Month: January 2022

For Kansas-born and NYC-found comedian and cabaret singer Bridget Everett, it all starts with karaoke. “I was living in New York and I was in my 30s and my friends and I used to go to this bar (The Parlour, on the Upper West Side) every Sunday night, and do karaoke,” she told us ahead of the premiere of her new semi-autobiographical HBO series Somebody Somehwere (HBO, Sunday at 10:30PM). “I was going so wild because I was just desperate to feel alive. I was desperate to feel… seen. And so it just got bigger and louder and wilder.”

While Everett is known for her bawdy stage show and for appearances beside Amy Schumer (you also might remember her from Patti Cake$), she makes clear that there’s a softer side. “A lot of people know me from being on the road with Amy Schumer, where I do like 20 or 30 minutes. And that’s just all the wild shit. But if you see the whole hour show, I call it slam, slam, slam, tender. It’s like, banger, banger, banger, ballad, banger, banger, banger, ballad. You have to have some balance. The quieter moments and the tender moments are to show the conflict and the things that I’ve been through that have somehow led to this wild unleashed stage persona.”

In Somebody Somewhere, which is layered, heartful, and joyously inspirational, we’re shown a lot of those quieter moments and the re-construction of someone broken down by life — something sparked by the discovery of her people and her voice. It’s something that stands as the perfect vehicle for its star and something that makes her feel safe and able to be vulnerable and explore her past, an alternate universe where she never found herself in New York, and a character who is on her own journey. We spoke with Everett about all of that, working first and foremost for an audience of one, and what it was like to be in the middle of the Bobcat/Seinfeld kerfuffle.

Who are you making this show for?

Me. [Laughs]

I like that answer.

I mean, that’s how I’ve operated with anything that I’m a part of. I try to make it be something that resonates with me and then I hope that other people will hop on board.

That’s all you can really do. I’ve read that this is sort of inspired by your life. Can you take me through what is directly inspired and what is more creative license?

Our showrunners pitched the idea of the world and after they did that, I had a super emotional reaction to it. I think the idea of doing something based in Kansas, where I’m from, was something that is probably glaringly obvious, but [it was] something I never thought of doing. And the idea of going home and…basically, the idea was if somebody like Bridget Everett never moved to New York, right? If I was in Kansas, what would my life could look like? So we kind of took that approach. But there are similar themes to my actual life, for instance, I have a sister who’s passed away. So the grief part of Sam is something I can certainly relate to. And then also sort of sleepwalking through life and being rudderless and not emotionally engaged. I can relate to that. I waited tables into my forties and didn’t really start to have some success until I was in my forties. And so I think that the things that Bridget and Sam share are a desire and desperation to want to be with people, but a fear of it. And the way that Sam can connect with people is the same way Bridget can. And that’s through singing. Clearly, I’m not eloquent as a person, but when I sing, I feel like I can clearly communicate how I feel. And I know that that’s how Sam feels too. So we have that in common.

In terms of touching on certain things that might be emotional third rails for you, like loss and grief, do you have to talk yourself into it?

I like it because I think in my real life, I haven’t dealt with my grief very well. Like for instance, with my sister. And it’s the same thing when I do my live shows, I process my pain and my joy through music and through art. And so doing this show has been obviously an incredible experience because I’m going to be on HBO, there’s all of that. But it’s also been healing and cathartic for me in many ways. It’s given me a belief in myself. It’s given me the ability to stretch and to take chances, which is something I don’t typically like to do. And it’s given me a chance to say goodbye to my sister.

At the end of this, does this character wind up right here where you are right now on a stage in New York, big lights? Or is there going to be a different path for this character?

I think a different path. I think there’ve been a thousand shows about “small-town girl moves to the big city,” and the next thing you know, she’s Susan Boyle. That’s not this story. I think it’s more interesting to us to see how you navigate through life. If you have a talent that maybe doesn’t have a typical box to put it in, I think it’s going to be a challenge for us if we get a season two, or moving forward, to how to navigate that. But just as interesting to us is like, what’s Sam going to do with her voice? Because when I go home to Kansas, I have people that I love there and whatever, but I don’t always feel like I totally fit in. So I think she has to find her place and she has to find her voice. And who knows what that’s going to look like? I guess in season seven we’ll know. [Laughs]

Sam is finding a clique and her people, can you talk about the importance of that and how it’s going to unfold throughout this first season?

