as a man with a huge platform in the early ’90s. If only he put it on In Utero.
INTERMISSION
In case there was any doubt about Nirvana recognizing the similarity between “Smells Like A Teen Spirit” and Boston’s “More Than A Feeling.”
20. “Aneurysm”
Actually, maybe this is the best song never to make it on a proper Nirvana record. It did appear on Incesticide, but it’s unclear if it was ever in contention for Nevermind, in spite of being one of the earliest songs worked up with Dave Grohl. You basically have to make an album as loaded as Nevermind in order to leave a song like “Aneurysm” off your record.
19. “Breed”
I’m sure Dave Grohl has no regrets about his life choices. He’s the frontman of one of the only true-blue arena-filling rock bands around. He has directed well-received films, and he’s about to put out his first book. But when I listen to “Breed,” I can’t help but wish that he had remained simply the greatest rock drummer of his generation. I have heard the opening drum roll on this song at least a thousand times and it never fails to shoot my heart 10 feet outside of my chest. It’s not accurate to liken Grohl’s career arc to Ringo Starr turning himself into Paul McCartney; Dave Grohl is like if John Bonham turned into Paul McCartney. That’s an achievement! But I’d still rather have John Bonham.
18. “The Man Who Sold The World”
I have mixed feelings about including the David Bowie cover on this list. Unlike the Meat Puppets and the Vaselines, Bowie was already famous before Nirvana, so it’s not as though “The Man Who Sold The World” appearing on MTV Unplugged made his career. It’s still Bowie’s song. However, it’s also an essential Nirvana track, I would argue, because 1) Cobain used it to express his state of mind at the end of his life and 2) that incredible, droned-out guitar solo. For all the things he’s been praised for, Cobain remains an underrated guitarist. But this particular solo spotlights his ability to put across a complex emotional idea — I think I’m in the process of disintegrating — with just a handful of notes.
17. “Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle”
Speaking of great Kurt Cobain guitar solos, I recommend skipping ahead to the 2:27 mark and listening to 3:05, and then rewinding 20 more times.
16. “Something In The Way”
When Kurt Cobain died, I was 16 and he was 27. I am 44 now. I got older and he stayed the same age. This inevitably has changed my perspective on him. He once seemed wise and worldly; now he seems like a kid who never got a chance to grow up. I look at his behavior in the spotlight now through the lens of a person who remembers (vaguely) being 27 and feels really grateful that I aged out of that period of my life. (It was one of my worst years, as it was for Kurt.)
But I can also appreciate how well he wrote from the point of view of a teenager even as an adult, in a way I couldn’t appreciate when I was an actual teenager. When I heard “Something In The Way” as a kid, it replicated the feeling of being out of place at school, which was my regular state of being at the time. I didn’t understand that this was an affect created by an artist; it just felt real. But when I hear “Something In The Way” now, I can see the art of what Kurt is doing, because the song temporarily fools my 44-year-old brain into believing I’m 16 again. I got older but when listening to Nirvana songs I’m the same age.
15. “Sliver”
Here Kurt was writing from a pre-adolescent perspective, which is far rarer than writing for teens. There are plenty of songs directed at kids. But “Sliver” sounds as if it was written by a kid. That might make it seem like “Sliver” is a cute tune. But it actually captures the terror of being young and stuck in a place where you don’t want to be, and with no way of getting to where you do want to be beyond begging grandma to take you home. The reason why young people still connect with Nirvana is that Kurt Cobain did not romanticize childhood. Kids know that being a kid can really suck, and Kurt wrote about that fact better than almost anybody.
14. “Heart Shaped Box”
The most revelatory scenes in Brett Morgen’s artful 2015 documentary Cobain: Montage Of Heck are culled from home-video footage of Kurt and Courtney hanging out in their Los Angeles apartment in 1992, when Love was pregnant with Frances Bean and they were both shooting loads of heroin. On one hand, it’s a repulsive scene populated by damaged people in the process of falling apart. On the other hand, these clips are surprisingly … sweet? Yes, they are junkies. But they also seem to be authentically smitten with each other. It’s a dynamic that comes across in Nirvana’s most popular love song, in which Cobain captures the repulsive/romantic duality of his marriage when he sings, “I wish I could eat your cancer when you turn black.” It’s a lyric that makes me want to simultaneously vomit and swoon.
