Year: 2022

If we looked 60 years into the past, there are a lot of things that were accepted as “normal” that today most people find abhorrent. For example, people used to smoke cigarettes everywhere. They’d light up in hospitals, schools and even churches.

People also used to litter like crazy. It’s socially unacceptable now, but if you lived in the ’70s and finished your meal at McDonald’s, you’d chuck your empty styrofoam container (remember those?) and soda cup right out of the window of your car and onto the street.

It’s hard to imagine that just 60 years ago spousal abuse was considered family business and wasn’t the concern of law enforcement.

It makes me wonder when people in the future look back on the year 2022, which things will they see as barbaric? Almost certainly, the way we treat the animals we use for food will be seen as cruel. The racial divides in the criminal justice system will be seen as a moral abomination. And I’m sure that people will also look at our continued reliance on fossil fuels as a major mistake.

A Reddit user by the name u/MEMELORD_JESUS asked the AskReddit subforum “What’s the weirdest thing society accepts as normal?” and the responses exposed a lot of today’s practices that are worth questioning.

A lot of the responses revolved around American work ethic and how we are taught to live to work and not to work to live. We seem to always be chasing some magical reward that’s just around the corner instead of enjoying our everyday lives. “I’ll get to that when I retire,” we say and then don’t have the energy or the inclination to do so when the time comes.

There are also a lot of people who think that our healthcare system will be looked at with utter confusion by people in the future.

Here are 17 of the best responses to the question, “What’s the weirdest thing society accepts as normal?”

1. Work-life balance

“Working until you’re old, greying, and broken then using whatever time you have left for all the things you wish you could have done when you were younger.” — Excited_Avocado_8492

2. Rest in comfort

“That dead people need pillows in caskets.” — Qfn4g02016

3. I.R.S. mystery

“Guessing how much you owe the IRS in taxes.” — SheWentThruMyPhone

4. You get the leaders you deserve

“Politicians blatantly lying to the people. We accept it so readily, it’s as though it’s supposed to be that way.” — BlackLetyterLies

5. The booze-drugs separation

“Alcohol is so normalized but drugs are not. It’s so weird. I say this as an alcohol loving Belgian, beer is half of our culture and I’m proud of it too but like… that’s fucking weird man.” — onions_cutting_ninja

6. Stage-parent syndrome

“People having kids and trying to live their lives again through them, vicariously, forcing the kids to do things that the parents never got to do, even when the kids show no inclination, and even have an active dislike, for those things.” — macaronsforeveryone

7. Priorities

“Living to work vs working to live.” — Food-at-last

8. ‘The Man’ is everywhere

“Being on camera or recorded any time you are in public.” — Existing-barely

9. Tragic positivity 

“‘Feel-good’ news stories about how a kid makes a lemonade stand or something to pay for her mom’s cancer treatment because no one can afford healthcare in America.” — GotaLuvit35

10. Credit score

“As a non-American, I am amazed at their credit score system. As a third-world citizen, credit cards are usually for rich (and slightly less rich) people who have more disposable money than the rest of us and could pay off their debt.

The way I see people on Reddit talk about it is strange and somewhat scary. Everyone should have a card of his own as soon as he becomes an adult, you should always buy things with it and pay back to actively build your score. You’re basically doomed if you don’t have a good score, and living your life peacefully without a card is not an option, and lastly, you’ll be seen as an idiot if you know nothing about it.” — BizarroCullen

11. The retirement trap

“Spending 5/7ths of your life waiting for 2/7ths of it to come. We hate like 70% of our life, how is that considered fine?” — Deltext3rity

12. Yes, yes and yes

“Child beauty pageants.” — throwa_way682

13. That’s not justice

“The rape of male prisoners. It’s almost considered a part of the sentence. People love to joke about it all the time.” — visicircle

14. Customers aren’t employers

“Tipping culture in the US. Everyone thinks that it’s totally OK for employers not to pay the employees, and the customers are expected to pay extra to pay the employees wages. I don’t understand it.” — Lysdexiic

15. Staring at your phone

“Having smartphones in our faces all day. This shit isn’t normal…imma do it anyway…but it is not normal.” — Off_Brand_Barbie_OBB

16. Homework on weekends

“Students being assigned homework over weekends and only having a two-day weekend. The whole point of a weekend is to take a break from life, and then you have one day to recover from sleep deprivation then one day to relax which you can’t because of thinking about the next day being Monday. And the two days still having work to do anyways.” — MrPers0n3O

