Month: December 2021

In the wake of James Gandolfini’s death from a heart attack in 2013 at the age of 51, many friends, family members, associates, and even politicians took to the internet to express their sadness over the loss. It didn’t take long for people to notice how many people spoke about The Sopranos star’s generosity. As The New York Post reports, one particularly benevolent act impacted more than a dozen of Gandolfini’s co-stars, who still talk about it today.

In James Andrew Miller’s new book, Tinderbox: HBO’s Ruthless Pursuit of New Frontiers, the author shares that Gandolfini originally signed on to play Tony Soprano for $5 million per season. After the show’s third season, HBO doubled that amount to $10 million. Miller writes that Gandolfini and his team continued to push for more and more money after that, and that it got contentious enough that in 2003 the actor filed a breach of contract lawsuit against the network, who then countersued the star.

“Jim was a brilliant actor but a complicated guy to deal with,” Mike Lombardo, HBO’s former president of programming says in Tinderbox. The negotiations eventually got to a point where the only choice would have been to stop production on the series, leaving the cast and crew of one of television’s most celebrated drama’s suddenly unemployed. Not wanting to upend the lives of his colleagues, Gandolfini agreed to the network’s offer of $13 million, or $1 million per episode. And once that contract was signed, the actor wrote checks to 16 of his co-stars in the amount of $33,000 apiece to make up for any troubles his personal dealings with the network might have caused them.

Steve Schirripa, who played Bobby Baccalieri, one of Tony’s underlings—and eventually his brother-in-law—shared the story of this act of kindness shortly after Gandolfini’s death.

“As good of an actor as he was, he was a better guy,” Schirripa told a New York City radio station in 2013. “A generous guy. The guy gave us $33,000 each—16 people. In Season 4 he called every one of the regular castmembers and gave us a check. He said, ‘Thanks for sticking by me.’ It’s like buying 16 people a car.”

Not a car that Tony would ever drive, but yes, a car nonetheless.

(Via The New York Post)

Griff is a rising pop star who is just getting started — a genius upstart from the UK who is already making her mark on music. After releasing her One Foot In Front Of The Other EP earlier this year, several of the songs on the project popped out, including the already massive “Black Hole” and its follow up “One Night.” Another deep cut from the mixtape, though, is “Heart Of Gold,” a song about falling for someone and admiring how open and vulnerable their heart is. The song is marked by a super prominent beat, and during a live show in October, Griff revealed just how well the beat goes really well with Lorde’s breakout hit, “Royals.”

Since the pandemic has been ongoing during the breakout of Griff’s smash streaming hit, “Black Hole,” she’s had to postpone plenty of shows and tours as the guidelines for large gatherings were constantly shifting. But, she’s finally been able to tour behind her music, and already is finding ways to be innovative during her live show. That’s part of why cameras were ready at a gig in London this fall, when Griff took “Royals” and slid it right into the middle of “Heart Of Gold,” creating one glorious pop song out of two. We already know Griff is a Lorde fan because she previously covered “Solar Power” as part of BBC Radio 1’s Live Lounge tradition. Check out the mash up above.

With a 65-78 record over the previous two seasons as the backdrop, the San Antonio Spurs entered the 2021-22 campaign with the most modest of expectations. That was a strange reality for one of the model franchises in the NBA universe, but without obvious star power and a general uncertainty of direction, the oddsmakers in the desert assigned the Spurs with an over/under win total of 28.5 victories. That placed the Spurs in the bottom tier of the league and, through the first 17 games, San Antonio was just 4-13 and “living up” to those modest expectations. Quietly, though, San Antonio has awakened since then, winning eight of the last 13 games and remaining frisky in the chase for the play-in.

Since Thanksgiving, the Spurs own the sixth-best net rating (+4.7) in the NBA with wins over Boston, Golden State, Denver, Utah, and the L.A. Clippers. The victory over the Clippers arrived in dominant fashion on Monday, with San Antonio throttling L.A. by a 24-point margin on the road. That singular performance may not be indicative of future performance for the Spurs, but 25-year-old guard Dejounte Murray was brilliant and that was a reminder of just how effective his level of performance is in 2021-22.

Murray put together a 24-point, 13-assist, 12-rebound triple-double in the win over the Clippers and, for the season, he is averaging 18.1 points, 8.6 assists, and 8.5 rebounds per game. Those counting numbers place Murray in rarified air and, while his box-score production has been similar during San Antonio’s uptick, he has improved his three-point shooting to 37.7 percent since Thanksgiving. Murray’s presence on the floor has also led to success for the Spurs, with a +2.1 net rating when he plays and a less impressive -3.5 net rating when he heads to the bench.