13. “In Bloom”
“Smells Like Teen Spirit” is the most iconic Nirvana music video, but the best Nirvana music video is “In Bloom.” Part of what was so exciting about Nirvana if you were a kid in the early ’90s is that they were the biggest band in the world who also made it clear that they thought mainstream pop culture was stupid. This was not a message you saw all that much coming from your television set at the time. There was a facade of politeness and affability that covered almost everything that people saw. For kids inclined to view this facade as bullshit, Nirvana was more than a breath of fresh air — they reassured you that you weren’t crazy to roll your eyes at sitcoms and talk shows and pop music. In the “In Bloom” video, they even made fun of their own fame, laughing at their insta-phenom status. In the process, with his horn-rimmed glasses and smirky insouciance, Kurt Cobain also accidentally invented Weezer.
12. “Love Buzz”
It was Novoselic’s idea to cover this deep cut by the ’60s Dutch psychedelic band The Shocking Blue, and it’s his bass that drives the song. Listen to the original and you’ll find it doesn’t have quite the same infectious bounce, nor does it have the same manic energy that Cobain brings to his vocal and guitar solo. The best example of Nirvana covering a song and making it completely their own.
11. “Smells Like Teen Spirit”
Obviously the most important Nirvana song, but I’m not interested in importance, only in what I like. And while this song had a clear impact on me as a Generation X dude who was 14 when Nevermind dropped — of course it was really powerful hearing it on my local Top 40 station that otherwise played only Phil Collins and C+C Music Factory songs — this is probably the last Nirvana track I’m interested in hearing at this point. So, I’m putting it at No. 11 because to rank it any lower would be a crime against rock criticism. But in order to stay true to my own selfish, self-indulgent aims here, I must put it just outside the top 10.
10. “Pennyroyal Tea”
Steve Albini has said that the fallout from In Utero — in which he was blamed for supposedly steering an “unlistenable” follow-up to Nevermind — nearly drove him out of business. Nirvana themselves seemed pleased with Albini, though there were exceptions. “I think there are a few songs on In Utero that could have been cleaned up a little bit more. Definitely ‘Pennyroyal Tea,’” Cobain told Rolling Stone. “That should have been recorded like Nevermind, because I know that’s a strong song, a hit single.” What this confirms is that Kurt cared about having hits, even from his “confrontational anti-fame” record. He might have also had too much faith in American radio ever accepting a song with the lyric, “I’m on warm milk and laxatives.” But he’s right: A strong song, indeed.
9. “School”
If you want to see Nirvana at their happiest, see Dave Markey’s 1991: The Year Punk Broke, which follows Sonic Youth’s European tour in the summer of ’91 that included Nirvana as an opener right before the release of Nevermind. With Grohl now fully integrated, they are fully alive to the possibilities of crunchy and ecstatic rock ‘n’ roll. The crowds were getting bigger but it was still new and exciting. You can see them transform before your eyes from a hopeful indie band into the Nirvana of myth. This is especially potent during the screamingly intense performance of “School,” their first great teen angst anthem, in which Kurt hurls himself into speakers and Dave Grohl’s drum kit and the world at large with joyous abandon.
8. “Drain You”
The Nirvana album I’m most likely to put on now is Live At Reading, which captures them playing for tens of thousands of fans at the end of the summer of 1992, after Kurt’s long wilderness period in the L.A. apartment with Courtney. Grohl has said that heading into the show, they were weary and under-rehearsed, and had no business headlining a rock festival. And yet the Reading performance is an exhilarating triumph, presenting Nirvana as a confident, world-conquering rock band at the height of their powers from the moment they kick in with “Drain You.” This is the Nirvana I like to remember. You can almost forget about what happened afterward if you play it loud enough.