I think if you look at her, she has a fraught relationship with her sister, Trisha, that’s still alive. They’re very different people. Sam feels like a failure when she’s around her sister because her sister is married, got her shit together, has a store, has a business, has a life. And Sam has just been bartending and just gliding and through it all. But most importantly, she’s listened to that. She’s listened to the “if you don’t have a family, if you don’t have this…” then you’re not worth the same as others might be. So I think her finding her people, and her community, and Joel and Fred, and these people that look at her like she’s special… She just needs somebody to remind her of what’s inside, you know?

And that is such a simple thing, but in my life, I had a parallel experience. I came to New York. I started meeting… I met Murray Hill and all these people that loved the wild side of me, things that I used to get in trouble for when I was a kid. My foul mouth and my blue humor and all those things, and just being too much. And all of a sudden I was barely enough because my friends were so wild and big, and I just think it’s everything. Everybody wants to feel like they have a home and a safe place. And I think that’s what her new community of friends, as she will progressively learn, is what it’s all about.

The whole thing with Seinfeld and Bobcat. What’s it like to be listening to that conversation? Because to me, I’m watching that and I’m thinking like when I was a kid and a friend would get in trouble and I’d be there and you want to just like slide away while they have their, whatever that is. I just kept thinking “poor Bridget Everett!” What was that like?

Like the kid that just wanted to slide under my chair and hide under the table… [Laughs] These are two people that I really like and have a great deal of respect for. Look, I’m a Kansas person, I want everybody to get along, that’ll never change. I hate conflict. I just want everybody to like each other. [Laughs]

‘Somebody Somewhere’ premieres Sunday at 10:30PM ET on HBO

Brockhampton dropped the bombshell today that fans have been fearing for a while. The group is breaking up after a nearly decade-long run as hip-hop’s preeminent “boy band.” A statement tweeted out from the @brockhampton account out at 10 a.m. PT explained that following their two shows in London in February and their two performances at both weekends of Coachella in April, the group will be on an “indefinite hiatus” and that 40-plus tour dates in 2022 will be cancelled. The full statement reads:

“Brockhampton’s upcoming shows at the O2 Academy Brixton in London and at Coachella will be our performances as a group. All other tour dates are canceled, effective immediately. refunds for all tickets and VIP packages will be available at the point of purchase.

Following these four performances, we will be taking an indefinite hiatus as a group.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for being on this journey with us. We would not be here without our fans. We hope we’ve been able to inspire you as much as you have these past eight years.

We are bonded and grateful to you for life.”

Back in May of 2021, shortly after the San Marcos, Texas-forged group’s final album, Roadrunner: New Light, New Machine was released, de facto leader Kevin Abstract explained in a tweet that “everybody just getting a lil older and got a lot to say outside of group projects,” and that “this next project we’re just doing what’s rite.”

As explained in the statement, refunds for tickets to the Here Right Now Tour will be offered at point of purchase.

Way back before there was streaming but long after the rap game had gone digital, blogs ruled the music tastemaker scene. The right post on the right blog could garner an emerging artist a massive fanbase seemingly overnight and many of today’s biggest stars — Big Sean, Drake, J. Cole, Kendrick Lamar, Nicki Minaj, and Wale among them — owe their popularity at least partially to those posts.

However, for every success story, there were quite a few blog favorites who never quite panned out once they got broader exposure. Call it the “big fish, little pond” effect, but many eagerly anticipated newcomers often fell flat once they were called upon to repeat their successes on a larger scale. One of those rappers was Charles Hamilton, whose promising 2009 single “Brooklyn Girls” prompted an outsized buzz that he ultimately failed to capitalize on. When last we heard from Hamilton, he was the recipient of the punch heard ’round the net, and had quietly faded into quasi obscurity.

Recently, though, he experienced a renewed surge of attention on Twitter. Unfortunately for him, it wasn’t due to his music but once again due to his antics and his poorly timed comments to a woman who promptly put him in his place. His target? Doja Cat.

