Month: July 2022

If you want something to make your heart go “squee,” look no further. This story will warm your heart and make you believe in love, and let’s face it, given how the world feels right now, we can all use a little heart warming. A couple in Hamilton, Ohio, recently celebrated 79 years of marriage. And if that milestone isn’t enough, they’re also turning 100 in July 2022. That makes for one summer full of celebration. Both TODAY and their local NBC news channel WLWT reported on the couple, whose story is too sweet for words.

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Hubert and June Malicote were both born in July 1922 in rural Kentucky, and at age 19 were both looking for jobs in Hamilton, Ohio, where they met at church.

“Miraculously the back pew was empty, so, we went in and they were all standing and right in front of us was a pew full of young girls. And, she looked around at me and smiled,” Hubert told WLWT.

The spark ignited a friendship that quickly turned to love, and the couple was married on June 8, 1943. Not long after their wedding, Hubert joined the Navy to fight in World War II. After being stationed in Honolulu, Hawaii, Hubert sent June a grass skirt so she knew where he was.

“In a few weeks, I got back a picture and I had my own Honolulu girl,” Hubert said when talking to WLWT. He also added that when he came home two years later, June was there waiting. “As the train stopped, the conductor standing beside me said ‘she’s waiting for you,'” Hubert said.

After Hubert’s time in the war, the couple settled in Hamilton and had three children. They also have seven grandchildren, and 11 great-grandchildren. Hubert worked for local company Diebold for 50 years before retiring, and June was a stay-at-home mom.

“She was a terrific stay-at-home mom,” Hubert said. “She made the girls’ dresses. She planted a big garden. She canned and preserved, and she was a good stay-at-home mom.”

When a couple has been married for so long, you have to wonder what they’re doing to make their marriage work. (Yes the Malicotes come from a time when couples rarely divorced, but that’s beside the point.) The Malicotes are still happily married, and Herbert claims they’ve “never had one quarrel.” Their 70-year-old daughter Jo told TODAY that this is true.

“We didn’t go through life without problems, but we would never do anything to hurt each other,” Hubert told TODAY.

Another important lesson he’s learned? Sometimes you need to know when to walk away from a fight and take a breather.

“If there’s controversy, you might have to walk away for a couple minutes,” Hubert explains. “Then you come back in and change the subject or you work it out.” Maybe that’s why the couple has never quarreled!

Despite not having any sort of date night routine, the couple still spend most of their time together, with Hubert explaining to TODAY that they simply enjoy each other’s company.

“We’ve never really gone out much. When the kids were younger we were happy sitting around the table sharing stories about our day,” he said.

Now, the couple enjoys their quiet routines. June has suffered from multiple strokes, which have left it hard for her to communicate. But when you’ve been married for 79 years, you don’t always need words. They have dinner together every night before sitting down to watch a movie together before bed. And they always kiss each other goodnight.

“I put Mom in her wheelchair next to where Dad is sitting and they hold hands and say goodnight to each other,” their daughter Jo told TODAY. “Then in the morning, they are so happy to see each other. They greet each other with huge smiles.”

It’s really beautiful to see a couple so in love after so many years. They told WLWT that their family is planning a joint birthday celebration, and they were the grand marshals for the Oxford Independence Day Parade in Oxford, Ohio, over Fourth of July weekend.

Cheers to love!

Two years ago, Sakhile Dube of “Safari and Surf” in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province, created a mesmerizing video where he explains and teaches the click sounds found in the languages of the Nguni people.

You may have heard these sounds before in the film “The Gods Must Be Crazy” or in “The Click Song,” made famous by singer Miriam Makeba.

Dube explained to Stray Along The Way that all four of the Nguni people, the Xhosa in the Eastern Cape, Zulu in KwaZulu-Natal province, Ndebele in Mpumalanga and Swazi in Eswatini, use click sounds in their language.

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The click sounds may seem rather different to English speakers, but according to The Week we use them as well, just as expressive sounds instead of as word pronunciations. Like when you might make a clicking sound to tell a horse to move or gesture for someone in the right direction.

These click sounds have been incorporated into the Nguni people’s languages as a way of expressing politeness.

In Nguni cultures, certain people aren’t allowed to use the names of others. So they use a phrase that describes them while incorporating clicks to replace certain sounds. This practice grew to create a broader sense of polite speech where clicks were incorporated into the language as a form of respect for people, even if they were allowed to say their names.