7. “About A Girl” (MTV Unplugged In New York version)
One of the dumbest things ever said about Nirvana was by Rob Zombie, who blamed them for killing the concept of rock stardom. “There seemed to be a trend in the ’90s, when Nirvana came out and these bands, everybody got confused by it and thought we need all our rock stars to look just like us,” he said. “So what happened is was everybody started not looking different, acting different and being larger than life. Everyone was like, oh, all the rock stars are so boring, I don’t care anymore.” Not to contradict the genius behind “Dragula,” but my counterpoint would be MTV Unplugged In New York, in which Kurt Cobain looks amazing from the moment he starts strumming the show-opening “About A Girl.” I’m not sure if it’s how he’s lit or if it’s just his yellow-ish aura, but he literally looks like a golden god on the show. He is not boring. He is larger than life. And he’s only wearing a cardigan.
6. “Lounge Act”
The most complete Nirvana song, in that each member has a chance to shine. Novoselic’s bass sets the scene, and then Grohl’s relentless drums create the tension. Finally, Cobain builds from a croon to a spine-tingling scream in the final verse. One of his greatest vocals on such a beautifully understated and quietly intense song.
5. “Come As You Are”
The most perfect Nirvana single. It’s the one I never tire of hearing, anyway. Not even Dave Grohl turns the channel when it comes on the radio, he recently told Howard Stern. His own daughter, Violet, knew all the words without him ever playing it for her. It’s the first Nirvana song I played for my own kids. I suspect it will be the first Nirvana song they play for their kids.
4. “Lithium” (1992 MTV Video Music Awards version)
As I have said at least 10,000 in my professional music critic career, I love the 1992 VMAs. (I go deep, probably too deep, on it here.) And Nirvana has a lot to do with that. There’s the historic Kurt vs. Axl Rose confrontation that went down backstage, of course, but what Nirvana did on stage was also pretty extraordinary. But, really, the lede here is that Krist Novoselic got hit in the face with his own bass, a moment I am confident will not be replicated in award show history, because so few bass players are allowed at those things anymore.
3. “All Apologies”
The “what if Kurt had lived?” hypothetical is normally treated like a joke. (I am guilty of this.) This is a coping mechanism. It’s more fun to imagine that Kurt would’ve put out a series of underwhelming solo albums or aged into being a Trump supporter than entertaining the disquieting thought, “What if he would have kept on making awesome music?” Because in that hypothetical, we’re all big losers, bereft of a great man’s presence. We know that he wanted to make a post-In Utero record that sounded “pretty ethereal, acoustic, like R.E.M.’s last album,” as he told David Fricke in that Rolling Stone interview, which would have meant Automatic For The People. (Coincidentally, the album he put on before taking his own life. Or perhaps not a coincidence.) Then again, the last song on In Utero sounds like a man writing his own epitaph: “All in all is all we are.” A capstone.
2. “Where Did You Sleep Last Night?”
Kurt Cobain is one of the best and most influential rock singers ever, and this is his greatest vocal, which means it’s also one of the greatest vocals in rock history. That contradictory alchemy of beauty and ugliness, pleasure and pain, transcendence and condemnation culminates here. Each time I hear it I assume it will no longer be affecting, but there are two moments that never fail to slay me — when he screams “I would shiver the whole night through” at 4:14, and again at the very end when he does a short sigh before the final “throooooooough.” As last words on record go, it’s hard to beat that wrenching “throooooooough.”
1. “Serve The Servants”
As I previously acknowledged, you’re supposed to put “Smells Like Teen Spirit” in this slot. But I prefer the first track from the next Nirvana record that makes fun of “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Is there a better opening line to an album than, “Teenage angst has paid off well, now I’m bored and old”? No. No, there is not. Is “I tried hard to have a father but instead I had a dad” also one of his best lyrics? Yes. Yes it is. (I know he borrowed from Paul Westerberg but I think he slightly improved on him.) Did Kurt ever play a better guitar solo than he does here? No. No, he did not. Is this the greatest example of a rock star complaining about his own fame in a way that is compelling rather than merely whiny? Probably. I can’t think of a better one. Does this song make me sad that Nirvana never made another album? Profoundly. Nirvana has such a small body of work that you can’t help but feel greedy for more songs. Maybe there is a cache of lost Nirvana songs as amazing as “Serve The Servants.” Maybe? As it is, I’m somehow not sick of the ones I’ve heard so many times. This song still makes me laugh, and it still moves me. And in those moments, Nirvana feels alive, and so do I.