“Doja, you gotta chill,” he wrote. “The whole world is watching and, yes, judging you. Time to grow up. I know. Sucks. But… yeah.” Hamilton even had the audacity to tag the “Kiss Me More” performer in his tweet, which he followed up with another pointed missive undercutting Doja’s recently expressed desire to collaborate with well-respected producer 9th Wonder. “Also, @dojacat is talking about being on 9th beats,” he noted. “Meaning, she wants to be taken serious (as a spitter). I’m just saying she should take herself more serious. She, like I said, is already rockin’ the world.”

The backhanded compliments went over poorly with fans, and trying to head off the backlash, he dug the hole deeper. “I wasn’t hating on Doja Cat,” he lied. “I’m just asking her to take herself serious. She’s already one of the elite females in music [editor’s note: If that ain’t a red flag]. I don’t want to hear her ridiculed for being silly. Like I was at one point. Y’all can chill out now.” While he might feel like he has a point, he wasn’t ridiculed for being silly so much as lying about collaborating with J Dilla and, again, getting punched in the face on camera for overstepping his bounds while addressing a woman. Sounds familiar, I don’t know.

To her credit, Doja — who is no stranger to the criticism of contemporaries and elders, having taken flak from NORE and Nas for online scandals that were twisted by detractors — handled the situation perfectly, with her usual blend of poise and absurdist humor. “Bro i thought you were Anthony Hamilton,” she joked. “i was about to tell my whole family I was so excited.” She followed up by ridiculing Hamilton’s biggest hit, clowning that “u that one dude that was like “’ABADABADABA BROOKLYN GIRLS.’” Ouch. Well, at least Charles Hamilton can take solace in the fact that this time, he only got dunked on instead of punched in the face. Maybe this time, he’ll learn his lesson.

Before unfortunately suffering a season-ending knee injury last month, Ricky Rubio was in the midst of his 11th NBA season. After a down year with the Minnesota Timberwolves, Rubio enjoyed a resurgence as a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers and certainly looked like he was capable of many more seasons of high-level NBA basketball.

Despite all that, Rubio appears to have self-imposed a limit on his NBA tenure. In a recent interview with Joan Josep Pallàs of La Vanguardia, Rubio said he doesn’t intend to keep playing in the NBA once his two-year-old son begins schooling.

Rubio’s interview was done in Spanish, so the following excerpt was translated by the team over at Eurohoops:

“When my son starts school, the NBA will not be worth it. I will have to go back,” Rubio said. “I don’t want to make him dizzy moving around when he’s six years old, at the age of starting to make friends. It was discussed with my wife and we have it very clear. There will come a time when basketball will not be the priority.”

Watching Rubio probe, pass, and smart his way to buckets for 11 years has been a joy. The hope is he remains a wonderful player whenever he returns from injury for as long as he wishes to stick around the league.

The best movie during Judd Apatow’s hit-making 2000s run is obviously Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, but Superbad isn’t far behind. The coming-of-age comedy stars Michael Cera and Jonah Hill as high school seniors who try to get laid before heading to college. Hijinks (and Emma Stone being as charming as the day is long) ensues.

Seth Rogen, who wrote the script with Evan Goldberg, has said that “of all the movies we’ve ever made, Superbad is the one I’d 100 percent probably never touch.” He’s “so terrified of subtracting from it in any way with a bad sequel or spin-off” that he says he’d never do it. “I have so few actual good accomplishments that I’m horrified to f*ck with the ones I have.” But Hill has an idea for a sequel — it would just take a few decades to happen.

“I haven’t pitched this to anybody,” he said in an interview with W Magazine. “What I want to do is when we’re like 80, do a Superbad 2. Like, ‘old-folks-home Superbad.’ Our spouses die, and we’re single again. That’s what I want Superbad 2 to be, and that’s the only way I would ever make it.”

Seth and Evan flirting with the ladies in the retirement home about how music these days isn’t what it used to be is weirdly charming. But because Superbad came out in 2007, it means they’re waxing nostalgic about Plain White T’s.