17. Kids on social media

“Children/young teens posting on social media sites. I’m not necessarily talking about posting on a private Instagram followed by friends, I’m talking about when kids post on tiktok publicly without parental consent.” — thottxy

For many people, meeting someone new is an uncomfortable proposition. Even if we want to make new friends, getting to know people from scratch can be hard. It feels like there are all kinds of unwritten social “rules” that make meeting people awkward. Are there certain things you shouldn’t share or ask about when you first meet someone? When do you move from small talk to something more meaningful? Will people think you’re weird if you tell them how you’re really feeling instead of the standard “fine”?

The die-hard social butterflies among us may wonder what all the fuss is about, but many of us share the sentiment my fellow writer Jacalyn Wetzel described so eloquently: “Meeting people makes my armpits spicy.”

If meeting people makes your armpits spicy, here’s some behavioral science research that might help.

In a series of a dozen experiments, researchers from the University of Texas at Austin, Northwestern University and the University of Chicago analyzed people’s feelings about chatting with strangers, and what they found was eye-opening.

Most of us, apparently, underestimate how much we’re going to enjoy talking to strangers. How about that? And we especially underestimate how much we’re going to enjoy having more meaningful, substantive conversations with people we’ve just met. We tend to be overly pessimistic about how those conversations are going to go.

“Because of these mistaken beliefs,” the authors, Amit Kumar, Michael Kardas and Nicholas Epley, wrote on The Conversation, “it seems as though people reach out and connect with others less often and in less meaningful ways than they probably should.”

The experiments the researchers conducted were designed to test the hypothesis that conversations with strangers can be surprisingly satisfying. The researchers asked people to write down topics they’d normally talk with new people about, such as the weather, and then to write down questions that were of a deeper, more intimate nature. They also asked people to anticipate how they were going to feel after discussing decidedly non-small-talky topics such as “What are you most grateful for in your life?” and “When is the last time you cried in front of another person?” versus typical small talk.

Participants were particularly off base about how uncomfortable the more meaningful conversations were going to be and underestimated how much they were going to like having those conversations with strangers.

“These mistaken beliefs matter because they can create a barrier to human connection,” the authors wrote. “If you mistakenly think a substantive conversation will feel uncomfortable, you’re going to probably avoid it. And then you might never realize that your expectations are off the mark.”

The researchers said their findings were “strikingly consistent,” even across different demographic groups, both in person and over Zoom. “Whether you’re an extrovert or an introvert, a man or a woman, you’re likely to underestimate how good you’ll feel after having a deep conversation with a stranger,” they wrote.

Participants told the researchers they wish they could have deeper conversations more often in their everyday lives, but the experiments also showed that people underestimate how much strangers are actually interested in them. As it turns out, we’re quite curious about one another and actually do care about one another’s feelings and thoughts. Again, what we think a conversation is going to be like isn’t what they generally are in reality.

So here we are, wanting to have more meaningful conversations, yet overestimating how uncomfortable and underestimating how interesting and enjoyable they’re going to be. Our fears are holding us back from connecting with one another, which is kind of a bummer.

Perhaps we can use this research to try some experimenting of our own, reaching out to people around us to talk about more than the weather. Ditch the small talk, ask people substantive questions about their lives, keep it real and see what happens. We may find ourselves becoming more social as we get to know people on another level—and maybe, hopefully, experience a little less spiciness in our armpits. ​

When people enter the court system, as a plaintiff or a defendant or a witness, there is often a lot of stress involved. The process of going through the justice system itself is stressful, but the circumstances that bring people to court are often marked by tragedy or trauma of some sort as well. There is a clear need for mental and emotional support, especially for kids, in the courtroom.

Thankfully, society has figured out that animals can be a helpful source of stress relief and comfort and the idea of animals in spaces like a courtroom is being embraced more and more.

Though another county has an unofficial support dog, Aroostook County will be the first county in Maine to have an official therapy dog onsite at the courthouse, according to Bangor Daily News. That dog is a yellow Labrador retriever puppy named Holiday, who is currently in training to work with people who have been through traumatic experiences.

Holiday was donated by local breeder Karley Allen, who told the Daily News that part of her mission is to donate puppies for therapy and service work. “I believe wholeheartedly in the power of a dog,” she said. “They are truly heart healers that give endless love and can give so much back to our communities when placed in these roles.”

