Month: March 2022

Sometimes the silliest of mistakes can result in the sweetest of coincidences.

Shahid Davis had ordered dinner from the Chipotle app and was checking on the map to see how far away the driver was when he realized that the driver was half a continent away. Davis had been staying at a hotel in Iowa the last time he ordered, and he forgot to go back and change the delivery address to his home in Hagerstown, Maryland. He contacted Chipotle, but the customer service person told him they couldn’t do anything since it was already out for delivery.

So when the delivery person texted Davis to let him know they were there, he explained what happened.

“I’m here with your order,” the person texted.

“Take it with you bro and enjoy the lunch,” Davis responded. “I forgot to change my address and I currently in Maryland.”

“Umm…okay thhanks,” the person responded.

But then a short while later they sent another message that made Davis’ sharing of the story go viral.

“I wanted to thank you again,” they wrote. “It’s my brother’s birthday today and he is laid to rest not far from where you had me take this delivery. I’m having lunch with him today because of you. You have no idea how much that means to me. I truly appreciate it.”

Well shoot. Someone pass the tissues, please.

Davis told Upworthy that he was really happy to receive the message. “[I] felt like I made an impact in his life even though I don’t know the person’s name or anything about them. But it doesn’t matter at the end because I did something to help brighten his day up!”

“I think we humans all have a kind soul inside, we just have to push out the negativity and push out kindness,” Davis added. “Only we can make the world a better place.”

Davis’ Facebook story has been shared more than 100,000 times since he posted it on Sunday, and people in the comments celebrated the unexpected human connection.

“That’s wassup!!” wrote one commenter. “The universe always repays, good or bad. When your reward comes, you will know exactly why. Spread love, we all need it right now. Thank you.”

“Dude that’s simply amazing,” wrote another. “Just proves that you never know what someone is dealing with and how a kind gesture may impact their life.”

“That’s awesome, you definitely made his day,” wrote another. “I’m saying this as a mom who lost her baby and eats lunches with my baby occasionally this would make my day too.”

Truly, we are all connected in ways we can’t always see, so it’s lovely when something like this happens to show us how true it is.

Eighty-one-year-old Harry Smith—who uses an electric wheelchair—was walking his beloved 9-year-old beagle mix, Sarah Jane, near a lake in Port St. Lucie, Florida when the pleasant jaunt took a turn for the worse.

Smith says that the left wheel of the chair “grabbed and spun me” and he wound up rolling down a grass embankment into the water. Smith can’t swim, could barely keep his head above the water and without immediate help would have drowned.

Sarah Jane began to bark loudly, capturing the attention of Edward Suhling, 58, who was working on a trailer with Aby “Jacob” Chacko, 49. “Sensing his owner was in trouble, his dog began to bark loudly which alerted two bystanders across the street,” the Port St. Lucie police department wrote in a Facebook post.

At first, Suhling thought that the dog was being attacked by an alligator, then he saw Smith’s head poking out of the water. Suhling and Chacko ran over to the pond, flagging down a police officer along the way.

Harry was out walking his dog, Sarah Jane, when his wheel got caught in the mulch, turning him around and down into the pond. nnNeighbors heard Sarah Jane barking and Harry yelling u201cHELP!u201d nn@PSLPolice were flagged down. nnThey all helped him out, saving his life. @CBS12pic.twitter.com/0s8fygh5zx

— Andrew Lofholm (@Andrew Lofholm)
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“As soon as I got here I saw the wheelchair and the dog and I recognized that’s Harry and I know he can’t walk,” Chacko said. Smith was in terror fighting for his life in the pond. “My legs don’t work,” he said. “I can’t push.”

“The dog was splashing in the water,” Suhling said. “So we both ran over here and I jumped in the water, and my buddy grabbed his arms and I grabbed his legs and we got him up on shore.”

After Smith was safely out of the water, the police officer administered medical attention and he was cleared to go home. Unfortunately, his wheelchair didn’t work, so the officer pushed him back to his home.

The Port St. Lucie Police Department later called the Suhlih, Chacko, and Sarah Jane heroes on its Facebook page. “We are thankful for Mr. Smith’s dog and the two bystanders that helped save his life!” the police department wrote on Facebook. “And as the saying remains true…A man’s best friend is his dog.”

“She’s such a good dog,” Smith later said about Sarah Jane. “Everybody in this neighborhood loves her, they all look out for her.” After the pair made it home safely, Smith was sure to give his dog a treat. “I love her, always have, always will,” he said.

