If you’ve ever felt an overwhelming desire to spit in the face of disgraced movie star Armie Hammer, know that Tom Hardy has already done it—and was handsomely rewarded for his efforts.
Vulture ran an excerpt from Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max: Fury Road, a forthcoming book by Kyle Buchanan (a former editor for the site, who’s now with The New York Times), which talked about the casting process for the Oscar-winning 2015 movie, the latest in George Miller’s post-apocalyptic Mad Max series. According to casting director Ronna Kress, the search for the “new” Max Rockatansky took an entire year and “We saw, at the time, what I consider now to be many of the movie stars of our day.”
Alongside Hardy and Hammer, Michael Fassbender and Jeremy Renner were among the top contenders for the part—and eventually the team wanted to see the actors alongside each other. Which is how Hardy and Hammer ended up in a room together, and Hammer essentially called mercy. “When Hardy gnashed his teeth and spat at his scene partner, Hammer told Miller that Hardy needed to be Max more than he did,” Buchanan writes.
“After Tom auditioned, George [Miller] and I went into another room, and we had a long moment of quiet with each other,” Kress said. “Then I said to George, ‘Is this the person that you can spend nine months in the desert with, telling this story? Is this the person that’s right for you?’”
For Miller, it was like a bit of déjà vu. “I had the same feeling about Tom that I had when Mel Gibson first walked into the room,” Miller said. “There was a kind of edgy charm, the charisma of animals. You don’t know what’s going on in their inner depths, and yet they’re enormously attractive.”
Miller was sold—though not, according to Hardy, before “he checked my background with other directors to see what it was like to work with me.”
Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max: Fury Road is set to be published on February 22, 2022.
Coi Leray has yet to capitalize on her breakout 2021, although that could change in the near future thanks to her new song “Anxiety.” The single from her upcoming debut has helped her gain traction after her breakout 2021 singles “No More Parties” and “Twinnem” brought her quirky approach to a mainstream audience. Today, she dropped the single’s surreal music video, which could raise its profile and go a long way toward earning her some much-deserved respect.
In the video, Coi is terrorized by a mischievous personification of the feeling of anxiety, portrayed by a flexible dancer in a houndstooth-patterned, bodysuit, complete with horns and a penchant for causing destruction. In a series of related vignettes, the evil imp upends a meal, forces another young woman to drink a whole bottle of wine, and demolishes a third woman’s bedroom, echoing the disruptive effects anxiety can have and the extreme measures some folks take to self-medicate.
Coi’s addressed her mental health through music on other singles, including “Medicine,” while fending off critics for the past year who criticized everything from her body to her passing resemblance to Dej Loaf. Hopefully, she can find a little peace of mind amid the bustle of becoming a star because she may only get bigger from here — especially with her debut album coming in March, as she announced on Twitter.
There are many ways to do salsa, and it can be made out of damn near anything. We even used squash once, and believe it or not, it was still pretty good. Salsa is best made yourself, and you don’t even have to be all that precious about it. There are almost infinite combinations of the same basic ingredients and many will make a fine salsa. Check out this guy’s Instagram any time you want to get inspired. It’s in Spanish, but you’ll manage.
But I get it, sometimes you don’t have the time, maybe you already spent all day cooking up a Mexican feast, or maybe you’re just too stoned and all you and your buddies want is a little fuel before your next sack-tapping contest. I don’t know, I’m not here to make excuses for you. The point is, enough store-bought salsas exist that at least one must surely be worth buying… right?
***
Store-bought salsa is something of a paradox in terms. The whole point of salsa is to add a fresh-produce punch to your meat or tortilla. Yet selling such a thing in stores requires the ability to last for weeks, months, or even longer in the refrigerator section or even on the shelves. Which does seem to call the whole “fresh” part into question (home-made ones only last about 5-7 days in the fridge). The question for store-bought salsas is whether they can alter that basic equation and still taste like something approximating salsa.
For this test, we figured that the salsas from the fridge section — which require refrigeration and usually have sell-by dates of a month or two — must taste fresher than the shelf-stable non-refrigerated varieties in jars that last who knows how long. So this particular ranking focuses only on what I could find in the refrigerated sections of my local Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, Sprouts, and Save Mart.