That’s less charming.

(Via W Magazine)

This is a repeat statement but a necessary one: Joe Rogan is not a doctor.

He knows this. Everyone else knows this. Hundreds of doctors who wrote an open letter (urging Spotify to shut down Rogan’s fount of Covid vaccine misinformation) know this. Still, many millions of listeners listen to Rogan every day, and he’s spent (at least) a year-and-a-half casually doling out misinformation against masks and vaccines. It all really began with Bill Burr blasting Rogan for describing people who wear masks as “bitches,” and it’s all snowballed from there. Fast forward to today, and there’s UFC president Dana White and Green Bay Packers QB Aaron Rodgers looking to Rogan for Covid advice, and the proudly unvaxxed Rogan’s been so very upset that Canada won’t let him perform at a crowded arena during a pandemic.

Well, someone finally got through to Rogan… by embarrassing him. That would be Australian broadcaster (and Uncomfortable Conversations host) Josh Szeps, who wasn’t here for Rogan making wild (and unresearched) claims about Covid vaccines. As Szeps pointed out, the rise in myocarditis in young men who get COVID “exceeds the risk of myocarditis from the vaccine,” and at that point, the podcast’s producers pulled up a New Scientist article that proved Szeps’ point. That led to Rogan calling this outcome “interesting” but also “not what I’ve read before.”

And then Rogan had to surface on Twitter and admit his “cringey” mistake. To his credit, he did so (although he didn’t really have any other option) but he also had an excuse: “[I]t’s what happens when you stumble in a long form podcast when you didn’t know a subject was going to come up and you wing it.”

Rogan had explained (in the above tweet) that he had been referring to a Guardian article for his claims, but if one reads that article, it clearly refers to a non-peer-reviewed study on rising rates of myocarditis. And Rogan is now admitting, “Obviously I have no idea what is right,” and “I’m sure I’ll stumble again in the future, but I honestly do my best to get things correct.”

Rogan’s response is essentially him saying that, hey, he rambles for at least three hours with these guests, so some mistakes should be expected, and cut him a break. To which there are two responses: (1) Rogan’s been almost exclusively been talking about Covid on his show for months, so he should have expected this very related subject to come up; (2) Simply because his show lasts for half a day doesn’t make him any less accountable for spreading dangerous conspiracy theories.

A comic book nerd once declared, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Rogan talks directly to millions of listeners several times per week. He’s using his “long form” format as an excuse, but he’s tackling serious subject matter, so maybe it’s time to be, you know, serious about it.

(Via Joe Rogan on Twitter)

Mariah Carey has become one of the best Twitter users of her generation, with her witty observations and responses to fans offering entertainment and insight to thousands — especially as she pretty much goes viral with every tweet. What she lacks in quantity she makes up in quality, such as when she roasted a Baltimore rapper who sampled “We Belong Together” and joked about risking a poorly lit photo for a COVID shot.

Today, she decided to reply to a viral tweet that has been floating around for about a month that praised her songwriting prowess. The tweet, posted on December 17 by a fan account, captioned a snippet of Carey’s video for her 2008 video “Touch My Body” by expressing amazement that the veteran pop star would rhyme the words “secret rendezvous” with “Wendy interview” — as in, Wendy Williams, she of the gossip-laden daytime television talk show fame (although at the time, it was radio with her syndicated show on New York’s WBLS).

Replying with a quote tweet, Carey seemed nonplussed. “Why wouldn’t one use such an obvious rhyme scheme?” she wrote. Within an hour, the tweet had accumulated well over 2,500 retweets and 16,000 likes. Responses from fans ranged from nostalgic reveals that Carey’s songwriting got them better grades in school to joking that Carey could out-rap the most committed of rappers. Carey’s vocabulary — at least in the pop world — would appear to be unrivaled… but for her, it looks like there really is nothing to it. Check out more responses below.