It’s not as if Murray is alone, as the Spurs have seven players averaging double-digit scoring through the first 30 games of the campaign. However, he is clearly the No. 1 option for a team that is jockeying for position in the Western Conference playoff chase, and that is notable for a player who is still flying under the radar.

Following this 13-game onslaught, San Antonio’s statistical profile suggests this team should hover around the .500 mark. The Spurs are six games under .500 for the season while out-scoring their opponents by 0.2 points per 100 possessions. That may not correct itself over the next 52 games, but there is some reason to believe that San Antonio’s 8-5 stretch may be more indicative 0f what this team is than their 4-13 start.

It should be noted that the Spurs play one of the league’s five toughest schedules, at least by winning percentage, for the rest of the season, and they likely can’t afford an injury to Murray. Still, it is likely fair to say that, at the moment, San Antonio is better than the team they were widely projected to be and, as usual, Gregg Popovich seems to be pushing a lot of the right buttons.

Where does that place the Spurs in this week’s DIME power rankings? Let’s see.

1. Golden State Warriors (25-6, Last week — 1st)

The Warriors got smoked in Toronto over the weekend and, without a closer look, that result seems weird. Golden State basically didn’t take its entire core to Canada, though, and the Warriors are rolling otherwise. The offense hasn’t been quite as dominant as it was early in the year, but Golden State’s defense is holding up and the metrics are outstanding.

2. Phoenix Suns (25-5, Last week — 2nd)

It was another perfect week for the Suns, capped off by an 18-point road win over the Lakers. Devin Booker is back as well, and Phoenix did a magnificent job weathering his absence. Phoenix could reasonably be ranked No. 1 right now, and that is a very strong compliment given what the Warriors have done.

3. Utah Jazz (21-9, Last week — 3rd)

Utah might’ve earned a dip with two home losses this week, but the profile of the Jazz is just better than the rest of the teams on the list. Utah is scoring four more points per 100 possessions than any other team in the league, and the Jazz are right up there with the best offenses of all-time, even in a league where scoring is down this season. We’ll see if that maintains, but Utah has almost the same point differential as Golden State.

4. Cleveland Cavaliers (19-12, Last week — 7th)

Like a lot of the league, the Cavs are battling COVID issues, but Cleveland hasn’t lost since Dec. 6. The Cavs have six straight wins and they’ve navigated a brutal schedule to the tune of a +6.1 net rating and the league’s No. 2 defense. It’s truly wild how good they’ve been, and it’s still happening.

5. Brooklyn Nets (21-9, Last week — 4th)

Brooklyn’s last result, before three postponements, was a home loss to Orlando. The Nets basically used their third team in that game, though, and if we assume relative health, Brooklyn is still earning a top-five ranking. The Kyrie Irving dynamic will be interesting to monitor, but they’re holding up without him, at least before the rash of COVID-related absences.

6. Chicago Bulls (19-10, Last week — 9th)

The Bulls bounced back from a two-game hiatus (and two losses before that) to sweep a home back-to-back on Sunday and Monday. Chicago remains No. 6 in the NBA in net rating, out-scoring opponents by 3.3 points per 100 possessions, and the Bulls are 18-8 in games when DeMar DeRozan plays.

7. Milwaukee Bucks (19-13, Last week — 5th)

The Bucks are good when their top guys play. I mean, the Bucks are good when basically any of their top guys play. This is basically too low given what expectations really are and too high for their season-long performance. Split the difference.

8. Miami Heat (19-13, Last week — 10th)

Losing in Detroit is pretty rough. Alas, Miami should be graded on a curve with all of the absences they have, and the Heat have done an admirable job navigating a lengthy stretch without Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo, and Tyler Herro. Even with the Detroit loss, Miami is 5-2 in the last seven games.

9. Memphis Grizzlies (19-13, Last week — 6th)

The Grizzlies dropped back-to-back games to end the week, explaining the drop from No. 6 to No. 9 overall. Memphis is still solidly out-scoring opponents for the season with a positive record, especially when considering how long Ja Morant is out. They have to figure out a middle ground between elite offense (early in the season) and elite defense (recently), but it’s been a strong overall start.

10. Denver Nuggets (15-14, Last week — 15th)

The Nuggets haven’t played since Friday, but Denver’s last result was notably impressive. Nikola Jokic and company went into Atlanta and absolutely blasted the Hawks on the road, winning a fourth game in the last six. Whenever Jokic plays, the Nuggets are dangerous, and that point is being made nightly.

11. Philadelphia 76ers (16-15, Last week — 11th)

With Joel Embiid back, the Sixers are in solid shape. Philadelphia is 13-7 with Embiid in the lineup, and the Sixers went into Boston and won on the road on Monday. That was an impressive win, and the 76ers have a rest edge and home-court when Atlanta comes into town on Thursday.