It will take two years—208 hours of training—for Holiday to learn all she needs to know for her important job, including learning to be still and silent in the courtroom, walking and sitting on command and staying seated in one spot for an extended period of time. She’ll also be trained to go with the district attorney on investigations to help people who have been hurt or traumatized.

Aroostook County, Maine to have dedicated courthouse therapy dog https://bit.ly/3IWUtEwu00a0pic.twitter.com/OS3VR70dPE

— KAKE News (@KAKE News)
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Holiday actually lives with Aroostook County District Attorney Todd Collins, and both he and Holiday are being trained so that she will be able to follow his commands.

Collins told Bangor Daily News that his goal is to help survivors and witnesses who are reliving traumatic events in the courtroom relieve some of the stress and psychological damage they may experience.

“Courthouse facility dogs can provide a sense of normalcy during juvenile and family court proceedings, and can accompany vulnerable crime victims, including children, rape victims, developmentally delayed adults and the elderly during investigations and court proceedings,” Collins said. “They can also provide emotional comfort to family members during the trial and sentencing of the offender.

“A courthouse dog can provide emotional support for everyone,” he said.

The use of courthouse facility dogs like Holiday has increased greatly in recent years. Superior Court Judge Jeanette Dalton of Kitsap County, Washington, told PEW that the yellow lab that has been deployed in her courtroom numerous times has helped child witnesses who have been abused have an easier time testifying.

“Sometimes they need the leash in their hand. Sometimes they need the dog touching their feet. Sometimes they just need to see the dog,” she said.

Some concerns have been raised that having a dog with a child on a witness stand may sway a jury by making a child appear more sympathetic or more credible. But Dalton says she’s seen how the dogs can actually help witnesses stay calm, which can create a less intense emotional situation for both the children who take the stand and the jurors.

“I’ve seen jurors visibly impacted by kids so stressed on the witness stand that they start crying or shut down. Jurors look like they want to leap over the jury box and cuddle that kid,” Dalton said. “So having the dog there helps everybody on both sides.”

Collins also pointed out that it’s not just witnesses, plaintiffs or defendants who experience trauma in the criminal justice system. First responders, people who work with victims, detectives who are exposed to violent scenes or images and others whose work puts them in close, constant contact with human trauma also need emotional support. Having an animal trained for such purposes around can truly benefit everyone.

Watch trainer Tyler Jones working with Holiday as she starts her training. Such a good girl.

“It’s not going to be boring.” That’s Bomani Jones‘ answer to my question about what his new late-night show, Game Theory (which debuts on HBO this Sunday) is not going to be before adding how it also won’t be a debate show, won’t be exclusively about the cross-section of economics and sports, and won’t be like anything he has done before on television. What the sportswriter turned star in ESPN’s constellation, podcaster, and contributor on HBO’s Back On The Record With Bob Costas has planned is a full execution of his creative vision with interviews (in-studio and remote), pre-recorded deep dives, and the potential to create field pieces. It’s a kind of freedom he says he’s only really had with his podcasts, one bolstered by ample resources and a team of writers and producers.

While having the keys to the kingdom and being empowered to do your show your way might kick up a bit of anxiety in some, Jones tells us fear isn’t on his mind as we discuss the show, the illegitimacy of right-wing beefs against him, social media’s impact on sport, and why the NBA might be the league most disconnected from its fans.

You talk about bringing your own vision to the screen, which is exciting. But what’s the level of fear or vulnerability in doing that?

None. I can’t think of what there is to be afraid of. The only thing there is to be afraid of is that people might not like the television show and that’s just really not the worst thing in the world for me. I’ve been on a TV show that got canceled. Most people I know who’ve done television have been on TV shows that have got canceled. That happens. So for me, the vision that I’m putting out is really a culmination of all the stuff that I’ve been doing for 20 years in this business. I have affirmed over time that I am at my best when I’m leaning in on what I find to be interesting and leaning into things from my perspective, rather than me trying to figure out how to fit that perspective in something else that somebody else is doing, which is by and large, what I’ve done on television for most of my TV career.