In a new excerpt from his upcoming memoir, Putting the Rabbit in the Hat, prolific actor Brian Cox reveals that he was offered. a role on Game of Thrones, but turned it down because the money “was not all that great, shall we say.” In a truly curmudgeony style reminiscent of his role as Logan Roy on Succession, Cox opens up about people constantly asking him why he wasn’t on the fantasy series and how he doesn’t want to know if the role he turned down ended up being crucial to the show. Via GQ:

I’m often asked if I was offered a role in Game of Thrones — reason being that every other bugger was — and the answer is, yes, I was supposed to be a king called Robert Baratheon, who apparently died when he was gored by a boar in the first season. I know very little about Game of Thrones so I can’t tell you whether or not he was an important character, and I’m not going to google it just in case he was, because I turned it down.

As Cox goes on, he reveals that Game of Thrones isn’t the only franchise that he’s pestered about. Harry Potter is also a constant source of questions. Although, he seems to be genuinely disappointed about never getting an offer to join the wizarding world and can we just say Brian Cox is one hell of a writer. The man has a way with words.

“Harry Potter. That’s another one they ask me about,” Cox writes. “Harry f*cking Potter. I think someone had a burning cross held up for me not to be in Harry Potter, because all my pals were in it.”

(Via GQ)

The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items could vary, as could the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest, or from this week. The important thing is that it’s Friday, and we are here to have some fun.

ITEM NUMBER ONE — Listen to me

Maybe you, like me, have had a Parks and Recreation-shaped hole inside you for the past few years. A hole that can only be filled by another similar show, a feel-good endeavor about public servants trying hard to make things better in the face of slow-moving government and lunatic citizens and all of it. Maybe, like me, you are also a lifelong resident of Eastern Pennsylvania and get a little excited when anyone on the television references Philadelphia or Philadelphia-adjacent things. (Go Birds, etc. etc.) If so, or even if not, allow me to recommend ABC’s new sitcom Abbott Elementary.

The concept, in short: A new second-grade teacher (Quinta Brunson, creator and star) starts working at a Philadelphia public school and tries — sometimes successfully, sometimes less so — to make a difference in the lives of her students. There’s a love internet brewing with a substitute tester. There’s a crazy and mostly incompetent principal. There’s a South Philly Italian lady who knows a guy who knows a guy who can get you anything. There’s Sheryl Lee Ralph as a kindergarten teacher given it the full Sheryl Lee Ralph. There’s a ton of adorable kids. It’s a good start. We can build from here.

The execution is the key, though. It uses the same mockumentary format as shows like Parks and The Office and Modern Family to drive home the message and give the characters a chance to tell the audience their fears and dreams and motivations. There is heart here. It can be very sweet in places. And also very funny. And at one point, this happens, in a touching moment that I will not spoil and which I point out mostly so I can once again say “Go Birds.”

It’s been a little while since we had a fun, smart, good network sitcom that we can all wrap our arms around. We’ve had other options, for sure. There are so many shows so many places. Some of them have a network sitcom vibe, to one degree or another, even if they’re only available online from a website that sells you books and kitchen appliances or an app made by a company that makes computers and telephones. (Ted Lasso would fit in on a network if Roy cussed less, which is unacceptable and therefore a non-starter, but you get my point.) But even then, they’re freed from the constraints. They can blow past 22 minutes. They don’t have to write for commercial breaks. It’s not that one is easier or harder than the other, they’re just… different.

And it’s kind of cool to see someone take a swing at this again. At making a smart and fun network sitcom in 2022. In another universe, this show ends up on a streaming platform and dumps its whole season on a Thursday and gets bumped from the home page in a week or two by 300 new releases. That would be a bummer. Now, it’s rolling out once a week and building steam through word of mouth and articles like this one. That’s kind of cool. A little throwback. You can still go get caught up on Hulu, too, if you missed the first three episodes on ABC. Best of both worlds, really.

ITEM NUMBER TWO — Reese… what are we doing here?

Social media is weird. I know that’s not some grand revelation or anything, but still. It’s true. And social media is weird in a bunch of different ways, too. It’s weird that we all sort of know a lot about some people we’ve never met in person. It’s weird that you can wake up and eat breakfast and then just tell, like, Martha Stewart what you had for breakfast. But mostly it’s weird because you can just be sitting around minding your business and then THWAP Reese Witherspoon is tweeting about crypto and NFTs.