12. Boston Celtics (15-16, Last week — 13th)

The bad? Boston is 2-5 in the last seven. However, the losses came to the Lakers (road), Clippers (road), Suns (road), Warriors, and Sixers. It would’ve been nice for the Celtics to steal one of those, but they did beat Milwaukee and those losses don’t really change the tenor in Boston.

13. Los Angeles Lakers (16-16, Last week — 12th)

With three straight losses, the Lakers are back to the .500 mark. That is not where anyone projected Los Angeles to be at this point, and the lengthy of absence of Anthony Davis won’t help. The Lakers also ran into a buzzsaw against the Suns on Tuesday, and that revealed, at least to some degree, that Los Angeles really isn’t in Phoenix’s stratosphere right now.

14. L.A. Clippers (16-15, Last week — 8th)

The Clippers dip considerably this week after three straight losses. One of those defeats came in Oklahoma City, which isn’t great, and L.A. got walloped by San Antonio. Without Kawhi Leonard, a 16-15 start feels totally reasonable, so there’s that.

15. San Antonio Spurs (12-18, Last week — 18th)

San Antonio finishes up a west coast trip against the Lakers on Thursday before returning home for three in a row. It will be interesting to see where the true baseline is for the Spurs, but they really are playing competitive basketball.

16. Dallas Mavericks (15-15, Last week — 16th)

Luka Doncic hasn’t played in almost two weeks, and the goal for Dallas is simply to hold the line in his absence. They’ve largely done that, including a win over Minnesota on Tuesday that avenged a previous defeat over the weekend. Nothing is exciting in Dallas right now — well, other than this — but perhaps they can find their stride when Doncic returns.

17. Minnesota Timberwolves (15-16, Last week — 23rd)

It’s been a Jekyll-and-Hyde season for the Wolves in many ways. Minnesota is 4-6 in the last 10 games, but that formed with a five-game losing streak, a four-game winning streak, and a reasonable road loss in Dallas on Tuesday.

18. Toronto Raptors (14-15, Last week — 19th)

This is a status quo week for the Raptors. Toronto had two postponements and a win over Golden State that was a lot less impressive than the scoreboard looks because of the players the Warriors didn’t bring to Canada. Alas, Toronto has a real opportunity with road games in Chicago and Cleveland this week.

19. Atlanta Hawks (14-15, Last week — 20th)

It ended up being a two-game week for the Hawks due to a postponement on Sunday. Atlanta split its two games, but the second contest was a highly disappointing home loss to Denver. The Hawks’ defense has been a total mess for most of the season, and now Nate McMillan must face some period of time without Trae Young, Clint Capela, and Danilo Gallinari due to health and safety protocols.

20. New York Knicks (14-17, Last week — 24th)

Tom Thibodeau’s team basically did the bare minimum this week, beating the Rockets and Pistons. That’s enough to make a bit of a jump, though, because a lot of the NBA is a mess right now. New York still has a lot of work to do to overcome a 3-8 record in the last 11 games.

21. Charlotte Hornets (16-17, Last week — 17th)

It’s not as if the Hornets had a terrible week, losing to a bunch of teams they are “supposed” to lose to on the road. Still, Charlotte slides under the .500 mark with three consecutive defeats, and the Hornets are finding it difficult to overcome the NBA’s worst defensive efficiency.

22. Washington Wizards (16-15, Last week — 22nd)

Washington had an awesome win over the weekend, knocking off the Jazz on the road. Why, then, did the Wizards stay in the same spot in the rankings? Well, Washington lost four in a row and seven out of eight games before that victory in Salt Lake City. We’ll call that a draw for now.

23. New Orleans Pelicans (11-21, Last week — 26th)

The Pelicans have won three in a row, four of the last five, and eight of the last 13 games. That doesn’t erase the hideousness of the early-season struggles, but New Orleans earned this bump with a double-digit home win over Portland on Tuesday.

24. Portland Trail Blazers (13-19, Last week — 27th)

Portland’s road win in Memphis on Sunday was genuinely impressive when remembering how hot the Grizzlies were before that game began. Damian Lillard is also averaging 38 points per game in the last three, and there are some real positives. However, Portland is still 3-11 in the last 14, so they can’t climb too high.

25. Houston Rockets (10-21, Last week — 14th)

Reality is back for the Rockets. We acknowledged a week ago that Houston rising to No. 14 overall was something of a bit, but the Rockets are 2-5 in the last seven games again. Houston is No. 27 in net rating at -6.5 points per 100 possessions, and some of the magic from the semi-recent seven-game winning streak is long gone.