I tasted them blind (that is, not being able to see the labels, not literally blindfolded), and ranked them according to looks, smell, and taste. Tasting salsa on chips seemed to be the fairest, even though I do distinguish between a chips-and-dip salsa (I generally make a fresh pico de gallo for that situation) and a taco condiment (I tend to go spicier here, like a simple jalapeño/avocado salsa). Plenty of brands were available in mild, medium, and hot. For the sake of simplicity, and for not blowing out my palate, I just went with medium whenever there was a heat-level option.
Sort of like marinara with onion chunks and occasional cilantro flecks.
Nose:
I didn’t even have to get my face close to this one to smell the oregano. You could smell this oregano bomb from across the room. It smells like bad pizza sauce.
Taste:
Like bad marinara, only saltier. This belongs in the garbage — the outside one. I don’t want to smell this every time I throw something away.
Bottom Line:
It’s actually kind of impressive to stand out as the worst salsa in a tasting of salsas that mostly weren’t very good. This one reeked of dry oregano from five or six feet away and managed to taste even more like bad pizza sauce than it smelled. Absolutely not.
Another chunky, light-bodied pico de gallo. Looks very tomato-heavy and onion-light. There’s an isolated cilantro speck here and there.
Nose:
Mostly lime.
Taste:
It’s sort of a dry-spice muddle with lots of citrus and salt.
Bottom Line:
My hunch is that if you’re buying these deli salsas, never get anything below medium. It takes a baseline level of spice to mask the citric acid it takes to keep these from spoiling. Anyway, this one just tasted like salt and dry spices, I can’t really recommend it for anything.
Rating: 4/10
Notes: The seal was broken on this one, I think it was one of the ones I dropped on the way inside.
Watery and brownish-red. Has a more taqueria taco sauce consistency, which is a little more watery.
Nose:
There’s a ton of jalapeño skin, almost blowing out my nostrils.
Taste:
This one is a jalapeño bomb, and not in a good way. You can tell just by looking at it that there are almost more jalapeños than tomatoes, so “red salsa” feels like a bit of a misnomer. More crucially, the spice/acid/tomato balance feels way off.
Bottom Line:
This salsa boasted “only four ingredients” on the packaging, but I’m surprised it was that many. It tasted and smelled like charred jalapeños and little else. Jalapeños are great, but this tasted somehow charred and undercooked at the same time, like they just burnt the skins while the rest of the pepper was still mostly raw.
The spice and ingredient balance just felt way off.
It’s green (duh) with seeds and black flecks and pretty watery. It gets chunkier when you mix it. There are the occasional onion pieces.
Nose:
I think I smell some kind of green chile? More so than tomatillo anyway.
Taste:
Very salty! I’m still getting green chile, like roasted pasilla or Anaheim chile. It tastes more like fresh chile than canned, at least, but I get that more than the tart tomatillo.
Bottom Line:
In my head, it seemed easier to make a store-bought tomatillo salsa taste like homemade than a tomato one, seeing as how tomatillos tend towards tart already. In reality, this one just wasn’t very good. Too salty, and I thought it tasted much more of roasted green chiles than it does of tomatillo. Indeed, the ingredients list “green chile pepper puree” as the second ingredient.
This is more like a roasted pasilla salsa than what it’s advertising.
Very bright red. Maybe there’s some roasted pepper in there? It’s more of a purée than chunky.
Nose:
Muddled pepperiness? I’m not sure what I’m getting there.
Taste:
It smells and tastes a little ketchup-y, but the spices are decently balanced. It’s not really great on chips, but I could see using it as an ingredient in something. Maybe to spice up some eggs or chili?
Bottom Line:
This is muddled and ketchup-y, but not terrible. It’s not worthy of chips and dip but as an ingredient for a breakfast burrito or something you could do worse.
This actually looks like restaurant pico with small chunks of fresh tomato and onion. The onions do look a touch wilted.
Nose:
All tomato and lime.
Taste:
Kind of bland, but mostly okay. This mostly tastes like fresh tomatoes, if not exactly vibrant.
Bottom Line:
Pico de gallo is traditionally made using all raw ingredients, which would seem the hardest to turn into something refrigerator stable. In that sense, it’s pretty impressive that Trader Joe’s deli pico de gallo is only slightly worse than the homemade version from Whole Foods.
Without grading on a curve, it’s mediocre at best.
Surprisingly bright with good sweetness and a nice acid balance, though it is a touch ketchup-y.