In the video below, Dube explains how the clicks are incorporated into speech and it’s beautiful to see how effortlessly he weaves together so many different types of sounds. Commenters on the video also noted that he has a beautiful, deep voice that would be great on the radio.

Burna Boy enlists the help of Ed Sheeran for his latest video “For My Hand.” The duo harmonizes in an elevator about how they want to dance with their lovers forever before they stand atop New York City and Burna Boy himself even becomes immersed among the clouds. The romantic record is punctuated by a dancing couple in the elevator who just can’t seem to keep their hands off of one another.

It is an exciting time for Burna Boy as the video for “For My Hand” arrives alongside his sixth studio album Love, Damini. Love was originally supposed to arrive on July 2 but was pushed back a week. Despite the delay, the music is well worth the wait as the 19-song tracklist boasts features from Khalid, Kehlani, Blxst, Popcaan, J Hus, J. Balvin, and more. The 31-year-old’s single “Last Last” is extremely popular both culturally and commercially, likely finding its way into his canon along with his previous hits “Ye” and “On The Low” in addition to his major collaborations “Location” with Dave, “Be Honest” with Jorja Smith, “Ginger” with Wizkid, and the remix to Pop Smoke’s “Enjoy Yourself.”

Listeners waited almost two years for this Burna Boy LP after the August 2020 release Twice As Tall which quickly followed his massive 2019 sensation African Giant. Needless to say, Burna Boy has been living up to the titles of his last two albums and soundtracking the summertime. It will be interesting to see how Love, Damini measures up. “For My Hand” is definitely a strong start.

Check out the “For My Hand” video above.

Love, Damini is out now via Atlantic. Listen to it here.

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

Kanye West, who wants to make it abundantly clear that he makes $8 million per performance (not a paltry $1 million), is being sued by a high-end fashion rental company for $400,000.

The lawsuit has been filed by the David Casavant Archive, a New York City based company/stylist. Along with West, the company has photos of prominent clients like Solange, Kendrick Lamar, Solange, 21 Savage, Pharrell, and Kim Kardashian on their website. According to the lawsuit acquired by the celebrity sleuths over at TMZ, Kanye rented 49 pieces of clothing in early 2020 and returned 36 of them shortly thereafter. He’s been hanging on to the remaining 13 ever since, (without paying the weekly rental fees) which include pieces from designers like Helmut Lang, Raf Simons and Ann Demeulemeester.

Among the items in question, there is a $50,000 parka. David Casavant Archive is looking to recoup $221,000 for more than two years of unpaid rental fees, as well as the overall $195,000 value of the items. Kanye is no stranger to lawsuits, and in fact just last week, he was sued over a sample on “Flowers” from Donda 2. And look, I’m no math major, but that $401,000 (to be exact) that the fashion rental company is seeking, is merely 5% of what Ye would make for a single performance. So if he indeed still has these items, forking over the dough and keeping the swag might just make things easier for everybody, eh?

“Movies are special effects.”

That’s how George Lucas opens the trailer for Disney+’s new docuseries celebrating the rebellious, ingenious crew at Industrial Light and Magic. But even though the heavy hitters lead off, Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Ron Howard eventually give way to the engineers themselves, sharing their stories about making things up as they went along. There may be some tough tales along the way, but this trailer is a dose of pure cinematic joy, showcasing the amazing imagery of distant planets, giant cereal, and liquid robots from the future pretending to be police officers.

Bringing his own reverence to the legacy and craft, the 6-part series is directed by Jake Kasdan. Light & Magic looks to make an excellent addition to the incipient pantheon of talking head explorations of movies past like One Perfect Shot and The Movies That Made Us. If there’s something setting it apart, it’s the access to the behind-the-scenes material that will put us in the wildly creative minds of the people who crafted impossible things merely because they didn’t know they weren’t possible.

Sure, it makes sense to include Indiana Jones and Boba Fett and Terminators in the trailer, but ILM made over 350 movies in almost half a century, so it’ll be even cooler to see the back catalog of nostalgia bombs that blew our minds without necessarily making the hall of fame. Hopefully Light & Magic shows off the nooks and crannies alongside the blockbusters because there’s a ton of strange stuff there to celebrate. It hits Disney+ July 27th.

Summer is in full swing and it feels like there’s a different music festival every weekend. One highly anticipated event is the return of Northern Nights, in California’s iconic redwood forest. From July 15 through July 17, thousands of electronic music fans, party goers, and cannabis aficionados will gather at the Cook’s Valley Campground in Piercy, California, on the Humboldt and Mendocino County border.