26. Indiana Pacers (13-19, Last week — 21st)

It might be unfair to drop the Pacers this far given the team’s statistical profile and a 4-3 record in the last seven games. On the other end, Indiana was absolutely throttled by the Heat on a night in which Miami didn’t have some of its stars. The Pacers’ only win this week came against the Pistons as well, and that victory isn’t moving the needle.

27. Sacramento Kings (13-19, Last week — 25th)

Sacramento continues to flounder in a general sense. The Kings have lost five of the last seven games and, in those contests, Sacramento has allowed more than 1.16 points per possession. The two wins were solid enough, but Sacramento’s defense has been genuinely problematic for most of the season and there isn’t too much to get overly excited about.

28. Oklahoma City Thunder (10-19, Last week — 28th)

Things are trending up for OKC after back-to-back wins. The Thunder did lose to the Pelicans at home, keeping them in this spot, but OKC is a highly respectable 10-16 in games when Shai Gilgeous-Alexander suits up.

29. Orlando Magic (6-25, Last week — 29th)

Detroit’s shortcomings keep Orlando away from the No. 30 spot, but only by a small margin. The Magic are extremely shorthanded due to injury and protocols, but Orlando has two wins in almost five weeks. It’s really quite ugly, and they have to go to Atlanta and Miami in the next few days.

30. Detroit Pistons (5-25, Last week — 30th)

The Pistons finally won a game this week, outlasting a shorthanded Miami team to stop a month-long losing skid. Detroit promptly lost to the struggling Knicks by double figures on Tuesday, though, and the Pistons lost at home to Houston before the win over the Heat. At least Detroit has Cade Cunningham.

As part of his “Fingers the Pulse” segment for The Daily Show, Jordan Klepper has been engaging with anti-vaxxers all over the country and from both sides of the aisle. He’s met up with some wild folks who have been flooding school board meetings and local governments with their refusal to mask up or jab up out of a misplaced sense of loyalty to Donald Trump, who is not only vaccinated, but also got a booster shot.

Naturally, Klepper can’t fit all of his encounters into each of his segments, but in his latest video, he’s graciously shared outtakes from his anti-vaxxers interviews that landed on the cutting room floor during 2021. In one of the clips, a woman claims that there are actually more people in the hospital after they got the vaccine, which she said is not “life-saving.” When Klepper presented her with the fact that 92% of people hospitalized with COVID are unvaccinated, he asked if that worries her. Unfazed, the woman says no.

While talking about ICUs being full with another anti-vaxxer, the man says in the grand scheme of things, it’s not that many people. As Klepper points out, the man’s take is essentially that ICUs are filling up, but that’s OK because kids need to see other kids’ faces.

But probably his best exchange is with a die-hard Trump supporter who says she’s not an anti-vaxxer, but she thinks the vaccine was rushed out too quickly. When Klepper asks if she’s against the vaccines moving at “warp speed,” she agrees. With the woman on the hook, Klepper then asks if she thinks Trump isn’t getting enough credit for getting the vaccines out, and she proceeds to rail against Biden for taking all of the glory. At which point, Klepper points out that Trump’s vaccine initiative was called “Warp Speed,” and its main mission was getting the vaccine out as quickly as possible. She did not have a reaction to that news.

Change comes in many forms. We can protest, we can vote, we can call out our racist relatives in the middle of holiday meals, and we can consciously use our dollars to support BIPOC businesses. Because it’s easy to say you want to be part of fixing the racial wealth and equity gaps but it’s another thing to be that change by seeking out Black-owned businesses. Especially when mega-corporations are ready to prey on our desire for convenience and will have their house brand hot sauce dropped via drone 45 minutes after you click.

So let’s make a collective resolution. 2022 is the year we’re going to make real effort to shop ethically and in line with our values. Not as a short-term fix but as part of a bigger, more inclusive mindset. Or, as Indy Officinalis wrote in her essay to kick this series off, “I hope that supporting Black-owned businesses won’t be thought of as a trend born of guilt or even a temporary solution to a centuries-long problem, but rather a continued celebration of the Black community.”

In that spirit, here are some of our favorite Black-owned food brands to support now and into 2022. You’ll be glad you did when you taste these flavor-rich gems!

LilaLue Sweets

Named after Nashville-based baker Ashley Bouknight’s grandmother and uncle, LilaLue Sweets are based on old family recipes and infused with whiskey to honor her grandmother’s legacy. Born in rural South Carolina in 1917, Lila worked as a cook at the University of South Carolina during the week, and on the weekend, sold baked goods and moonshine whiskey to support her family. You can order Bouknight’s insanely delicious baked goods — like Harvest Spice Cake and Whiskey snickerdoodles (made with premium, small-batch whiskey) — and pretend you, too, are as cool as her grandmother (just remember you’re not though — cause she’s verrrrrry cool).