Machine Gun Kelly (Colson Baker) isn’t afraid to pick a fight, as his past beef with Eminem has made abundantly clear. But he’s also never shied away from setting the record straight when necessary. At this weekend’s Riot Fest, the pop-punk/rap star was roasting Slipknot during his set, taking aim at Corey Taylor and co. after the metal band’s frontman took shots at him on a recent podcast.
The full rundown: Taylor says on Cutter’s Rockast that he hates MGK: “I’m the worst old fogey dude shaking his cane ever. I hate everything. I hate all new rock for the most part. I [hate] the artists who failed in one genre and decided to go rock — and I think he knows who he is. But that’s another story.
At Riot Fest, MGK mocks Slipknot: “Hey, you wanna know what I’m really happy that I’m not doing? Being 50 years old and wearing a f*cking weird mask on a f*cking stage.”
But after numerous media outlets picked up his stage trash talk today, Baker wanted to let the public know what was really going on. So now MGK has finally spilled the tea, the real reason Corey was even mouthing off about him in the first place. “corey did a verse for a song on tickets to my downfall album, it was f*cking terrible, so i didn’t use it,” he wrote on Twitter. “he got mad about it, and talked shit to a magazine about the same album he was almost on. yalls stories are all off.
just admit he’s bitter.”
corey did a verse for a song on tickets to my downfall album, it was fucking terrible, so i didn’t use it. he got mad about it, and talked shit to a magazine about the same album he was almost on. yalls stories are all off. just admit he’s bitter.
The movie The Social Network depicted Mark Zuckerberg as a sniveling coward who was bad with women. Zuckerberg laughed off the depiction, claiming it was false. Maybe he was right. After all, what we’ve learned about him since has been far, far worse. Today, Facebook is a haven for misinformation about election fraud, COVID-19, and much else besides. And a new book alleges that two years ago he effectively agreed that when it came to Donald Trump and his oft-baseless claims, he would look the other way.
On Monday, New York magazine published a lengthy excerpt from The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley’s Pursuit of Power, a new book by Max Chafkin about the billionaire and Zuckerberg confidant. Chafkin talks about a meeting in 2019 between Zuckerberg, Thiel, Trump, Jared Kushner, and their spouses. Though details of the pow-wow are not known, Thiel later claimed that Zuckerberg “came to an understanding” with Kushner:
Facebook, he promised, would continue to avoid fact-checking political speech — thus allowing the Trump campaign to claim whatever it wanted. If the company followed through on that promise, the Trump administration would lay off on any heavy-handed regulations.
Afterwards, the book claims, Zuckerberg “took a hands-off approach to conservative sites,” and even rolled out the red carpet for such far right sites as Breitbart and The Daily Wire. A Thiel confidant said Facebook had essentially started pushing “state-sanctioned conservatism.”
Zuckerberg denied the Trump quid pro quo, calling the claim “pretty ridiculous.” But, Chafkin argues, Facebook’s actions after the 2019 meeting suggest otherwise:
During Black Lives Matter protests, Twitter hid a post by the president that seemed to condone violence: “When the looting starts, the shooting starts”; Face¬book allowed it. In the days leading up to the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, Facebook mostly ignored calls to limit the spread of “Stop the Steal” groups, which claimed that Trump had actually won the election.
Whether a deal happened or not, Facebook has definitely changed. What began as a way for millennials to connect online has evolved into a place to brainwash millennials’ parents.