I feel very good about what this is going to be. And if the audience doesn’t accept it in the same way that I would like them to accept it, that is their option. So what we’ve got to do is we’ve got to make a television show that we can be proud of and that the people that I respect will view and then ultimately view with some measure of respect. But that other stuff is so far beyond my control. If the audience doesn’t accept this show in the way that I would think that this show should be accepted, I’ll learn from it. I’ll keep it going. But I’m not built to view that as any reflection of myself as a person. It may be a reflection of me as a professional, but that’s only a part of me.

From what I’ve read this is very much taking a look at sports through the lens of economics. How do you make it so… not necessarily that an audience gets it, but that they feel it?

The way I’ve been doing it forever, to be perfectly honest. I think the emphasis on economics is a little bit overstated. If we had named the show something else, people would be a little bit less inclined to view it through that lens. Game Theory is just a cool name given that it’s sports and given that it has a connection to my background. But I’ve always said that you do some graduate study in economics, it’s like going to law school. It becomes part of who you are and just part of the way that you view the world. It’s an indoctrination process as much as anything else. So everything that I’ve done has been from that standpoint.

We’re not going to have every week, like this week in sports business. It’s not going to be that sort of thing. But when we talk about a lot of this stuff, the perspective is going to be informed by those understandings. And we’ll be able to get, I think, deeper into some of those issues than a lot of people will, but I know how to talk about that stuff in English. I used to have to teach it to college freshmen. That’s a great test for you is talking to college freshmen about economics, which tends to scare them to death off the top and get them to realize that they see all the stuff around them already, they just use different terms. And all they’re doing when they get to their economics classes is applying the jargon. And so I’m just going to talk to people about this stuff in English. And I’ve never had any problem getting them to understand those ideas in any other setting. And I don’t think this one would be any different.

You’ve had some instances where you’ve been pulled into conservative media tweets and stuff like that. How does one get used to just having to deal with crap on social media and stuff like that when you’re trying to just do your job and say your thing?

So I got on Twitter I want to say in 2009, and I was doing local radio and then I went from there to doing satellite radio. And then after that, I started doing Around the Horn. And I immediately was able to recognize how different the responses were just because you were on television. I wasn’t saying anything terribly different than I was saying at these smaller outlets. I noticed it also from doing radio, like crazy emails I would get from people before the social media thing became the issue. And I just became ultimately fascinated by the mentality that people had where they just, you are an avatar to them. You’re not an actual person. And they just purge whatever their anger is and all this stuff towards you when people started coming up with the fake accounts and all that. And I was just like, “Wow, this is strange, bizarre, anti-social behavior. I wonder where all that comes from?”

And so as I did more and more television, I realized that for more and more people, it wasn’t even about who I was. It was about something that I just represented to them. The other part of it was I was really good at turning their nonsense around and making it humorous for me and the people who follow me. Then one day I looked up and I realized most of those people weren’t even actually people. It’s bots, it’s trolls, it’s all these different things. And that’s when I started backing away from it because I realized these people aren’t actually people. So when the conservative news people take my stuff and try to make something of it, it never turns into anything or it very rarely does. I see all the times that people would harbor something that I had said, and then it sits there on their site and it doesn’t have any comments and it doesn’t seem to have any traction.

That stuff gets out there and people get charged up. But I don’t even know how many people actually read it. And so for me, it’s not difficult when it’s somebody that I firmly believe is just trying to use me because I represent something they believe to their audience. It’s not like they’re coming at me out of any measure of respect. And then I look and I realize they don’t have that many people that follow them and actually care about what they say either. And so they can go ahead and say it. It only turns into a thing if I say something about it. If I just leave it alone, it’ll die. And so now it’s just easy for me to leave it alone because I know it’s not personal. I know it has absolutely nothing to do with anything I’ve actually said. They just figured somebody who looks like me with the name that I have and the way that I present things, that’ll be somebody that can charge up their audience. What I know about a lot of their audience is they’re out there in front of each other saying how much they hate me and then they sneak in and listen to me when ain’t nobody around.

Is social media, in your opinion, a net positive for sports and sports personalities, be it people in the media or be it LeBron and athletes trying to grow their own brands?