Shaquanda Will Feed You

A Black and queer-owned brand, Shaquanda’s hot pepper sauce was developed as part of a performance by creator Andre’s drag alter ego Shaquanda CoCa Mulatta. And people loved the spicy sauce, made with fresh ingredients, so much during the show — that a business was born. Now, there are several different flavors of Shaquanda’s Harlem-made hot sauce that you can order. So do it and be, as Andre says, the queen of your kitchen.

The Parker House Sausage Company

Parker House Sausage started in 1919 when Judge H. Parker came from Tennessee up to Chicago to sell sausages using his mother’s recipe door to door. The business may have started off small but it grew to become the first African-American-owned and operated meat processing plant in the midwest. And it’s still Black and family-owned — making Parker House one of the oldest Black-owned businesses in Chicago.

That’s amazing by itself. But there’s a reason this brand has thrived for so long. The hot links — which are incredible.

BCakeNY

Started in Brooklyn by Miriam Milord, BCakeNy does incredible custom cakes (and other baked goods) that are truly works of art. They can basically turn anything into a gorgeous million-dollar-looking cake, and as such, have a robust celebrity clientele that includes Jay-Z, Rihanna, and Cardi B. But even if you’re not rich and famous (but also, why aren’t you? Get on that.), you can buy their yummy cake jars, cookies, and a couple of stunning signature cakes shipped right to you.

EssieSpice

Essie Bartels fell in love with spice while watching her mother cook in her kitchen in Ghana and has since traveled the world coming up with concoctions that blend West-African cooking with flavors from all over the globe. Her signature sauces and spices at EssieSpice are mind-blowingly good (try the coco-for-garlic!) and are sold on her website.

Zach & Zoe Sweet Bee Farm Honey

This New Jersey-based honey brand is a family business — started by Summer and Kam Johnson when they were looking for natural remedies for their son who was suffering from severe allergies. In their quest, they found honey helped him a great deal. Then they fell in love with bee-keeping themselves — producing their own brand of pure, raw honey without pesticides or additives. The result is wonderfully delectable honey with flavors like lavender, pumpkin spice, and blueberry.

Zach and Zoe honey is so good that last year they landed on Oprah’s list of favorite things. So you better go get some. You know what Oprah does if she shows up on Christmas morn and you haven’t gotten all the favorite things. She won’t be pleased with you.

Phillip Ashley Chocolates

Called the real-life Willy Wonka, Phillip Ashley Rix is known for his gorgeous and highly imaginative chocolate designs (and not for luring children into his factory to turn them into blueberries…we think…). These candies are art meets chocolate and the Memphis-based Phillip Ashley Chocolates are as delicious as they are beautiful. Plus, these have been served at the Emmy’s, Oscar’s, AND Grammy’s — so look, this might be your best and only chance to EGOT and we think you should take it.

EXAU Olive oil

This absolutely perfect olive oil was founded by husband and wife team Skyler Mapes and Giuseppe Morisani when Giuseppe, who is a 3rd generation Calabrian olive oil producer, came to the U.S. and was shocked to see that Calabrian olive oil, while a huge part of the olive oil industry in Italy, was really hard to find in the U.S. Mapes saw a gap in the market (and also fell in love with the taste and intricacies of olive oil production) which led to the founding of Exau. A company bringing the good word of Calabrian olive oil to the people. So far, they’ve been wildly successful. And Mapes, as one of the few women of color in the industry, is busting open a few doors in the process.

Vicky Cakes

This fluffy, vegan pancake mix company was created in 2019 by Christian Sargent based on her mother’s recipe. People can’t stop raving about how it creates the perfect pancake and we agree — it’s absolutely delicious (and we’re pancake lovers!). You can find Vicky Cakes’ mix in some grocery stores, but they also offer it online. And if you can find it, snap it up — they sell out quickly!

AubSauce

This artisanal barbecue sauce company by wedding dress designer turned barbecue sauce master, Aubrey Lenyard, started like many great food stories do. With a family-instilled love of cooking and a sauce that people kept telling him he just had to try to sell. So he started with a Kickstarter campaign and now has an award-winning small-batch bbq sauce, AubSauce, that includes innovative flavors like Spicy Peach, Strawberry Balsamic, and Rosemary. It’s a must-try for those who want to up their food game.

It’s been quite an interesting few years for Grimes. Of course, she dropped her fifth album, Miss Anthropocene, but attention was distracted from her music releases by a chaotic, much-frowned-upon-by-fans relationship with tech billionaire Elon Musk. Elon and Grimes even had a child together during the course of their partnership, but have since reportedly split. Her comments about his hair in Musk’s Time‘s Person Of The Year article seemed nice enough, but her latest song tells a different story.