While the dog’s heroics are pretty amazing, there are a couple of reasons why Sarah Jane knew that Smith was in danger and sprang into action. A lot of dogs have a strong fear of water. Not all of them love it like labradors. If Sarah Jane was afraid of the water, she would have sensed her guardian was in serious danger.

Secondly, a study from Arizona State University in 2020 tested whether dogs will help if they thought their owner was in trouble. For the study, owners called out to the dog while appearing to be trapped inside a box. In most instances, the dogs attempted to free their owners after hearing them cry for help.

The story of Sarah Jane and her guardian Harry Smith proves, once again, that we just don’t deserve dogs.

It’s hard to imagine an era when we couldn’t tell the time by checking our smartphone or wristwatch. But before a watch was even a thing, cities had bell towers that would bong every hour, on the hour, so the town’s folk knew the time.

During the Industrial Revolution, things became more technologically advanced, and clock towers popped up in public places so nobody was late to work.

Twelve years ago, at 12:02, the clock in the central tower at Grimsby Minster in eastern England stopped working. The church dates back to the 12th century and the central tower was added in 1365.

A group of experts that worked on the restoration of London’s Big Ben came out to the church and said that it would require scaffolding to get the old clock back in order and the cost would be somewhere between £40,000 ($53,250) and £50,000 ($66,600).

The church feared it would have to throw a massive fundraiser to get enough money to fix its historic clock. However, two guys that work on the church’s bells had a different idea. Rick Haywood, 47, and Jay Foley, 15, were performing routine maintenance on the bells when they decided to give the clock a look.

“We did not think we could do any more damage,” Haywood told The Sun. “We found various dead pigeons gumming up the bearings. Some of the bearings were very dry.”

Foley believes that the clock stopped running because of its age and the fact that its gears were “very dry” and “were not in the right alignment.”

The company working on Big Ben’s restoration quoted u00a350k to repair Grimsby Minster’s clock which had been broken for 12 years. The local cheesemaker and a student cleaned out the dead pigeons, bought a can of WD-40 and a tub of grease and managed to fix it themselves.pic.twitter.com/CtemLy3HnB

— Ant Stephenudb40udc67 (@Ant Stephenudb40udc67)
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“The minutes, hours, and seconds all have separate sections, which were out of order,” Foley added. “We got the dead pigeons out and it slowly ticked along after we greased it and cleaned it out.”

“We gave it grease and WD-40 and managed to get it running,” Haywood said.

The difference in cost to the church was miraculous. It could have spent tens of thousands of pounds to get the clock running, but all it cost was £6 for two cans of WD-40, and the labor charges for Haywood and Foley.

The workers say the clock runs about two minutes slow because it took a little time to get everything aligned after they looked at their smartphones. The pair are proud of their work and glad they could save the minster a few quid.

“The church had one or two engineers from big clock companies and they were starting at £40-50,000 to get it running again. We saved them at least £40,000 so I am hoping for a meal invite,” Haywood said.

The church’s warden couldn’t be more pleased with the duo’s fine work. “It’s amazing because you would not believe how much hassle you get when a church clock is not working,” he said.

I don’t think there’s anything in the Bible about always asking for a second opinion after getting a quote. But it’s sure to be a lesson taught at Grimsby Minster for the foreseeable future.

After a couple of years spent building out the other parts of his resume, Joey Badass has been slowly but surely dipping his toes back into rap. Promising that his third album is “for sure” dropping this year, the Brooklyn-based rapper made his triumphant return to the rap game with his boastful new single “The Rev3nge.” Today, he unveiled his next new single, the defiant “Head High,” with a passionate performance of the song on popular YouTube music series A COLORS Show.

Standing in front of an icy blue background in a cream jacket and matching patterned pants, Joey recounts a conversation with XXXtentacion, comparing him to Joey’s own fallen compatriot Capital Steez, and ruminates on the cyclical nature of trauma and violence in the hood while refusing to give in to it. “Dancin’ with the devil, tryin’ not to lose my balance,” he mutters. “Look, God blessed the kid with many talents.”

Should Joey’s album drop as promised this year, it’ll be his first full-length collection of music since 2017’s All-Amerikkkan Badass, which solidified his talent as more than just a ’90s throwback homage artist.

Watch Joey Badass’ passionate performance of the defiant “Head High” for A COLORS Show above.