This year, Northern Nights will become the first music festival to have multiple on-site dispensaries, as well as dispensaries located at stages. There will be stage takeovers from top cannabis brands — including the Mendocino Tree Lounge Hashery, the Humboldt Tree Lounge Farmer’s Market, and the Eel River Dab-Grab-N-Go — allowing guests to easily purchase cannabis products while staying immersed in the music and crowd.

The performers are sure to put on a non-stop party too. The lineup features Claude VonStroke, TroyBoi, SNBRN, CloZeeTwo Feet, Of The Trees, Balkan Bump, Smoakland, Modern Biology, and more. Among the weekend’s artists is up-and-coming queer rapper, producer, and DJ Wreckno. Committed to creating a safe space for LGBTQ+ people in EDM, Wreckno is making their Northern Nights debut shortly after releasing their third independently released four-track EP, The Fantasy, on June 29th.

To help get festival-goers prepared for the most weed-focused music event of summer, Wreckno is sharing their top five must-pack essentials for Northern Nights.

ALSO READ:

• Celebrate The First Day Of Summer With These Chaotic Photos From Splash House In Palm Springs
• Austin Millz Shares His Festival Camping Guide — Just In Time For Lightning In A Bottle
• The Style At The All Day I Dream Festival Will Inspire Your Summer Festival Fashion
• Zach Hood’s Guide To Gulf Shores, Alabama — Just In Time For Hangout Music Festival
• DJ/ Producer SOHMI Shares Her Guide To A Few Days In LA Before You Head To Coachella

Tie-Dye Medusa Astro Hippie Weed

If I’m attending a music festival in a legal state, I absolutely can’t leave home without that Tie-Dye Medusa weed from GRiZ’s weed brand Astro Hippie! To have a strain named after a song I’m part of is bananas to me! So I always have to have some on deck for late-night roll-up sessions.

External Phone Battery

An external battery is a must must MUST! I can’t text “HEY MEET AT THE FERRIS WHEEL ACROSS FROM THE GIANT UNICORN” out to my whole group when my phone is dead! Also, it does double duty when it charges my THC vape pen for those late-night adventures.

Oversized 2000s Sunglasses

Listen, sometimes it’s REALLY BRIGHT OUT. And other times, my eyes are REALLY RED. Oversized 2000s sunglasses really help in all eye-related situations, while also giving Paris & Nicole vibes.

Yerba Mate Tea

Now you KNOW! I need a pick-me-up after partaking in some cannabis extracurricular activities. Yerba Mate is without a doubt my favorite energy drink to have on deck at a fest. Orange Exuberance and Lemon Elation forever! Double points for hydrating that dry mouth.

Oversized Comfy Sweater

Last but not least, you know you have to have a comfy oversized sweater for late night and early morning shenanigans! I can’t fully get down to the sunrise set if I have to shiver in between every dance move. The key to superior cannabis consumption is to keep it cozy and fun. It’s always smart to have your comfy sweater on deck.

Joe Rogan, dressed in full colonial regalia for reasons that probably make sense with context, railed against the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, which the podcaster cited as a move to “enslave people.” It was yet another issue where Rogan deviated from conservatives, who have been celebrating the decision. For his part, Rogan doesn’t agree with forcing rape victims to carry babies to term nor denying women medical treatment when it’s clear a pregnancy has gone heart-wrenchingly south.

“This f*cking Roe versus Wade thing freaks me out. For so many reasons, first of all, because how many women need to get abortions because of the health of the child?” Rogan said. “How many people need to get abortions? Because their child was raped?”

However, despite making salient points about Christian conservatives ignoring the realities of the situation like the health of the mother or cases of rape and incest, Rogan couldn’t help but tie things back to the pandemic. Via Mediaite:

“Rights that we never thought we were gonna lose,” Rogan said. “Like there’s certain ways that we looked at the world. We’re like, ‘Well, we’ve passed that the government’s control over us is not nearly what it was in the eighties or the nineties. We’ve moved past that.’ And then all of a sudden, especially during the pandemic, it’s almost like while you were sleeping, they’re just like gaining ground.”

Obviously, the pandemic and the overturning of abortion rights are two completely separate issues. Republicans have been working for decades to overturn Roe v. Wade and Donald Trump installed two conservative Supreme Court justices before COVID-19 was even a thing. Fortunately, Rogan moved away from mentioning the pandemic as an underlying cause and went back to slamming SCOTUS.