The dry martini is one of the simplest cocktail recipes in existence. Of course, it now has endless variations — many of them quite good. But that essential recipe is very basic. It’s a mix of dry gin and dry vermouth with a touch of bitters, and a spritz of lemon oils, served deeply chilled.
That’s really it. But finding the right balance of these core ingredients is what makes or breaks a stellar dry martini. A little too much dry vermouth and you have an overly sweet martini. Not enough lemon oil and you’re left with a bland glass of cold gin. There is an art to it all.
To that end, I’m going all the way back to the first iteration of the recipe, from the early 19th century. There are two main tenets to the drink, as it was initially conceived. One, everything must be ice cold. That goes beyond the booze in the glass to literally pre-freezing all your bar tools and chilling the booze beforehand. Keeping things as cold as possible helps create a cleaner and more elevated experience that you get at a quality cocktail bar.
The other key aspect at play is the use of vermouth. Old-school recipes call for a small wash of vermouth that’s discarded before the gin and bitters go into the glass. The vermouth should be “just there” as a botanical and slightly sweet accent, not a full component. Think of it like an absinthe wash for a Sazerac.
When it comes to gin for a martini, you want a London dry (a juniper-focused gin) that you actually like, since the gin is the star of this show. I’m using Artingsall’s because it’s made specifically for mixing drinks like this where the gin shines. Booth’s London Dry, Bombay London Dry, or The Botanist Islay Dry work wonders too. There are a lot of good choices out there — find one that speaks to you.
For the dry vermouth, I opened a bottle of Noilly Prat. The French vermouth is a little subtler and leans more brightly botanical with a lower sweetness.
Lastly, let’s talk about the garnish. Old-school dry martinis did not come with swizzle sticks full of pickled onions, briny olives, or slices of lemon peel. They were a simple cocktail with a little lemon oil to help them pop. So, that’s the vibe we’re going for here.
That being said… put an olive in your martini if you want.
Zach Johnston
What You’ll Need:
Coupe, Nick and Nora, or cocktail glass
Cocktail jug
Barspoon
Jigger
Cocktail strainer
Fruit peeler
Zach Johnston
Method:
Prechill glass, jug, spoon, jigger, and strainer in the freezer overnight.
Prechill the vermouth and gin in a fridge overnight.
Remove the tools and glass from the freezer and the spirits from the fridge when ready to mix.
Use the fruit peeler to peel a thumb-sized section of lemon rind.
Add the vermouth to the glass and wash it out by swirling it around and then discard the vermouth in the sink.
Add the gin and bitters to the cocktail jug with a hand full of ice. Stir until the cocktail is ice cold — about 15 to 20 seconds.
Strain the cocktail into the waiting glass.
Express the lemon oils over the cocktail and discard peel.
Serve.
Bottom Line:
Zach Johnston
This is just so damn nice. The vermouth is just there but feels more like a partner with the Angostura in the background than a main agitator of the gin.
The ice-cold aspects of this drink last and help make this super refreshing. The lemon oils are what really tie this all together. They pop while also adding a real brightness to the woodier aspects of the botanical vibe of the gin.
Look, we get it. Prechilling all of your bar gear before making a cocktail seems like a lot. But that extra step is what takes this drink from “hum, I guess this is what a martini tastes like when I make it at home…” to “oh, wow, this is why the martini at my favorite cocktail bar is always so much better!” That, folks, is always worth it! Especially if you have a houseguest you want to make an impression on.
The return of autumn brings many things. The leaves change to bright hues of red, orange, and yellow before silently falling to the ground. A light jacket or sweater soon becomes part of the dress code. Days are shorter, nights colder. It’s a season of transition.
For beer drinkers, that shift means maltier, richer, more robust beers hitting shelves.
“Ah, the lovely days of autumn,” says Stephen Hale, founding brewer at Schlafly Beer in St. Louis. “They bring not only a blessed change in the weather, but also an exciting shift in the offerings of beers from summer’s lighter lagers and fruitier styles.”
Tim Matthews, VP of brewing at CANarchy in Longmont, Colorado sees both his food and beer choices change this time of year.