Something happened to Kevin Morby in 2017. Already a prolific musician in his own regard, his confidence and ability as a storyteller seemed to soar with the release of the instant classic City Music. Every release that has followed since has seen Morby operating at a higher level of consciousness. This is a songwriter in command of his craft, both in the studio and on stage. Today, he has announced what’s described as his “magnum opus” in his seventh album, This Is A Photograph.

He wrote the album (which is out on May 13th) and recorded the first demos while living in Memphis and spending his days traversing the city, connecting with its ghosts. Working with producer Sam Cohen, This Is A Photograph sees Morby tapping into the spirit of raconteurs like Bob Dylan and Jeff Buckley and working with collaborators like harpist Brandee Younger, jazz drummer Makaya McCraven, and singer-songwriter Cassandra Jenkins.

The lead title track single is a portrait of heartland nostalgia, featuring backing vocal harmonies by members of Memphis’ Stax Academy Of Music. The interplay of guitar and banjo speaks to Americana and highway rock and roll. Morby is fierce, driven, and on a mission as he sings, “This is what I’ll miss about being alive, this is what I’ll miss after I die.”

“It’s about the battle every family faces, that of chasing the clock, to live our lives and hold onto one another for as long as possible,” Morby said of the song in a statement. “That, and, the dreams that come with being a young family in America and where those dreams eventually end up.”

Watch the video for “This Is A Photograph” above. Check out the This Is A Photograph art and tracklist, as well as Kevin Morby’s tour dates for 2022, below.

1. “Intro”
2. “This Is A Photograph”
3. “A Random Act Of Kindness”
4. “Bittersweet, TN”
5. “Disappearing”
6. “A Coat Of Butterflies”
7. “Rock Bottom”
8. “Forever Inside A Picture”
9. “Five Easy Pieces”
10. “Stop Before I Cry”
11. “It’s Over”
12. “Goodbye To Good Times”

05/20 — Madrid, ES @ Tomavistas
05/21 — Biarritz, FR @ L’Atabal
05/22 — Montpellier, FR @ Le Rockstore
05/23 — Bordeaux, FR @ Rock School Barbey
05/24 — Paris, FR @ Le Bataclan
05/25 — Köln, DE @ Kulturekirche
05/26 — Antwerpen, BE @ De Roma
05/28 — London, UK @ Wide Awake at Brockwell Park
05/29 — Utrecht, NL @ TivoliVredenburg
05/30 — Hamburg, DE @ Uebel & Gefährlich
05/31 — Berlin, DE @ Metropol
06/01 — Schorndorf, DE @ Manufaktur
06/03– Angers, FR @ Levitation
06/04 — Clermont–Ferrand, FR @ La Cooperative de Mai
06/05 — Lille, FR @ Aéronef
06/03 — Bologna, IT @ Covo Summer
06/04 — Terni, IT @ Anfifteatro Romano
06/06 — Zagreb, HR @ Mochvara
06/07 — Budapest, HU @ Akvárium Klub
06/08 — Trencin, Slovakia @ Pohoda Festival
06/09 — Zittau, DE @ Lonesome Lake Festival
06/11 — Vienna, AT @ WUK
06/12 — Munich, DE @ Ampere
06/13 — Bern, CH @ Gurtenfestival
06/15 — Lisbon, PT @ Super Bock Super Rock
08/21 — Erlanger, DE @ Ewerk
08/22 — Hannover, DE @ Café Glocksee
08/24 — Copenhagen, DK @ Punpehuset
08/27 — Prague, CZ @ Meetfactory
08/28 — Darmstadt, DE @ Golden Leaves Festival
08/31 — Brighton, UK @ Chalk
09/03 — Dorset, UK @ End of the Road Festival
09/04 — Manchester, UK @ Band on the Wall
09/05 — Glasgow, UK @ Classic Grand
09/06 — Leeds, UK @ The Brudenell Social Club
09/07 — Dublin, IE @ Academy
09/28 — Sonoma, CA @ Historic Redwood Barn *
09/29 — San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore *
10/01 — Los Angeles, CA @ The Belasco *
10/03 — Tucson, AZ @ 191 Toole *
10/05 — Santa Fe, NM @ Meow Wolf *
10/10 — Oklahoma City, OK @ Beer City Music Hall *
10/11 — St. Louis, MO @ Off Broadway Nightclub *
10/12 — Bloomington, IN @ Buskirk–Chumley Theater *
10/14 — Memphis, TN @ The Bluff *
10/15 — Nashville, TN @ The Basement East *
10/16 — Atlanta, GA @ Terminal West *
10/18 — Jacksonville, FL @ Intuition Ale Works *
10/20 — Asheville, NC @ The Orange Peel *
10/21 — Durham, NC @ Motorco Music Hall *
10/22 — Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club %
10/24 — Cambridge, MA @ The Sinclair %
10/25 — Ardmore, PA @ Ardmore Music Hall %
10/26 — New York, NY @ Webster Hall %
10/28 — Toronto, ON @ Danforth Music Hall %
10/29 — Ferndale, MI @ The Magic Bag %
10/31 — Chicago, IL @ The Vic Theatre %
11/01 — Milwaukee, WI @ Turner Hall Ballroom %
11/02 — Minneapolis, MN @ Fine Line Music Cafe %
11/03 — Kansas City, MO @ Knuckleheads Saloon %
11/05 — Englewood, CO @ Gothic Theatre %
11/06 — Fort Collins, CO @ Washington’s %
11/08 — Salt Lake City, UT @ The CommonWealth Room %
11/10 — Portland, OR @ Revolution Hall %
11/11 — Seattle, WA @ Showbox %
11/12 — Vancouver, BC @ Hollywood Theatre %