I need you to do something here. I need to read that tweet out loud. Every word of it. “In the (near) future, every person will have a parallel digital identity. Avatars, crypto wallets, digital goods will be the norm. Are you planning for this?” Okay, now read it a second time, this one just in your head, but in Reese Witherspoon’s voice. Give it the full Elle Woods. See what I mean about social media being weird?

It gets weirder, too. Turns out this wasn’t Reese’s first tumble into the world of crypto and/or NFTs. Turns out she has kind of a lot of opinions about them. Opinions like, for example, this one…

… and this one, too.

There are two equally important things going on here. The first is that this is very, very funny to me. I haven’t figured out exactly why yet. I think it’s that it’s Reese Witherspoon. I don’t know why but I would have had her way, way down the list of celebrities who are Way Into Crypto. It just doesn’t fit. Again, read these tweets in her voice and tell me I’m wrong. Maybe I am. But I don’t think so.

This brings us to the second thing, which is going to be a problem: I read this last tweet earlier this week and I don’t think I’ve gone more than an hour since without “REESE WITHERSPOON SAYS CRYPTO IS HERE TO STAY” shooting to the front of my brain unprompted. Like, sitting around, driving a car, trying to get back to sleep at 2 AM, pretty much any situation can be interrupted by this. If I can’t push it out soon, it could haunt me for years. This is just how my brain works. It’s all fun and games until you can’t remember your cousin’s name because Reese Witherspoon’s crypto takes are hogging up bandwidth in your noggin. “Hey, there… buddy. How is… your… school… or job?” Not ideal.

Luckily, for me, and less so for Reese, who had a real freaking whirlwind of a week on social media, this happened, too.

The takeaways here are as follows:

• Social media, once again, is very weird
• Crypto is here to stay
• Ina Garten rules

This was a nice chat.

ITEM NUMBER THREE — Oh, look, it’s things for Brian to watch

The first episode of Atlanta came out in September 2016. That is, to use the official term, so freaking long ago. Over five years. Think about where you were and what you were doing in September 2016. Obama was still president. The Philadelphia Eagles had not defeated the New England Patriots thanks in large part to a trick play called The Philly Special. Reese Witherspoon didn’t even know about crypto. It was a different time.

Anyway, since then, there have been a grand total of 21 episodes of Atlanta. None since 2018. That’s kind of crazy, right? I can’t think of another show in the same period that has permeated pop culture so deeply in so few repetitions. Think about the Teddy Perkins episode. Think about how that took over the world for a while. That’s why I’m so excited about this teaser. Atlanta is the rare show where almost literally anything can happen. Like, there’s almost no limit to what these new episodes could be. That’s a little thrilling. It’s good. I like it.

Speaking of things that are thrilling and that I bet I’ll probably like…

This is the trailer for the next Steven Soderbergh movie, Kimi, starring Zoe Kravitz. It looks cool, which should not be a surprise because Soderbergh has been making cool-looking stuff for decades. The Ocean’s movies are cool, Haywire is cool, Logan Lucky is cool, Out of Sight is cool. There’s a track record here. And the description is fascinating as heck.

An agoraphobic tech worker discovers recorded evidence of a violent crime but is met with resistance when she tries to report it. Seeking justice, she must now do the thing she fears the most: she must leave her apartment.

Zoe Kravitz seeking justice from a cruel and unkind world she is basically terrified of? Yeah, that’s a premise I can dig. Let’s go ahead and pencil this one in as mandatory viewing.

Let’s do one more. Let’s add this one, too.

This is delightful. I always appreciate when the entertainment industry works together to produce a slew of things best categorized as Stuff For Brian. It’s nice.

ITEM NUMBER FOUR — This is exactly how you do casting

The White Lotus was a good show. It took a bunch of attractive people and put them up in a luxurious Hawaiian resort and then made them just as miserable as all hell. It was almost like a magic trick, making the show so enjoyable while putting all of its characters through emotional chaos. The only real complaint I had about any of it was that it felt almost exactly like a show Aubrey Plaza would — should — be in, and yet, against truly staggering odds, she was not. At all. Not even a little. It was troubling to me.