“I tend to change my eating habits and then my beer choice follows,” he says. “The perfect example is when rich soup and herb-seasoned, roasted poultry start showing up on our table in late October and early November. That’s when the Porters and Schwarzbiers start to accumulate in the fridge, since their roasted grain character pairs great with all the fatty, savory flavors going on.”
To mark the changing seasons, we asked some of our favorite brewers for their favorite beers this time of year. Check their answers below!
As fall rolls around, one of the beers I most look forward to is a fresh pour of Topcutter IPA. If I have a Topcutter in front of me, that means I’m at Bale Breaker, a little family-owned brewery in Washington’s Yakima Valley. Yakima is one of the hop-growing capitals of the world, and Bale Breaker is surrounded on three sides by acres and acres of hops. Every September, we send two teams of brewers out to Yakima for hop selection. To me, it’s the most important ingredient selection we do, and I just love walking the fields, talking to farmers, and watching the harvesters do their thing.
When we get into town, the first stop is always Bale Breaker. Even before we go to the hotel. It’s a perfect place to grab a beer, maybe run into some fellow brewers, and get into that hoppy state of mind.
I like to drink beers that are a bit stronger as the weather gets colder. Something with a slight warming character to it. I find myself buying La Chouffe, a blonde Belgian ale, frequently in the fall. It’s a beer that’s both extremely complex and approachable. Especially since I love baking during this time of year, the spicy phenols and fruity aromas pair perfectly with some homemade bread.
Marzen lagers are synonymous with fall for me, and while most people brew and serve this seasonal brew, Odell Brewing’ Oktoberfest is the one I always look forward to. The fall is a time for me to slow down, and take in the last warm days before winter sets in. Odell’s Oktoberfest has a brilliantly clear, almost dark orange or light amber hue which perfectly matches the colors of changing leaves on Aspens and Cottonwoods throughout the Tetons. The rich and malty base for this beer is inviting and balanced by subtle hop flavors and aromas. The aroma and flavor remind me of crisp fall mornings and the smell of dew in the air.
The flavors are perfect to pair with autumnal fare like soup, chili, or slow-roasted meat. It is a beer I sip and savor each and every year and for me is the perfect companion to welcome the fall in the intermountain west.
Spaten Oktoberfest
Spaten
Jason Salas, director of brewing operations at New Holland Brewing in Holland, Michigan
Spaten Oktoberfest is light, soft texture, malty, and highly crushable. I was born in September and therefore I came of age when this beer was released for Oktoberfest every year. Drinking this beer reminds me of old friends, places we’d gather, and the unforgettable moments we made.
The first beer I think of when fall settles and if I’m in Germany around that time is fresh Augustiner Oktoberfest Bier, preferably served from traditional wooden barrels. Here in the United States, there are many brewers who replicate this style well, and most brew a more full-bodied Märzen, a bit of a throwback to how it was made in Germany decades ago.
These beers are copper to amber in color, malt forward with low and harmonious hop bitterness. Rich flavors of toasted malt, light caramel lifted by the sparkle of fresh lager yeast creates a perfect pairing for cool fall weather in the beer garden. They are full of flavor yet incredibly drinkable.
I’d go with The Bruery Or Xata. I’m a big fan of The Bruery’s Or Xata with its warming notes of cinnamon and spice, which is ideal for fall temperatures and shorter days.
Rockwell Foeder Fest
Rockwell
Stephen Hale, founding brewer at Schlafly Beer in St. Louis
Narrowing this down to one beer is always a challenge, but since I often lean towards malty beers, and this is one of my favorite styles, it’s one I’ll try everywhere I go. Although you really can’t go wrong with your favorite, Rockwell Brewing Foeder Fest is a fine example of what makes this season so great. The solid, clean, harmony of the style is what captivates me. Although it’s not a big hoppy beer, hops are used perfectly to complement the toasted bread, biscuity, and medium-sweet maltiness, with a gorgeous clear amber reddish-brown color — all very much like a perfect autumn day. Prosit!