Bottom Line:
I would never have guessed that this salsa had avocado in it if I hadn’t looked at the package. I don’t really understand the point of using avocado, but not enough that the salsa isn’t still red. Not that I’m entirely against it, it’s just … weird. Anyway, maybe the avocado gave this salsa a slightly more velvety texture?
This mostly just tasted like a replacement-level deli salsa to me.
Nice habanero flavor, which I do like. Habanero is sort of fruity and tropical, probably a little more vibrant than your standard green or dried chiles. The difficulty there is, obviously, the heat. I don’t know how much of this I could realistically eat.
Bottom Line:
This is not great as a salsa, mostly because it has more heat than flavor, but it’s pretty decent as a hot sauce or a taco condiment. Heat isn’t everything in and of itself, but it’s better than nothing. Easily the best of the Trader Joe’s salsas I tried.
Actually like restaurant salsa! Pretty impressive, honestly. It seems they used red onions rather than white, which is a choice. Greater onion-to-tomato ratio than others, but still not super onion heavy.
Nose:
I’m getting more lime than vinegar here with mostly a fresh tomato smell.
Taste:
This is very much not restaurant quality, the balance and spices are off, but at least it’s fresh. I’m getting more salt than fresh veg, and the flavors don’t quite “pop.”
Bottom Line:
This was a fresh food item made in-house at my local Whole Foods with only a few days’ shelf life, which should’ve given it a natural advantage over the other ones designed to last for weeks or months. It was fresh enough, but the spice balance wasn’t quite there. I imagine this will vary from store to store and from season to season, and probably even from employee to employee based on who’s making it and tasting it that day.
A very seedy, thickish blender purée that’s more paste-like than the others. Darker red/brownish with some tomato or pepper skins.
Nose:
Something smoky in here. Maybe chipotle?
Taste:
This is mostly a smoky cumin-chipotle bomb, but with a nice kick. Quite spicy. My scalp is sweating.
Bottom Line:
I like the name “salsa queen” because it makes me think of “size queen.” The label is also probably the coolest on this list. This one was chipotle-heavy and quite spicy, so probably not great for chips but solid on tacos and as a condiment. It certainly adds spice.
Rating: 6/10 as a chip dipper. 7/10 as a taco condiment.
Red, blended purée, on the watery side. There are cilantro and onion flecks.
Nose:
It smells fresh-ish and not too dry spice heavy.
Taste:
Sort of bland, but the spice and acid levels are nicely balanced. I would eat this on chips if it was in front of me, though I wouldn’t seek it out.
Bottom Line:
This one was more “passable” than something to get excited about, but passable is pretty hard to come by with these. This one gets the spice and acid balance right, at least. Maybe that’s the “improved taste” the package describes.
Very smooth and watery, more like taqueria taco sauce than salsa. Darker red with black flecks — either from roasted stuff or dried peppers.
Nose:
Vaguely smoky; not much going on otherwise.
Taste:
This is heavy on the chipotle, but that isn’t a bad thing. There’s a medium heat, nice balance, and moderate smokiness. Actually this one is pretty decent. Yes, I would put this on stuff. Kind of gets better the more you eat it.
Bottom Line:
This one was simply head and shoulders above the rest — probably the only one of these I would consider good, and not just “good, for store-bought salsa.” The heat, it turns out, comes from habanero and Arbol chiles. The latter of which are dried and smoky in flavor, which probably accounts for the chipotle I thought I was tasting. Arbols make a great salsa chile, it’s just hard to get a ton of Arbol flavor in something without taking a flamethrower to your palate.
Maybe that smoke flavor is just better at disguising the citric acid and calcium chloride that’s in most of these.
Rating: 8/10
Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can access his archive of reviews here.
In the weeks following the 2020 presidential election (you remember, the one that Donald Trump lost?), Giuliani—the then-president’s then-pal and personal lawyer—seems to have played the role of good cop when he attempted to seize the voting machines from states and counties that didn’t vote for his guy. As WaPo reported:
Antrim County prosecutor James Rossiter said in an interview that Giuliani and several colleagues made the request during a telephone call after the county initially misreported its election results. The inaccurate tallies meant that Joe Biden appeared to have beaten Trump by 3,000 votes in a Republican stronghold, an error that soon placed Antrim at the center of false claims by Trump that the election had been stolen.