No, it’s a net negative for just about everybody at this point. Now I do think… and I want to be clear because I think I’m speaking from a position of privilege being able to say that because people know who I am now. I definitely used social media to make a name for myself. I definitely introduced myself to a whole lot of people via Twitter. A lot of my career has come because of some of the things that I did and the ways that I got people to pay attention to me on Twitter. So I don’t want to pretend as though there hasn’t been a point where you could get something out of it. But I look at it for the athletes, the idea, hey, your fans want engagement. I’m sure they do. I just don’t know if they necessarily need it. I still think that there’s a value for people who are as famous as they are to scarcity. This idea that you’ve got to give them a glimpse into what your life is. I’m not sure that you have to do that. I’m not sure how much…

For LeBron James at this point, I can’t imagine he would lose a single thing if he never got on Twitter or Instagram again. I just don’t see how. What would happen? Are we going to forget who LeBron James is? No, we’re pretty locked in on that one.

Yeah. I think it’s this myth that we just feel like we constantly have to feed it. People just feel like they need to constantly comment on everything, and like you said, give that much access where like you’re saying, if it’s somebody at that level, it’s not really needed.

Yeah. I used to think that, and I wasn’t totally wrong. I had become a brand as someone who had opinions on stuff. And so when stuff came out, I was going to give you an opinion and it was a broad range of things. Because some people come to me for sports. Some people will come to me for music. Some people come to me for the world. And the next thing you know, you’re out here and you just have an opinion on everything. But what happens when you do that is it really stands out when you don’t say something about a thing. And they’re like, “Oh, so you said something about da da da. You can’t say nothing about this?” And you start feeling obligated to have something on everything for that reason. And ain’t no fun in that. And I don’t even necessarily know how much it helps.

At least for me, I’ve reached a point where it’s I just don’t need to do this anymore. Maybe if you’re younger and you can figure out how to make a name like that, you can do it and you can get something out of it. But yeah, I think at first, one of the charms of social media was that famous people acted like regular people. So you got access to rather than seeing the brand of somebody, you felt like you got a glimpse into who that person actually was. But then what happened on the back end was regular people started acting like brands. Everybody’s Instagram page is like their own magazine. Everybody’s Twitter feed is like their own newsletter. And you think about it, you’ve got 5,000 followers on Twitter. You have 5,000 people who care about what you think. That’s a pretty big number when you stop and think about it. And so I feel like everybody then buys into it. “Hey, my audience,” because everybody has an audience now. And everybody feels like they’re serving their audience. And part of serving your audience as a brand is, it’s Veterans Day, you’ve got to say Happy Veteran’s Day because that’s what a brand does.

Fom a fan perspective, which sport do you think has the hardest time right now connecting with its audience? Which sport is losing its audience?

I’m starting to wonder if it’s the NBA, to be honest. I think that people are more connected to NBA players than they ever were, but they feel more disconnected from NBA basketball than they’ve ever been. And I can’t really understand it because there are so many incredible players right now. And there are really so many interesting storylines and the NBA got what it wanted, which is some legitimate parity where we’re going into the finals and nobody’s really sure who’s going to win. Nobody has a great answer for those things. But there’s an excitement around the NBA that used to exist that I don’t really feel like is there anymore. It’s just weird.

Are players too good at creating their own brands and islands? There are so many players who have their own off-the-court interests and are outspoken and bring a lot of attention to issues. Not that that’s a problem, but in terms of what you’re saying with the league, is that a problem that so many players are a country unto themselves?

Yeah. I don’t think it helps. And I don’t blame those guys for doing that. This isn’t a judgment. But looking at how it affects the larger product, no, I don’t think that helps. I do think that people prefer it if they could associate players with teams rather than the idea the guys are going to bounce around in the ways that they have. I do think that people would rather somebody stick around somewhere 8, 9, 10 years and build a relationship and then go from there. They like teams that they can get attached to in those ways. And I get why guys handle business the way they do now. But I don’t know if that’s better for the larger product.

Is the moral compass of certain things overstated in sports? Obviously, there are athletes that have run into various off field problems. There are leagues like Major League Baseball, which pays minor league baseball players pennies on the dollar, which is really morally reprehensible. Is it overstated the impact of that on fans and their interest in these sports?

I think that there is a general societal… Best way to put it. Basically, we as a society are losing faith in all institutions. Trust is at as low a level as I can think of it ever having been before. And so it’s hard to be disappointed in something you never believed in in the first place. And I just don’t think that very many people in American society right now believe in very much. What does it take for something to be a scandal in 2022? That applies to sports, that applies everywhere else. I was thinking about it the other day, the first scandal that I remember as a child was Iran-Contra. Can you imagine trying to make a news story out of Iran-Contra right now? Could you get anybody’s attention to care enough about that? Or have anybody say anything other than, “Well, what else do you expect from them?”