A beer you could actually drink most of the year, but really hits the mark for the fall as temperatures start to drop and leaves change color is Flying Fish’s Abbey Dubbel which Brewvana featured in their holiday box last year. Flavors of dark fruit, like dates, and sweet caramel are complemented by a slightly higher alcohol percentage, sometimes as high as 8 percent. The most important feature of this beer is the higher carbonation level in it which pushes those rich complex flavors off your palate after every sip so that you don’t find it too rich and can enjoy the whole thing.
It’s hard to brew a beer like this and get the right balance of those flavors with high alcohol and high carbonation so that it could stand side by side with the gold standard, which has been brewed by the Trappist Abbey of Westmalle since 1856.
J.W. Lees Harvest Ale
J.W. Lees
Todd DiMatteo, owner and head brewer of Good Word Brewing in Duluth, Georgia
J.W. Lees Harvest Ale beer is a time machine for me. It evokes where we have been, but I can also confidently say that it’s also where we are headed to. It holds a special place in my memory — as I was cutting my teeth in craft beer at Brick Store Pub in 2005, we had so many different years of the barleywine — it was like having a personal arsenal of flavors that lived within a single beer over different vintages at the ready. It was fun to share with lucky guests and friends. Sometimes these wooden pin casks would come in that had been aged for longer than I had been legally drinking. Some were aged in Scotch or calvados barrels. The Harvest Ale, in particular, is brewed only once a year and it is a special barleywine with a hefty and respectable 11.5% abv. reminiscent of a Werther’s Original candy in liquified form — a warm, caramel flavor.
This is a beer to sip slowly while my kids cut into pumpkins, and we enjoy a flickering fire. It begs for that rolled cigar smell, followed by a pour of a nice round whisky to follow it down.
Hoss Oktoberfest Lager by Great Divide Brewing Company is easily my favorite fall beer. I always loved it when it was a year-round beer, but a few years back they made it a fall release which really makes it fit the time of year perfectly. It’s got a deep malty aroma that is accentuated by the addition of rye into the mash, a beautiful malt-red color, and the ABV is in the traditional Oktoberfest range at 6.2 percent. It’s a great beer for cool nights around a campfire.
A German Märzen is a perfect beer to transition with the seasons, as the days are still warm but cool off in the evening. It features more of a toasted malt character and a small number of caramel flavors, with a medium body so you can have more than one without feeling full. Not too sweet, not too malty, nor too watery! When the color of the beer matches the leaves on the trees as they change you can’t go wrong.
Paulaner, Ayinger, and Hacker-Pschorr are my go-to choices.
Andechs Spezial Hell
Andechs
Jeff Joslin, director of brewing operations at Left Hand Brewing in Longmont, Colorado
The specific beer for fall for me would be Andechs Oktoberfest. Oktoberfest beers are so seasonal specific and each one is so different. Andechs is clean and well-made, lighter than a lot of American Oktoberfests, and I have fond memories of visiting the brewery.
Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale
Sierra Nevada
Christian Ettinger, founder, and brewmaster at Hopworks Urban Brewery in Portland, Oregon
Easy. Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale is a fantastic IPA with classic piney C Hop character, a nice medium malt body, and a long, bitter finish. It is complex, strong, and hearty, and quite possibly the perfect reward for a big effort in the woods or on the mountain.
This beer was an inspiration to me as a young brewer and continues to impress year after year.
Bamberg Rauchbier — particularly of the bock style, or, as the weather gets colder, doppelbock — is my pick. We make them occasionally at the R&D scale, but never frequently enough for my tastes, and none of them compare to the archetypes from Schlenkerla. For me, the style evokes thoughts of drinking in a tavern, with blustery cold snow flurries outside, and a crackling fire keeping things warm inside. The malty-sweet/toasty/smoky balance of a good bock-style rauchbier is perfect when the weather starts to cool, and while deliciously malty and rich on its own. It makes for an incredible pairing with many of the more robust dishes that one might expect from a fall menu.