Rossiter said he declined. “I said, ‘I can’t just say: give them here.’ We don’t have that magical power to just demand things as prosecutors. You need probable cause.’ Even if he had had sufficient grounds to take the machines as evidence, Rossiter said, he could not have released them to outsiders or a party with an interest in the matter.
It was those originally misreported numbers that some people believe made Antrim County a prime target of Team Trump’s “Aww, shucks—would you mind handing over your voting machines?” appeal. According to The Post’s examination of the incident, “the call to Rossiter was also part of a behind-the-scenes intervention by Trump’s legal team in Antrim that seized on the county’s election night blunder and helped twist the mistake into supposed proof of a vast conspiracy to rig the election.” (While playing nice seemed to be the first route to seizing these machines, Politico recently reported that Trump was also cooking up an executive order that would have allowed National Guard troops to go in and take the machines on Trump’s behalf.)
While Giuliani, via his attorney, declined to answer questions about the incident, other legal scholars described the direct appeal to a local prosecutor as both “unusual” and “inappropriate.” For his part, Rossiter was just plain surprised: “I never expected in my life I’d get a call like this,” he said.
The Ben Simmons saga in Philadelphia has come to an end. According to Shams Charania of The Athletic, the widely-rumored trade between the Brooklyn Nets and Philadelphia 76ers that would see Simmons and James Harden switch teams ahead of the NBA trade deadline has come to fruition, with the two All-Stars moving within the same division and Seth Curry, Andre Drummond, and a pair of picks headed to Brooklyn along with Simmons.
BREAKING: The Brooklyn Nets and Philadelphia 76ers are finalizing trade sending James Harden for Ben Simmons, Seth Curry and draft picks, sources tell @TheAthletic@Stadium.
Reports emerged in the middle of the day on Thursday that the hang up on the deal was the Nets wanting Matisse Thybulle, but the Sixers held on to their star perimeter defender by adding a second first round pick and Drummond to bolster the Nets frontcourt.
The Brooklyn Nets are trading James Harden to the Philadelphia 76ers for Ben Simmons, Seth Curry, Andre Drummond and two first-round picks, sources tell ESPN.
The picks going to the Nets are this year’s first from Philly and a protected 2027 first, with the Nets being able to defer this year’s pick to next year.
The Nets will get the Sixers’ 2022 first-round pick unprotected with a right to defer until 2023 and a 2027 first-round pick protected 1-to-8, sources tell ESPN. The 2027 pick would roll over to 2028 protected 1-to-8 again. The pick turns into two seconds and $2M in 2029.
It had been reported in recent weeks that the Sixers were interested in finding a way to acquire Harden in the summer after it surfaced that the now-former Nets star was interested in testing free agency for the first time in his career. Things started to escalate in the week leading up to the deadline, though, as the Nets became open to trying to figure out a deal amid the team’s recent struggles.
Simmons, of course, has not played this season, with his final appearance coming in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals against the Atlanta Hawks, which Philadelphia lost. In the aftermath, Simmons came under criticism from Sixers coach Doc Rivers and star player Joel Embiid for his play in the series, and in the coming weeks, it became evident that he wanted a fresh start. Despite the team’s comments about wanting him to return to the floor, though, that never happened, even when the team began fining Simmons for not reporting and withholding paychecks.
Now, a trade that has been rumored ever since Harden’s days as a member of the Houston Rockets is finally going down. It’s one that makes a ton of sense for both teams — Philly gets the kind of superstar they wanted for Simmons and a perimeter creator, both for himself and for others, that the team could use, while Brooklyn gets a defensive menace who will keep the ball moving in their offense and is happy to fill in gaps while Kevin Durant and, when he can play, Kyrie Irving are cooking. But above all else, this trade makes sense in that it moves a pair of disgruntled superstars who desperately needed a change in scenery. Here’s to hoping Sixers-Nets happens in the playoffs.
After releasing his long-awaited third studio album, Few Good Things, Chicago rapper Saba followed up last night with the premiere of the album’s accompanying short film, also titled Few Good Things. Like the album, the film, directed by C.T. Robert, casts its focus on the themes of family and community, as well as the comforting memories that grow from each. A series of vignettes, home movies, and photo albums soundtracked by the album highlight the good things that Saba is holding onto.