‘Game Theory’ premieres on HBO Sunday, March 13th at 11:30PM ET

On Thursday night, Reggie Miller was in Philadelphia to call the highly-anticipated showdown between the Sixers and Nets on TNT, where he watched James Harden pass him for third all-time in three-pointers made as the Nets routed the Sixers on the road.

Next week, he’ll be off to one of the NCAA Tournament first round sites for CBS and Turner Sports’ coverage of March Madness as his attention shifts from the NBA to the college game for two weeks, calling games along side Kevin Harlan, Dan Bonner, and Dana Jacobson. It’s the culmination of a months long multi-tasking process for Miller, as he starts to split his focus between NBA and NCAA hoops in January so he’s ready to dive headfirst into his assignment once he finds out where he’s headed on Selection Sunday.

Along with his presence on game broadcasts, Miller will also frequent appear as the star of Wendy’s March Madness campaign, and earlier this week, we got to talk with Miller on behalf of Wendy’s. The Hall of Fame inductee talked about his shift in assignment and preparation for the Tournament, the teams he’s most excited to see, the fun he had shooting this year’s Wendy’s commercials, and why he feels it’s important to support and uplift the next generation of basketball players rather than being “bitter or a hater” like some stars of the past become.

First off I gotta ask, does Cheryl even answer the phone from you after UCLA beats USC?

[laughs] No, she does not. In very much the same vein, I would not answer my phone from her if USC beat my beloved Bruins. Look, we’ve had this rivalry going on for years between her and I, and I tell people all the time I am partial and do have a little bit of Trojan blood rolling through my veins because of Cheryl D. And she’s very much the same way, but when we go head-to-head we more so trash talk not so much in basketball, but it’s the football games we trash talk more so in. You know, they only play one another once a year. So that’s kind of when we trash talk more than the basketball game.

Okay, okay. Because obviously y’all got it done on Saturday.

Yes, we did.

It’s conference tournament week across the country — some teams are finishing up and others are just starting. As a player, what are your favorite memories of the conference tournament? Because I think we all focus on the NCAA, but for so many teams the conference tournament is the main goal of the season, right? You want to win the conference because that’s what punches your ticket to the Big Dance.

You’re absolutely right. And there’s two objectives, really, for these college teams. You want to be playing well late, which as you just mentioned, leads into conference play. Number two, to win your conference tournament gives you that automatic bid. But even getting to the championship game almost can kind of punch your ticket as well, unless you’re one of those underdog teams that have a sub .500 record and you absolutely need to win that conference tournament.

But I think even getting to the championship game puts all eyes on you. I only played in one conference tournament — it was the Pac-10 then, the Pac-12’s first (conference tournament). But it’s a chance to have rubber match games because you may have split your games against a conference rival, and you get a chance to settle the score in a conference tournament, which is kind of cool. Or get pay back if you lost both games, trying to salvage a win against a particular team. So I think that’s why conference tournament games are so important because it gives the team a little bit of a boost of confidence hopefully leading into the tournament.

For you, how do you navigate this month? Because obviously you’re shifting gears from NBA to tournament time. How do you go about the process of changing your approach and making sure you’re keeping an eye on both things?

Well, that’s the key there. If you’re a basketball junkie, it’s pretty easy, which I am. So you’ve got to watch a lot of games. I do a ton of reading because obviously there’s more colleges. There’s 300+ colleges, so you’ve got to do your research and your reading. But the cool thing about it is because of technology, every game can be seen at some point. So if you are a basketball junkie, whether it’s the high school, college, or the professional range, you have eyes on it already. But I think come middle of January, for me, I start to shift a little bit in terms of watching more college stuff. Because for the pros, you pretty much know that like the back of your hand. Thirty teams, you know all the players, and you’ve been doing it for so long.

But starting in January, I start to shift my focus a little bit towards the colleges. And personally for myself, I call the games a little bit different because this is a Cinderella moment for a lot of the team come tournament time — especially the lesser known teams, so I want to make it special for them. For Kevin Harlan, Dan Bonner, and myself, for us to be calling their games, I want them to be like, “That was kind of cool how, Reggie Miller said my name this way or he talked about me this way.” I think in the professional ranks, we’re a little bit more critical because these guys are making big money and it’s a big business. And so is the NCAA, but the kids aren’t seeing any of this money, the institutions are. So I try to be less critical and speak more x’s and o’s and try to uplift the kids a little bit more and make it fun for them. Because I want them to have a Cinderella experience if our crew is calling their game.