* with Cassandra Jenkins
% with Coco

This Is A Photograph is out 5/13 via Dead Oceans. Pre-order it here.

(Mild spoilers for Netflix’s Bad Vegan will be found below.)

Bad Vegan brings the story of Sarma Melngailis, who enjoyed a wildly popular run (for about a decade) as a celebrity restauranteur, to life on Netflix. Is it a true story? In so much that it’s supported by law enforcement accounts, reporting at the time, and reactions from those who knew (and some who still know) Sarma, it’s supposed to be true. The limited series (from executive producer Chris Smith of Tiger King and Fyre: The Greatest Party) follows several points of view but feels as objective as possible while taking viewers on a ride that feels entirely unbelievable.

The show follows on the heels of other streaming stories about grifters, including Amanda Seyfried as Theranos’ white-collar fraudster Elizabeth Holmes in The Dropout and Julia Garner’s take on the indelible Anna Delvey in Inventing Anna. With Bad Vegan, viewers will initially wonder how Sarma fell so far from grace, after fighting her way to the top of the competitive NYC restaurant pile, and over four episodes, those details unfold.

Sarma is the founder of One Lucky Duck and Pure Food and Wine, two very popular raw vegan eateries that celebrities (including Alec Baldwin) loved to frequent. By 2016, her life was in a shambles, and the New York Post called out the “downfall of NYC’s hottest vegan” while after she earned the attorney-dubbed nickname of “the vegan Bernie Madoff.” She was so named for stiffing her employees out of a month’s pay, not once but twice, and the story wasn’t all her own.

Rather, Salma (who did, in fact, make a ton of wrong moves, no excuses there) had gotten involved with a terrible person, Anthony Strangis (who used the pseudonym of “Shane Fox”). He worked his way into her life, and although she seemed very unenthused, she married him, and before long, they were on the lam, hopping from casino to casino while she fed his compulsive gambling with money from her business. That, of course, cheated employees out of paychecks, and investors were none too happy, either. In the end, Sarma served 4 months at Rikers Island with Anthony doing time as well. She appears to have fallen into a cult-like mentality with him over promises of dog immortality and more, and the series often feels stranger than truth, but purportedly, it matches as closely to the facts as possible.

Bad Vegan will stream on March 16.

There’s a famous story, now confirmed, about how James Cameron pitched Aliens. He entered a conference room full of stuffy executives, walked to a whiteboard, and wrote the word “Alien” on it. He then added an “s” and, after waiting a dramatic beat, drew two vertical lines through the letter, turning the “s” into a dollar sign.

It’s fun to imagine All the Old Knives being pitched the same way, except instead of “Alien” becoming “Alien$,” it’s “Mr. and Mrs. Smith with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie” being crossed out in favor of “Mr. and Mrs. Smith with Chris Pine and Thandiwe Newton.” This is not a complaint: Chris Pine is the #1 Chris, and Thandiwe Newton is the best non-rock climbing reason to watch Mission: Impossible 2 (also, she called Sean Penn a “jibbering fool,” which rules). All the Old Knives is heavier on the espionage and lighter on the romance than Mr. and Mrs. Smith, but still, it’s a good formula.

Here’s the official plot synopsis:

A modern-day espionage thriller that follows Henry (Chris Pine) as he investigates Celia (Thandiwe Newton), a past flame from their days as CIA intelligence officers in Vienna, who is now under suspicion of having been a double agent. Using flashbacks to weave together multiple timelines, All the Old Knives peels back the layers of their past romance and exposes the truth behind a devastating terrorist attack they were unable to stop.