Now that they’ve parted ways, Grimes is back to writing music, dropping “Love” in September, and her latest song, “Player Of Games,” which seems to include at least a few lines that fans think are be about Musk. Today, she’s shared the video, and it definitely doubles down on those assumptions. It begins with a naked Grimes grasping onto a faceless knight in armor, and the pair end up facing off over a chess game, and eventually battling with glowing neon swords. Check out the visual up top, and keep an ear out for more from Grimes because she’s definitely launching a new era. She’s previously declared her most recent work as some of the best she’s ever done, and thinks her new album will be her greatest yet.

Seth Rogen severed his personal and professional relationship with James Franco after his Freaks and Geeks co-star was accused of sexual misconduct in 2018 by five women, four of whom were his students. “What I can say is that I despise abuse and harassment and I would never cover or conceal the actions of someone doing it, or knowingly put someone in a situation where they were around someone like that,” he said, adding, “I also look back to that interview in 2018 where I comment that I would keep working with James, and the truth is that I have not and I do not plan to right now.”

Franco spoke about the allegations during an interview on SiriusXM’s The Jess Cagle Podcast this week. “Over the course of my teaching, I did sleep with students, and that was wrong. But like I said, it’s not why I started the school and I wasn’t the person that selected the people to be in the class. So it wasn’t a ‘master plan’ on my part. But yes, there were certain instances where, you know what, I was in a consensual thing with a student and I shouldn’t have been,” he said. Franco also discussed Rogen’s comments:

“I just want to say, I absolutely love Seth Rogen. I love Seth Rogen. I worked with him for 20 years and we didn’t have one fight. For 20 years, not one fight. He was my absolute closest work friend, collaborator. We just gelled… What he said is true. We aren’t working together right now and we don’t have any plans to work together. Of course, it was hurtful in context, but I get it, you know, he had to answer for me because I was silent.”

Franco paid $2.2 million to settle the class action suit against him. “While Defendants continue to deny the allegations in the Complaint, they acknowledge that Plaintiffs have raised important issues; and all parties strongly believe that now is a critical time to focus on addressing the mistreatment of women in Hollywood,” the statement read.

You can listen to a portion of the podcast above.

(Via People)

It’s the holiday season, which means there are a whole bunch of movies that don’t get a lot of love 50 weeks out of the year that will show up on TV non-stop for a few weeks. Unless you like to watch Christmas Vacation in August or something (which is totally fine!), saving Christmas-themed movies for this time of year is a fun way to kill some time as we count down the final days of the year.

The fine folks at TNT decided to lean into this with the help of Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductee Shaquille O’Neal. A guy who knows a thing or two about being in movies, Shaq recreated some famous scenes from a handful of Christmas movies: Elf, Christmas Vacation, A Christmas Story, A Charlie Brown Christmas, Love Actually, and Home Alone.

All of these are pretty good — the animated Shaq dancing to “Linus and Lucy” with the rest of the Peanuts is terrific, as is Shaq filling in for Keira Knightley during the cards on the doorstep scene from Love Actually, complete with a bunch of photoshopped dialogue on the cards that lead to Andrew Lincoln thanking Shaq for a bunch of things he endorsed. Let’s get Shaq singing some Christmas songs next.

After exciting fans with a series of live performances at Brooklyn Steel, a significant underplay for the band, LCD Soundsystem had to bring that run to a halt due to the spread of Covid-19’s new variant, Omicron. Hey, they tried to soldier on despite the risk due to fans traveling out of state for the special shows, but in the end, canceling was the right decision. So disappointed fans might be happy to remember that the band also partnered with Amazon Music, Eric Wareheim, and Macaulay Culkin for an upcoming holiday special, The LCD Soundsystem Holiday Special.

The sitcom portion of the Christmas special, dubbed All My Friends (because of course), debuts on Amazon Prime tonight, December 22, at 9 PM EST. After that brief show, which was directed by Wareheim and stars him as James Murphy, Christine Ko as Nancy Whang, Macaulay Culkin as Pat Mahoney, and cameos from Aparna Nancherla, Rex Lee, and a puppet called Korey (after synth player Korey Richey), the band will be performing a career-spanning set with hits from their entire catalogue. In advance of tonight’s debut, the band has shared a small clip from the performance section of the special, their rendition of the song “Tonite.” Check it out up above, and make sure to tune in, ahem, tonite.

If you’re drinking an IPA craft beer right now, you have Ken Grossman to thank. Grossman and Paul Camusi founded Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. back in 1979 in Chico, California. From a small 3,000 sq. ft. warehouse, they fired the first shots that began the modern craft beer revolution. And one of the most resounding volleys in that early era was a beer so outside of the box that people didn’t really get it at the time: Celebration IPA.