Yeah, and I think the having fun part of that is something that is important to you and you can tell on your call for NBA and NCAA. I mean, if you’re in the basketball gym, you seem like you’re having fun, right? That for you is your happy place, and it is something I think is appreciated as a viewer that you are happy to be there, and it comes across on the broadcast.

Well, I want people to understand at the end of the day this is a game. It’s a game that we all love and enjoy, that we’ve all sweated and put a lot of time in, and I want fans and people at home to be appreciative of the young men and women that have sacrificed to try to reach the highest level: Winning an NCAA Tournament and hopefully eventually going pro in the WNBA or the NBA. This is a lifelong dream. So, I do want to have fun when I’m calling games because I’ve got the best seat in the house, center court where I can see everything and hear everything. And I want to pull back the veil a little bit and let the viewers see and experience what I’ve experienced. And that’s I think the cool part about it.

Absolutely. And going along with that it seems like, when you’re picking out opportunities and things to do off the court, like with this Wendy’s campaign, it seems like a thing that you have a lot of fun with. How did you come to this partnership and why is this something that you wanted to continue now for a third year?

Well we started in 2020, and the first year we had such a blast. I knew in this third year that Wendy’s and the producers were so happy with the first two, they were going to kind of allow us — when I say us meaning the actors — they had a script. But they were like, “We are not going to stick to the script. We want you guys to kind of wing it.” All of our eyes went kind of like, really? This is cool. More improv, and to date, I think this is arguably been the most fun I’ve had on a commercial shoot probably ever. The men and women I’ve worked with, the actors, the comedic timing was fantastic. We worked off one another.

I would be remiss not to, if you don’t mind, if I can mention them to you that would it be great. Kathryn Feeney, she’s the only one that’s done all three Wendy’s commercials with me. Chris Kleckner, Willie Earl Jr., Ericka Kreutz, and last but not least, Bill O’Neill. I would be remiss not to mention them because I like to give love to everyone. And I know people see my face, but they don’t even know who these great actors are. And they uplifted me, and hopefully I tried to uplift them, and I was entering their world of comedic timing and improv, and we had so much fun doing it. So by far I think these will be the best commercials because they’re just, what you see was literally made up right then. We were just working off one another, and that’s what made them so fun. So fun.

It’s interesting that you said and you do that, and I think it kind of speaks to how you approach a lot of things because we see some players are more critical of the current generation where you seem to take the approach, like Allen Iverson, like Isiah Thomas, of trying to uplift and really celebrate the current generation and celebrate those that you work with and come before you. Why is it that you find it important to do that when you’re talking about, specifically on the basketball court, the guys that have come after you? And lifting them up and celebrating them and doing that as opposed to maybe being more critical of them?

Robby, I was raised and mentored by Earvin “Magic” Johnson, Byron Scott, and Michael Cooper, the heyday of the Showtime Lakers in the ’80s. So when I got to UCLA, those three guys, during the summers when we would have our workouts up at the men’s gym, they took me under their wing each and every summer and they taught me life — life after basketball, life during the league, how to conduct yourself, how to be respectful, how to be on time, how to have interviews like this. I wouldn’t be in this position if it wasn’t for Magic and Byron and Michael Cooper. And I know a lot of former players, they become haters. It’s all about them. “This is what we did.” That’s not how you turn over our game. And if you want this league to be successful, which it is, there’s always a turnover effect. And people come up, “Aren’t you upset or bitter at Steph Curry?” Absolutely not.

Stephen Curry, when he was a little boy, I was his favorite player. Why would I hate on what he’s doing right now? Maybe I inspired a little bit of that in him. And there’s so many kids that Stephen is inspiring now, that Ray is inspiring now. You can’t tell me Ja Morant — look at old Allen Iverson tapes, Steve Nash tapes. Absolutely. So why be bitter or be a hater? We want the game to rise, not stall. So I think that’s why I’m so open-armed with a lot of these young players in today’s game. Because we couldn’t shoot the threes! We weren’t allowed really. We played inside-out in the ’80s and ’90s. Today’s game is played outside-in. So how the game has evolved, and hopefully I had a small fraction of that by the way I played and shot the basketball, maybe I inspired Klay, Damian Lillard, Stephen Curry, Joe Harris. Maybe I had a small part in that. So it’s all about uplifting, my friend.