All the Old Knives, which also stars Jonathan Pryce and Laurence Fishburne (as all movies should), premieres on Amazon Prime Video on April 8.

This year marks the first time many festivals are returning since the pandemic, and that means music fans are in for a jam-packed summer. With so many lineups rolling out recently, it can be hard to figure out which bands are must-sees. Thankfully, post-hardcore band Thursday’s Geoff Rickly is joined by soul rock duo Mattiel to create the ultimate festival playlist on the tenth episode of Making A Mixtape.

Mattiel are no strangers to festivals. They’ve played a handful (including Glastonbury in 2019) and fed off the excitement of the surrounding crowd as Kurt Vile delivered his wistful tunes on a festival stage. A crowd’s energy is paramount for a great festival experience, which is why Mattiel and Rickly’s playlist is filled with tunes from bands with a die-hard audience. From 100 Gecs’ abrasive “Mememe” to Phoebe Bridgers’ swooning “I Know The End,” this mixtape is sure to get you in the mood for festival season.

Check out the tenth episode of Making A Mixtape, listen to the “Music Festival Favorites” playlist below, and check out more of Uproxx’s Making A Mixtape series here.

100 Gecs — “Mememe”
My Chemical Romance — “Helena”
Nilüfer Yanya — “Midnight Sun”
Phoebe Bridgers — “I Know The End”
Mattiel — “Keep The Change”
Modest Mouse — “Paper Thin Walls”
Paramore — “Ain’t It Fun”

Some of the artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The federal firearms case against Louisiana rapper YoungBoy Never Broke Again — NBA YoungBoy for short — has suffered a blow as a judge dismissed photographic evidence against the rapper due to questions about how it was obtained. YoungBoy’s legal team had filed a motion to suppress the evidence, an SD card containing both photos and evidence of YoungBoy brandishing firearms — which the rapper can’t do as a convicted felon. XXL magazine initially reported the development in the case via court documents seen by XXL’s reporter.

Baton Rouge police arrested YoungBoy, along with several others, after responding to a call that “a group of people was on Chippewa Street carrying firearms and filming a rap music video” in September of 2020. YoungBoy’s lawyers argued that the officer who applied for the search warrants issued for several vehicles that fled the arrest used “falsehoods” and omitted information in his applications. As the SD card and a firearm were found in an Acura belonging to YoungBoy’s cameraman behind those warrants, the judge presiding over the case granted YoungBoy’s motion to suppress the evidence on the grounds that the warrant only covered the search of the vehicles, not the camera or SD cards.

However, the judge refused the motion to dismiss the firearm itself. Authorities will have to successfully argue that YoungBoy possessed the weapon at the time of arrest without the help of the photos that allegedly prove it. That doesn’t mean the rapper is completely off the hook, though; he still faces similar charges in Los Angeles for a separate arrest in 2021. The troubled rapper’s home was also raided earlier this year.

Ahead of his upcoming double album release, Jack White has released a new collaboration with A Tribe Called Quest’s Q-Tip. On “Hi-De-Ho,” White channels Cab Calloway by way of a sample of his song “Hi-De-Ho Man.” White and Q-Tip both scat over a haunting drum beat with samples of saxophones throughout.

White heard Calloway’s original version on the radio and decided to sample it and compose a bass line for his version. White then sent his track to Q-Tip, who, within minutes, sent back a version with his vocals.

“I love synthesizing different moments, different areas of music, different time periods,” White said in an interview with Rolling Stone. “The best part about it all is everybody I played to kept thinking that Cab Calloway was me. And I thought, ‘No, it’s obviously not me. Do I actually sound like that?’ So that was bizarre. ”

“Hi-De-Ho” marks the second collaboration between Jack White and Q-Tip, the first being “Solid Wall Of Sound” from A Tribe Called Quest’s We Got It From Here…Thank You For Your Service.

White will release Fear Of The Dawn, the first of two albums he has planned for this year, in April. The second album, Entering Heaven Alive, is set for release in June. “Hi-De-Do” will be on Fear Of The Dawn‘s tracklist and another new single, “Queen Of The Bees,” will be featured on Entering Heaven Alive.

Check out “Hi-De-Ho” above and “Queen Of The Bees” below.

Fear Of The Dawn is out 4/8/2022 via Third Man Records. Pre-order it here.

Entering Heaven Alive is out 7/22/2022 via Third Man Records. Pre-order it here.