Thankfully, finally, this historical wrong has been righted.

The six-part original series followed visitors vacationing at the White Lotus, an exclusive Hawaiian resort. The second installment — also written, to directed by and executive produced by White — will leave Hawaii behind for a new location and is expected to follow a different group of vacationers at another White Lotus property.

Plaza will play Harper Spiller, a woman on vacation with her husband and his friends. Imperioli plays Dominic Di Grasso, a man traveling with his elderly father and recent college-graduate son.

Harper Spiller. Aubrey Plaza in season two of The White Lotus as a character whose name is Harper Spiller. Something just feels cosmically correct about that, like the stars had been out of alignment but are now pulling themselves back into order. I don’t know if any of this will actually work, if the magic of the first go-round can be bottled and re-created a second time, but I do know that we appear to be off to a decent start.

That wasn’t even the only bit of borderline-perfect casting that was announced this week. There was also, well, this: Sharon Stone is going to play Kaley Cuoco’s mom in the next season of The Flight Attendant.

Stone will play Lisa Bowden, Cassie’s (Cuoco) estranged mother who would prefer to stay estranged. After a lifetime of dealing with Cassie’s alcoholism, she no longer has any patience or goodwill to spare.

The Flight Attendant was a blast in its first season. It was fizzy and fast and devious and, at one point, Cuoco’s character kicked her shoe at someone to try to evade them. Go watch it on HBO Max if you haven’t yet. It is a wonderful winter weekend binge-watch. Just make sure you finish in time for season two, because…

Season 2 finds Cassie Bowden living her best sober life in Los Angeles while moonlighting as a CIA asset in her spare time. But when an overseas assignment leads her to inadvertently witness a murder, she becomes entangled in another international intrigue.

I hate being entangled in international intrigue. I mean, honestly. Domestic intrigue? Yes, fine, sure. That’ll happen. We’ve all been to New Jersey. But international? No thank you. It does make for good television, though.

ITEM NUMBER FIVE — Hey, let’s check in with 9-1-1: Lonestar…

Two things you need to know about the current season of 9-1-1 Lonestar, the Texas-based spinoff of the California-set show where Angela Bassett reacts to various calamities and on at least one occasion ask a teenage delinquent to hotwire a cement truck:

• There was a massive ice storm
• Rob Lowe looks like this now

Perfect. No notes.

But let’s talk emergencies. That’s why we’re here. To see what kind of wild stuff this sucker can get up to. Don’t let me down, buddy…

To be clear, what we have here is:

• An idiot on a snowboard being towed down a frozen Texas highway by one of his idiot friends
• A chunk of ice breaking off of a passing truck
• The chunk of ice damn near decapitating the snowboard idiot

Did they have to pack him with snow to prevent the ice from melting so he wouldn’t bleed out from his slashed throat? Friends, you know they did. Other stuff happened in the episode, too. Character stuff. Talk-y stuff, to be technical. But you’re not concerned about that. You want the action.

I have you covered here.

READER MAIL

If you have questions about television, movies, food, local news, weather, or whatever you want, shoot them to me on Twitter or at [email protected] (put “RUNDOWN” in the subject line). I am the first writer to ever answer reader mail in a column. Do not look up this last part.

From Amanda:

Need your thoughts on something — I have just started watching a small, little known TV program called Succession (I’m way late to this, I know, which feels like something I should never stop apologizing for) and I was wondering if you had ever given thought to which role you’d like to see played by former Olympic high-diver Jason Statham.

This is no slam on the existing cast, which is uniformly excellent. But I am aware of your long-held theory that nearly every piece of pop culture would be better with Jason Statham, and it got me thinking.

I believe the obvious call here is Logan, as it’s canon that Statham is good at swearing, but the more I think about it, the more I think I’d like to see His Statheness as Kendall.
The answer is simple — I want to see Jason Statham perform an improvised rap while wearing a baseball jersey. Also, I want to see him sing Billy Joel. I feel like either of those things would weirdly delight me.

I would also not be opposed to a storyline where Statham plays himself, after someone appointed him to be part of Colin’s security team.