Wiley Roots Brewing in Greeley is hitting on all cylinders. Their Pumpkin Spice Country Fair Cobbler captures all of what I like about fall in a most pleasant and drinkable format. Pumpkin beers are often too sweet and cloying. The bright blonde color is refreshing in comparison to the many darker pumpkin beers on the market. Pumpkin puree brings body and mouthfeel, which sour beers often lack, as well as authenticity. Cinnamon, vanilla, and graham cracker are the roots of any good cobbler, and the not too overpowering acidity keeps it all in check.
Bright, whimsical, and screaming of everything I like about fall.
As a Drizly affiliate, Uproxx may receive a commission pursuant to certain items on this list.
Everything that was once cool will at some point fall out of style. Then, in about 25 years, it’ll come back in again. One piece of home decor that’s rapidly falling out of fashion is word art.
You know, those wooden signs in people’s homes with down-home, kitschy sayings. These days, they’re easy to find at Target or Home Goods, but their days may be numbered.
“Word art is a trend that has been around for years — you won’t be stuck for wood motif options at home décor stores,” interior designer Zoe Warren told The Sun. “However, generic plaques reading ‘Home’ placed around your rooms lacks character and looks tacky. “
Millennials tend to be the biggest fans of word art and Gen Z has come after them by branding their particular taste as “cheugy.” The pejorative term has many different connotations, but fondness for word art is one thing that people who use the slang all agree on.
“If you’ve ever bought a wooden sign from Target that says ‘Gather,’ that’s cheugy,” Cnet says. Urban Dictionary defines the term as “another way to describe aesthetics/people/experiences that are basic.”
Makeup artist John Michael Baker decided to have some fun with his sister by posting a video showcasing the various pieces of word art in her home. The video is funny because word art has become so ubiquitous that pointing it out feels cathartic.
“Welcome to my basic white sister’s home,” Baker says as he throws one of her wreaths on his head.
The video was a huge hit earning over five million likes. So, two days later, he posted another dispatch from the mecca of word art.
Three days later, he posted another video revealing that there’s still more word art to be discovered in his sister’s home.
Just so nobody gets the wrong idea, Baker posted a video showing his love for his sister, reminding his followers that his videos are all in fun. “My sister is a bad b*tch,” Baker says, “I’m just a brother that likes to f**k with their siblings.”
In the end, Baker’s sister’s word art is all about making a positive statement about her home. It’s a fun place where people come together to live, laugh, and love. the artwork makes her family feel comfortable and visitors feel welcome, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
So if you’re like Baker’s sister and love word art, hang it wherever you like and don’t let anyone tell you you shouldn’t.
A number of people became famous during last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests, not all of them for good reasons. Two of them were Mark and Patricia McCloskey, a pair of lawyers from St. Louis who waved guns at protesters who had entered their gated community. The two wound up getting off scot-free, even becoming right-wing heroes and speakers at the 2020 RNC. Mark is even running for Senate. But their actions may come back to haunt them after all.
According to NPR, the two may wind up losing their law licenses. A petition from Missouri’s chief disciplinary counsel, Alan D. Pratzel, argues that their actions showed “indifference to public safety” and showed “moral turpitude.” The couple both pleaded guilty to misdemeanors: he to fourth-degree assault misdemeanor, she to harassment. They were later pardoned by Missouri Governor Mike Parson.
But Pratzel argued that even if their slates were formally wiped clean, “the person’s guilt remains.” He cited their guilty pleas in his petition, while citing a number of other Missouri cases in which lawyers were disciplined for crimes they committed. Pratzel is asking the Supreme Court to indefinitely suspend their law licenses.
Mark McCloskey was unrepentant about his actions, which drew widespread outrage. “The prosecutor dropped every charge except for alleging that I purposely placed other people in imminent risk of physical injury; right, and I sure as heck did,” McCloskey said at one point. “That’s what the guns were there for and I’d do it again any time the mob approaches me, I’ll do what I can to place them in imminent threat of physical injury because that’s what kept them from destroying my house and my family.”
Pratzel included that quote in his petition to rob the McCloskeys of their law licenses.
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