“Like to say to those people that we get to decide what you do with your body. That’s where shit gets really f*cking squirrely,” Rogan said.

(Via Mediaite)

Tessa Thompson is one of the best celebrities we have right now. The actor, currently promoting Thor: Love & Thunder in which she plays Valkyrie (she truly deserves the Marvel money), has been making the rounds in the press leading up to its release on Friday, July 8.

In an interview on Variety’s “Just For Variety” podcast, Thompson, who came out as bisexual in 2018, said that fans tell her that she inspired them to come out. “I’ve had so many folks write me and say that they were able to come out or to talk to their family, which is a dream,” Thompson said.

During the interview, Thompson also pushed back on a need for her queer MCU character Valkyrie to have a romantic interest. “I think a part of really being able to normalize queer characters, LBGTQIA characters, is to allow them to exist in their humanity and that doesn’t always mean that they’re in love or in a partnership because plenty of us know that sometimes you’re not,” she said. “So, yeah, we’ll see if she finds love.”

But this isn’t all of the Tessa Thompson news. On Thursday, First We Feast released a Tessa Thompson episode of Hot Ones on YouTube. Thompson describes one of the tamer hot sauces as “kinky” and goes on to take the hot sauces like a champ, until water starts coming out of her face in the home stretch. “That really cleared my sinuses,” she said of one of the hottest sauces. After consuming one of the titular hot ones, Thompson makes it worse by licking her napkin.

Long before there was a Ben Affleck or Robert Pattinson suit, there was: The George Clooney Batsuit. The iconic costume not only starred in one of the most critically panned of all the Batman movies…but it also features nipples built into the suit. Does this sound appealing to you? Do you happen to have around $40k you’ve been itching to use? Well here is the good news: that suit can soon be yours!

Heritage Auctions has listed the official suit, with bidding starting at $40k, but it’s worth millions more due to the fact that Clooney’s germs are still in there somewhere. Clooney infamously wore the suit in Batman & Robin, the final installment in Tim Burton’s Batman franchise, though Burton was not involved in this one at all (and you can tell).

Here is the stunning description:

Original screen worn superhero costume display constructed of cast foam latex, vinyl, resin components, leather, and other mixed media elements. All expertly painted, finished, and assembled on a life-size poseable mannequin with hyper-realistic George Clooney head with prosthetic grade false eyes. Costume pieces include hero signature cowl, full length superhero cape with 2-cape clips, muscle tunic with signature “Batman” icon on the chest, muscled tights, peaked and finned gauntlet gloves, and knee-high character boots. The cowl and cape are both marked “GC” for George Clooney and originally came from the Warner Bros. Archives.

Signature cowl! Hyper-realistic Clooney head! Mixed-media elements! What more could you ask for?

Not only is the BatSuit up for auction, but a collection of other various Batman items are also listed, including Jack Nicholson’s Joker costume starting at a reasonable $65K, and Jim Carrey’s Riddler cane from Batman Forever. Those don’t feature the Clooney nipples, though, so what’s the point?

(Via GQ)

Donald Trump may have removed himself from the board of Truth Social just a few weeks before the Securities and Exchange Commission and a grand jury slapped the social media platform with federal subpoenas. According to a new report, Trump, as well as five other members with ties to his former administration, exited the board ahead of what reportedly appears to be a pending criminal investigation.

The Sarasota Herald-Tribune, who broke the news, reports that state business records show Trump and the board members were removed on June 8. The SEC subpoena hit on June 27 followed by the Manhattan grand jury subpoena on July 1:

The investigations appear to be related to a proposed merger between Trump’s media company and a blank-check company called Digital World Acquisitions Corp., according to a recent regulatory filing.

Digital World is a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. Companies such as these raise money to go public with the intent of finding a company to merge with. SPACs are prohibited from finding a partner before going public, but the SEC is investigating potential talks between the two companies that were possibly premature, according to a filing.

Following the Herald-Tribune‘s report, Truth Social fired off a statement denying claims that Trump is no longer on the board.

“Contrary to an ‘exclusive’ fake news story filed by a reporter who is incapable of understanding state business records, Donald Trump remains on the board of Trump Media and Technology Group,” Truth Social wrote in whatever Truth Social is calling its posts. (Truthies? Troots?) “In fact, the reporter acknowledges that Trump’s title is ‘chairman,’ but apparently has no clue what a chairman presides over. Hopefully this helps clarify things.”

(Via Sarasota Herald-Tribune)