In an artist’s note, Saba said of the film, “The concept of Few Good Things is the realization of self after a search for exterior fulfillment. It is the satisfaction and completeness you gain by simply living a life that is yours. Few is a small number, but few is not lonely. In the face of all adversity, a few good things is recognizing and accepting blessings. Few is to count them, one by one. An empty glass is full of air. An empty bank is full of lessons. An empty heart is full of memories. Few good things is to grow comfortable with the empty, and despite that, finding your fullness.”
Watch Saba’s new short film, Few Good Things, above. Few Good Things, the album, is out now via Pivot Gang LLC. You can stream it here.
When Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963, he was met by nearly 250,000 people. Traveling from all over the country to participate in the March on Washington, this crowd became part of one of the most iconic and pivotal moments in civil rights history.
Joining those thousands at the Lincoln Memorial was Ledger Smith, a 27-year-old athlete and entertainer who traveled all the way from Chicago … on roller skates.
Ledger’s story might be lesser known, but it’s an inspiring one.
As a semiprofessional skater, Smith, better known as “Roller Man,” was known for his impressive tricks.
Deciding to really put his skills to the test, Ledger skated 685 miles, from Chicago to Washington, D.C. … for 10 straight days. My legs are sore just thinking about it.
When a 1963 publication of the Baltimore Afro-American asked him why, Smith replied that it was “to dramatize the march,” adding that he “did it in the slowest way.”
To prepare for his journey, Smith ran 5 miles every day for two weeks prior. And after skating for 10 hours a day for a little over a week, he arrived having lost 10 pounds.
Wearing a freedom sign across his chest, Ledger helped spread inspiration along his route. He wasn’t always met with encouragement. At one point a man had tried to run him down with a car in Fort Wayne, Indiana, according to a radio interview with WAMU.
Still, Ledger was also met by well wishers. The Afro-American reported that many people along the highway, some of them white, wished Ledger good luck, saying that they’d see him in Washington.
Determination (and incredible stamina) overcame the obstacles. Because on Tuesday, Ledger arrived, “sore, aching, but hoping he was 700 miles closer to freedom,” according to the report.
Ledger met up with his wife—who decided to go the more traditional route and travel by train—along with celebrities, activists and protestors to take part in the massive March on Washington. The couple witnessed firsthand the words that would become a beacon of hope for the future, and an emblem of black resilience.
Following nine other speakers, King had only planned on being at the podium for four minutes. But when prompted by gospel star Mahalia Jackson to “tell ‘em about the dream,” he stood on stage and spoke for 16 minutes. Though the speech notably ties in themes from the Declaration of Independence, the Gettysburg Address, Shakespeare and the Bible, its most famous section was completely improvised.
Full of poetry and vigor, King challenged his community to “not wallow in the valley of despair,” and painted the picture of “walking together as sisters and brothers,” where King called it his dream, but it was Ledger’s dream too, along with countless others who arrived that day.
Ledger’s journey to Washington powerfully symbolizes the great lengths that African Americans had endured, were enduring—and still are enduring—to attain equality. But for Ledger, and the thousands that joined him, no distance was too great, if the long road leads to “free at last.”
“Why do people have to suck so badly?” my teen asks me after watching a viral video of horrible human behavior.
I understand the sentiment. I really do. I’ve asked myself the same question many times in recent years. Why are people like this? What is wrong with people? How can people be so stupid/cruel/selfish/ignorant/etc. And every time I have to pause, reflect and recognize what I’m hearing.
It’s the siren song of cynicism. That strangely alluring voice that lulls us into a negative state of complacency at best and abject nihilism at worst.
I see—and feel in myself—cynicism as a natural, reactionary response to the ugly realities of our world, but also to our current digital climate. So much of the discouse we consume is filtered through social media algorithms that reward undernuanced hot takes and keep the cycle of negative sensationalism churning. The bad stuff gets our attention, which prompts people to talk about the bad stuff, which triggers algorithms that push more of the bad stuff, which creates a feedback loop informing us that everything is terrible.
Cynicism seduces us because it’s easy. It doesn’t actually feel good, but it feels comfortable because it doesn’t ask anything from us. Hardened cynics sometimes see themselves as the intellectually honest among us, having real insight into people and problems, but it’s simply not true. Cynicism requires no deep digging, real reflection or soul searching. It’s the easiest thing in the world to call the world a dumpster fire, toss up our hands and say, “Welp, everything and everyone sucks, so what’s the point?”