Celebration IPA was first sent out into the world in 1981, just in time for the holiday season. The dry-hopped IPA was such an aberration that Grossman and Camusi had to spend a fair amount promising beer drinkers that, yes, malty ales were allowed to be hoppy too. Fast-forward 40 years and the idea of convincing a beer drinker to drink a hoppy IPA — in any season or form — almost sounds like a joke, thanks to the over-abundance of the style in multiple forms. It wasn’t always that way, though, and Grossman still remembers the effort it took to turn the tide.

With the holidays approaching, we were lucky enough to catch up with Grossman over the phone to talk about his iconic holiday IPA, the history of Sierra Nevada, sourcing hops, and finding a true balance between the hoppiest and maltiness of ales. It’s an illuminating conversation about one of America’s most iconic holiday brews ever.

Let’s go all the way back to when you started making Celebration IPA. What was your instinct to create a holiday-themed beer way back in 1981?

I had a homebrew shop in the mid-’70s, and I started buying hops directly from Yakima Valley farmers back then. Even as a homebrewer, I made a lot of beers that were dry-hopped, that were more intensely flavored. When we were designing our first commercial beers [at Sierra Nevada], which ended up being Pale Ale, Porter, and the Stout, we also played around with an IPA. We had old recipes from our test batches going back into the late ’70s.

So when we decided to open Sierra Nevada, we made the decision that people are probably not quite ready for a fairly intensely hoppy, multi-dry-hopped beer as our main offering. So we decided to do it the following year.

Okay, wow. It was such a different world.

I made a little less than 100 cases of beer for our first year for Celebration I have distinct memories of actually going and finding the hops I wanted to use in that beer. I picked out a specific lot from a baby Cascade field. In the United States, or at least in the Yakima Valley, you could plant the vines and get a partial crop your first year. And then, normally, the second year you’d get 100 percent of the crop. That’s not the case in many hop-growing regions. Even a little further south in Oregon, the first year after they plant, they don’t harvest those hops.

But at the first-year mark, the baby field of Cascades just smell beautiful and they were tight, little cones just packed full of lupulin. It seemed like really a great hop to feature in a dry-hopped beer.

Back in those days, we didn’t make a lot of beer. I bought one bale of this very special lot of hops and then used that to dry hop the Celebration Ale.

What’s fascinating to me is that back when you were doing this, there were really only the old-school European winter warmers that were either amber ales or dark German lagers or Belgian beers layered with winter spices. IPAs were a complete outlier. Was there ever a thought like, “Well, maybe we can layer in some of those more classic holiday winter warmer flavors” or were you focused solely on getting the most out of the hops that you could?

At that time, I did go and sample all the Christmas beers that I could get my hands on, which ranged from the ones you mentioned — Belgium, some German, and certainly Fritz Maytag at Anchor had started brewing his series, which was spiced. After that, we made the decision that we wanted to really focus on hops. So our decision was “Let’s not use any additional herbs and spices. Let’s really find hops that could deliver really unique and interesting flavors and couple that with malts that were toasted and roasted to sort of balance that hoppiness.”

Celebration was an intentional non-spiced Christmas beer.

This is long before the huge IPA boom that we’re still living in today. When did you see IPA start to catch on? Was it surprising when it finally did or was it something felt coming?

People back in the late ’70s weren’t accustomed to drinking intensely hopped beers. The people who enjoyed them were outliers, for sure. There was no real craft beer seen. Back then, if you were a beer drinker and you tasted one of our beers, the likelihood was our Pale Ale was probably pretty intense for you.

Right.

And that’s the feedback we received regularly, “Man, it’s so hoppy and bitter.” People probably didn’t know hoppy as a term so much back in the late ’70s or early ’80s, but they knew it was intensely flavored and had a lot of bitterness. And so we consciously realized it was an educational process to get the consumer to embrace and enjoy hops the way we did.

I mean, you can go back to our Pale Ale being an extreme example at 37 or 38 bitterness units back in 1980. That took a bit of warming up for a lot of consumers. But once they really started to enjoy the flavors that hops could deliver, I think there was a shift in the consumer behavior and drinking enjoyment of beers that are flavorful and hoppy.

I think one of the things we always kept at our forefront when we were designing beers was to try to make sure the beers had drinkability no matter how many hops they had. And so coming up with the way to balance those malted-sugars and the sweetness with the bitterness and flavor of the hops was something we focused on.

How do you find that balance?

You can have a pretty big influence over the residual body and sweetness by paying attention to your mashing temperatures and the grains you use. And so the modern IPAs tend to be less malty and sweet and more sort of in your face with hops. The Haze Craze has probably started to change that back a little bit to beers with lots of flavors, but not necessarily lots of bitterness and a balanced malt bill that helps counter the intensity of the hops.