This is a wonderful email. Just checks all the boxes. Statham and Succession and… hmm. Actually, it checks two boxes. But that’s all there was anyway. So… yeah, checks all the boxes. Look at that. We did it.

The answer here, from a purely chaotic standpoint, is that Statham should play Roman. Everything else remains exactly the same. The character is still a little weasel and turd and everyone makes fun of him, the dialogue and action are unchanged, but now, instead of Kieran Culkin slinking his way through the action, Jason Statham is striding around. Statham does his own voice, too. Think about this scene, again, exactly the same in every way, but with Jason Statham…

I started picturing this moment after Amanda sent this email and I’ve only stopped briefly to think about a crypto-obsessed Reese Witherspoon.

Weird week.

AND NOW, THE NEWS

To Washington D.C.!

The Association for Dressings and Sauces’s decades-long battle to revoke the standards for French dressing has finally come to an end, with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) agreeing to deregulate a label the group said “restricts innovation.”

Two notes:

• I am absolutely ecstatic to learn there is an organization called “The Association for Dressings and Sauces”
• We have a French dressing controversy

This changes everything.

The decision from the FDA revokes the so-called “standard of identity” on the books since 1950 that dictates what ingredients manufacturers must include in order to market their product as French dressing.

I like to picture one guy who was behind this and it’s been his life’s mission for decades. Like, for the past 30 years, he’s been working at the Association for Dressings and Sauces to lobby the FDA and just banging his head against the wall. I have this image in my head of him coming home and throwing his briefcase on the table and grumbling to his wife about the damn government bureaucrats and the French dressing lobbyists.

“How was your day, honey?” she says.

“Another defeat, Gladys,” he replies.

The group has since 1998 sought to eliminate the standard for French dressing, arguing that the “nonstandardized pourable dressing” world had seen an explosion in products to meet consumer preferences and that French dressing “no longer serves as a benchmark for other dressings because of the wide variation in composition to meet consumer interests.”

I am barely joking when I say that I want to see a feature-length film or maybe even a loosely-fictionalized limited series about the 24-year struggle to deregulate French dressing. Make a whole season of Fargo about it. I am joking even less as I keep typing. Greenlight this by Monday.

The rule noted that the proposal received just 20 comments, including some comments that “​​appeared to have been submitted as part of a university course assignment.”

“One comment said that the standard of identity for French dressing was ‘unnecessary red tape,’” the FDA noted.

God, I love this. Imagine being this passionate about salad dressing. Imagine you wake up and the first thing you think about, right after “turn off that damn alarm,” is something like, “these goddamn fat cats are stifling salad dressing innovation.” Imagine living that life.

The 1950 definition for French dressing wasn’t particularly specific, even noting that tomato-based ingredients were “permitted, but not required.” Low-fat varieties, however, were not meeting the standard that 35 percent of the product by weight must be vegetable oil.

I repeat: I need this television show. Cast David Harbour as the dressing warrior and Stephen Root as the person at the FDA who keeps thwarting him. I’ll watch every episode.

Russ is only a month removed from the release of his new album, Chomp 2, and he’s already back to releasing new singles weekly. However you feel about the guy’s personality, you absolutely cannot knock his hustle. His first new single of 2022, “Remember,” sees him getting back to the lilting lo-fi R&B that defines the other half of his catalog — after all, Chomp 2 is chock-full of brazen bars and punishing punchlines –, crooning to a former paramour with a few reminders of his commitment to their relationship and mourning its end.

In addition to his weekly single releases over the last year, Russ’ many, many hustles also included a strand of weed — fittingly named Chomp as well — he developed in conjunction with the LA cannabis brand Wonderbrett. By diversifying his portfolio, so to speak, he was able to have a lucrative year even though profits were mostly shaky across the industry as live entertainment returned with plenty of restrictions.

Of course, the key to his financial stability, as he’s so fond of pointing out, is passive income — much of which comes from the fact that he self-publishes most of his music and the major deal he did have licensed ownership of his masters rather than outright selling it. Russ continues to explain his business perspective in interviews, but it all starts with the music — and judging from how he’s kicking off the year, there will be plenty of it coming to help line his pockets.