Hope, on the other hand, is hard. It requires going beyond our impulsive reactions to headlines and soundbites and to enage with humanity holistically. Far from being some kind of unthinking, Pollyanna-ish, head-in-the-sand idealism, I see hope as the natural outcome of truly diving into the reality of human existence.
But how do we get there? How do we ignore the pull of cynicism and navigate toward hope instead?
First, we can look to the past to see how far we have actually come.
I was watching the Olympics the other night and marveling at what human beings have figured out how to do. We started off rubbing sticks together to make fire. Now we have people who can artistically dance around on ice, spin multiple times through the air with the utmost perfection and precision, and land on one foot on a 1/8-inch blade. Not only that, but they do it to beautiful music that humans have composed, with musical instruments humans created, recorded on technological equipment that humans invented.
Nathan Chen in slow motion. #WinterOlympicspic.twitter.com/hQ0gYASTky
Not only was I watching this marvel happen, but I was doing so all the way on the other side of the planet, in the comfort of my home, where hot air blows out of the walls, clean water pours out of the refrigerator that keeps our food cold and lights turn on and off with the flick of a finger.
And that’s just the basic, everyday life stuff we’ve figured out. Thinking of all of the ways humans continue to advance and progress is mind-boggling.
Sure, we still separate ourselves into artificial groups and fight over stupid things, but we also have created global organizations that collaborate to do incredible work to solve problems. Yes, our advancements have caused an imbalance in our relationship to the planet, but we also have developed the science to understand and begin to mitigate those impacts. Indeed, people can still be bafflingly ignorant or closed-minded, but we have access to everything that humans have ever learned available at our fingertips. That’s incredible.
Our material progress may have outpaced our collective spiritual progress, and our political will to enact workable solutions might be a mess, but there’s no reason to believe we won’t figure those things out too. Look at all that we’ve been through and what we’ve accomplished. We are far more capable than we give ourselves credit for, in all areas.
Second, we can choose the filters with which we view the present.
When we look at the challenges we face and the difficulties in meeting those challenges, do we see a sign that humans are inept or a sign that we’re trying to figure things out? Learning and problem-solving are messy, nonlinear processes. Sometimes progress is two steps forward, one step back. Growth involves growing pains, especially when we’re actually growing the fastest. Building something new often requires tearing down something old first, and destruction feels like destruction even when it’s necessary.
There’s also the simple truth that we find what we look for. If we look for what is bad, wrong and unjust in the world, we’ll find it. That stuff is there, no question. And some of it definitely needs our attention; ignoring a problem doesn’t make it go away. But focusing on the negative all the time is a choice—one that doesn’t serve anyone well.
I could easily spend an entire day finding examples of how people are awful, how it seems like we’re going backward in some ways, how society is totally messed up and how the future is doomed. (Just spend the day on Twitter. It’s all there.) If my goal were to justify a cynical outlook on humanity, I could easily do so.
But I could also spend an entire day finding examples of how humans are amazing, how people come together to help one another, how organizations are solving problems and providing for people’s needs, how progress is being made in all fields of human endeavor. If my goal were to justify a hopeful vision for humanity, I could easily do that as well.
Each of those scenarios is a choice. Which day seems like it would lead to a better outcome, either for me personally or for the world at large?
The negative, cynical stuff is constantly in our faces because of how media and social media work, but the positive, constructive stuff is all around us. We need to balance positivity with addressing real problems, but when we put more focus and energy into supporting and amplifying the things we want to see than the things we don’t, we steer our ship toward hope.
Finally, we can remember that the future is still unwritten.
One of the hallmarks of cynicism is the sense that nothing changes, that we’re going to be stuck in the same stupidity of our own making forever. But none of us has a crystal ball. We don’t know what the future holds and how humanity will change through the inevitable ups and downs on the horizon. We couldn’t have predicted we’d be here now three years ago, and we don’t know what things will look like three years from now.
We can choose to envision a dystopian future—there are plenty of books and movies we can use for inspiration if that’s what we want to do. Or we can choose to envision something better or greater than what we have now. Neither is guaranteed in any way, so we do have a choice in the matter.
Any psychologist will tell you that visualization can be a powerful and transformative tool. Just as we see what we look for in the present, we are more likely to create what we envision for the future. That’s not to say that we can control everything, but we can decide what direction we try to encourage humanity to go with our lives. When we look forward to a future in which humanity and our planetary home thrive and flourish, we’re much more likely to seek out ways to move us in that direction.