We went through an education period with the drinker where they learned to appreciate hops more. Then when the West Coast IPA craze started to take off in the 2000s, I think the consumer was already drinking hoppier beers and so it was sort of a natural evolution to focus more on the hops and less on the malt backbone.

But when we first started, we felt that that balance of malt sweetness and hops was necessary to get people to think they were drinking a beer they could have more than one of.

That’s the staying power of Sierra Nevada, especially with Celebration or your Pale Ale, is consistency in that balance. Let’s talk a little bit about your shift from bottles to cans. Is that a practical issue so you can ship further and wider? Is it a supply issue?

The majority across a lot of channels are cans, mostly by consumer demand. Actually, right now, cans are not easy to get. It’s been a challenge across the can supply chain and across the world right now. But it seems like the consumers are embracing cans more. They have some benefits from certainly shipping to weight and recyclability.

They also do a better job of blocking light and resisting oxygen ingress from the bottle cap. Cans tend to be a little bit tighter seal, but it’s really been driven by consumer demand. Our Hazy Little Thing is a hundred percent cans, and it’s done very well with the consumer. But a beer like Celebration Ale will probably always have some availability in glass as well as cans.

I was a huge fan of the big three-liter magnum bottles. I’ve been trying to find some again…

We just found a whole bunch of those this last week!

They’re fantastic for sharing this time of year, or finding that bottle wrapped up under your Christmas tree and you know you’re in for a good time.

Tell us a little bit about how you choose who you are going to collaborate with? You’ve done a lot with German brewers like Bitburger and others. What’s the process there?

Well, they’re sort of all been different. The Oktoberfest collaborations, for instance, were really us wanting to do something globally with the brewing industry. Over the years, I’ve traveled a lot to Germany, the U.K., and Belgium and have created friendships with brewers from over the world. Part of us wanting to do the Oktoberfest collaboration was really to meld the minds of what the American craft brewing was doing and what the historical German brewers had been doing.

So it was a fun way for us to exchange brewing ideas. And in all cases where we partnered with these German breweries, we offered to assist if they wanted to produce something that was more in our wheelhouse with hops or dry hopping with styles that some of them hadn’t really explored much. And so it was a fun exchange of brewing concepts and beer styles and the camaraderie that existed in the brewing industry across most of the U.S. breweries, we were able to extend that out to our brewing friends around the world.

Trends come and go in beer. How do you parse those and look ahead to create a new line of beers?

Well, every Thursday morning I’m tasting new beers with our pilot brewing team. The ideas come from a variety of places from what we’re seeing in the beer world. We look at the trends. We also just think out of the box and do stuff that’s just really fairly wild as far as what we brew with.

How so?

We’ve brewed with a wide range of non-traditional brewing ingredients. We’ve done styles that are both historic and we’ve re-interpreted them. We’ve also created new stuff ourselves.

I’d say the inspiration comes from a whole bunch of different places and a lot of different people, not just one concept we have and we run with it. We try to pay attention to where the consumer is or where they may be going as well as sort of pushing the boundaries of brewing and beer making in the science of brewing.

Is there a beer style that you brewed, that you really love, that you wish would catch on but the public isn’t quite ready for yet or just won’t accept it?

There are two of those. Yeah. We made our Kellerweis, which is big in Germany. It’s very popular throughout parts of Germany, and there are different styles that have distinctive characteristics. I traveled to Germany a lot over the last 35 years, and it was the style I wanted to brew even over 30 years ago … to do a true Bavarian Keller wheat beer.

At the time, my sales manager said, “Nobody’s going to like that. The flavors are way too different than what people are used to.” There’s clove and very distinctive flavors you get from the yeast. The wheat is not a typical style that a larger beer-drinking audience would embrace. So I got sort of shot down. We ended up making a wheat beer but using conventional yeast. We didn’t quite meet the sales numbers at some of our distributors and retailers. And so, unfortunately, it slowly faded away.

Smoked beers are another one. We’ve been doing smoked beers on and off for 25 to 30 years. But we haven’t distributed them widely, but it’s a style that shows up on our radar every once in a while and so we brew it.

What’s your favorite memory of Celebration IPA through the years?

It’s a beer that we’ve always taken very seriously about how we brew it. So we do wait for the hops to all mature and get picked, and then start brewing. So those beers are brewed with hops that are just days out of the field. Right now, we send people up to Oregon and Washington a few weeks ahead of time to start identifying fields that we want to brew with. That connection with us and the farming community has been an educational process for both us and the growers.

So I’d say just developing that connection with the growers and identifying farmers that we think really produce stellar hops for that beer has been a fun learning and evolving experience over the last 40 years. That’s what really stands out for me.