Hope is a choice we make daily, in our thoughts and in our actions. Cynicism can sing to us all it wants, but we will hold the wheel steady, look for the light on the horizon and steer that direction instead.
Steve Irwin was just one of those too-good-for-this-world celebrities. For me, he’s right up there with David Bowie, Dolly Parton and Betty White. Though his methods were unconventional, Irwin found his own wild way of bringing the natural world to the masses, with unbridled passion and enthusiasm.
As he wrestled with dangerous beasts, we got up close and personal with some of Mother Earth’s most misunderstood, learning that there’s so much more to love than fear. His moniker might have been The Crocodile Hunter, but he was definitely more of a wildlife warrior.
Steve’s son Robert Irwin recently posted a video to his Instagram, and man, is this kid not only the spitting image of his father, he also honors Steve’s legacy of providing wildlife education and promoting conservation … all while nearly being eaten by a giant reptile. Proving that boldness never really goes out of style.
In a recent teaser video for the latest season finale of Animal Planet’s “Crikey! It’s the Irwins” series, Robert Irwin goes in, up close and personal, for his first feeding with Casper, a massive leucistic (completely pale) saltwater crocodile.
Like most crocs, Casper is wild, ferocious and territorial. “Since dad first got Casper … he’s had that instinct,” Robert tells us.
Robert will need to see if Casper is happy in his new enclosure by seeing if he strikes.
Meat in hand, Robert stomps on the ground, sending vibrations over to Casper, who definitely gets the message. As he lunges out of the water, Robert jokes, “Oh yeah, he’s keen” before we get an aerial view of a high-speed crocodile chase and the video abruptly ends. It is a teaser, after all.
This might seem like a piece of theater, but there’s more to it than that. As Robert points out, this activity is actually for the crocodile’s happiness and well-being.
Robert’s caption reads, “We prioritise natural behaviour with our crocs. By getting in their enclosures with them, and letting them put on those huge strikes from the water’s edge, they get to use all of their predatory instincts and they just love it!”
Don’t just take Rob’s word for it. As Basic Biology states, inherently stealthy crocodiles “ambush their prey as they drink from the water’s edge.”
In addition to facilitating this hunting method, many zoos and conservation institutes meticulously design their crocodile enclosures to match the same environments found in nature; everything from sandy pool bottoms to mimic the bottom of a lake to natural visual barriers like fallen trees.
The Australia Zoo, owned by the Irwins, is itself one of the world’s leading research centers dedicated to studying crocodile behavior. According to the zoo’s website, the conservation organization regards Steve’s capture and study techniques as the “world’s best to this day.”
I mean, just looking at some of his greatest catches, the man did have a knack for it.
Robert seems to be following in those footsteps. I’m so here for it.
“The message is simple: love and conserve our wildlife” – Steve Irwin. The greatest Wildlife Warrior to ever live. Together, we can ensure Steve’s legacy lives on for the generations to come.🐊💚 pic.twitter.com/ritnf1Qsg5
To quote Steve, “the message is simple: love and conserve our wildlife.” With the same genuine heart, fearless love and unbeatable positivity, Robert’s work (and really, the work of the entire Irwin family) keeps that message alive.
Now that Britney Spears is no longer under a conservatorship, fans are wondering what the pop icon will do next. She has suggested recently that she has some plans, and now she is again teasing something she’s working on.
In a video Spears posted on Instagram yesterday, she’s wearing a revealing outfit in a dance studio as she dances to “Get Naked,” from her 2007 album Blackout. Spears wrote in the post’s caption, “This is 13 seconds of me in heels [high heels emoji] before I dyed my hair purple [purple heart emoji] …. This is a tease [smiling devil emoji] of what’s to come !!!! My song “Get Naked” [headphones emoji] !!! Hope you guys are having a great day !!!!! Pss No hair and make up [lipstick emoji] !!! Just PLAYING around folks !!!!”
As for what exactly this video teases, that isn’t entirely clear at the moment. In recent days, though, Spears has been eager to share that she has things in the works, as she wrote in a post from earlier this month that she has “so many exciting projects ahead.” Spears has an informal offer from Madonna to join her on a world tour, as Madonna said recently, “Stadium, baby. Me and Britney, what about that? Not sure if she’d be into it, but it would be really cool. We could, like, reenact the original kiss.”
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