Shifting back to the to the tournament, what teams are you most excited to see? Not necessarily the ones that you think are gonna — we’ll get to predictions — but the teams that you’re looking forward to getting your eyes on, possibly in person depending on how the draw shakes out?

First, let me say this. I think there are 10 to 15 teams that could literally win this tournament. Remember, neutral site, no home court advantage, and we kind of talked about this, if a team gets hot late. For instance, Memphis is hot late. We know that they’ve got the pedigree. They’ve got a lot of young players, but the way they’re playing defense. Penny Hardaway, Larry Brown, a former coach of mine known for his defense, Tyler Harris, Landers Nolley II, and they’re without Jalen Duren and Emoni Bates, too. I want to see Memphis. I think in a tournament like this where defense is key, and you’ve got to have good guard play, Memphis is one of those teams I want to see.

Purdue and Jaden Ivey. If you have great guard play, that can carry you for six games. Jaden Ivey is one of those players, if he gets hot, who can carry the Boilermakers. I might be a little bit of a homer because it’s an Indiana team, but I like Purdue.

And I will go with the interesting game tonight that I want to see, because I do believe Gonzaga. I have them in the Final Four. I’m leaning towards them winning it all this year. But a team that has always been a thorn in their side has been one of their conference rivals, St. Mary’s, in the rubber match game tonight, that I’m excited to see. Again, neutral floor. St. Mary’s just beat them by 10 a couple weeks ago. St. Mary’s is one of those teams because they can shoot, and they have floor spacers. That’s going to be a fun game to watch, to see who wins the WCC. I’m not saying St. Mary’s gonna go deep in the tournament. But if I’m gonna pick Gonzaga to win it all, a team that’s been a thorn in their side, St. Mary’s is one of those teams I’m keeping an eye out as well.

I’ll close with this. You mentioned that Gonzaga is in your Final Four. Obviously we don’t know the bracket yet, but if you were going to pick four teams that you would expect to be there, I know you said it does feel wide open this year, who would be the four teams, before we know the bracket, that you would think we will see that first week in April?

Gonzaga. Kentucky. Auburn. I like Auburn. And, wow. I will go with … see, to me Kansas is going the other way. I don’t like how Kansas is playing right now. I will go with … I’m gonna surprise you again like I did with Auburn. Kofi Cockburn.

Ooh, the Illini.

“Ooh the Illini!” Such a surprise. Such a good team turned around here, Robby.

They’re playing well late if you’re looking into a team that’s starting to play better.

Kofi Cockburn.

He’s a beast.

He is. He is. But see, here’s the problem. You’ve gotta spoon feed him. Big men, they’re almost like a dinosaur now. That’s why, you know, their guards are good, but he can get in foul trouble. But I don’t know, if you’re gonna guard him one on one he’s gonna score.

It would be fun, I mean, you talk about a matchup like him and Chet (Holmgren). Polar opposite big men. But that would be fun.

Ooh, Chet and Drew (Timme) versus him? I would love that, right? Wouldn’t you love to see that? Or all those bigs for Kentucky? I would love to see it.

For quite some time, hip-hop has been dominated by a style that fans have come to describe as “toxicity.” Pioneered by moody rappers like Future and Drake, it’s marked by passive aggression, avoidant attachment, and audio gaslighting, with rappers and singers delighting in keeping their significant others guessing in the narratives of their songs. Notably, this style has also been dominated by men — until now.

Atlanta newcomer Kali looks to shake up the status quo with her debut EP, Toxic Chocolate, in which she turns the tables on the f*ckboys of hip-hop, using their manipulative tactics to even the odds and give them a taste of their own medicine. After initially gaining popularity on TikTok — how else? — with her breakout single “Mmm Mmm,” Kali makes the most of that attention on Toxic Chocolate, demonstrating her gift for wordplay and her spicy relationship sensibilities.

In the standout single “UonU” featuring Yung Bleu, Kali promises to play an Uno reverse card on a cheating boyfriend, while on “Standards,” she throws down a gauntlet, explaining why she “ain’t doin’ that back and forth sh*t.” Further promoting the new EP, she revels in other women’s relationship drama and gives them some supremely bad — but satisfying — advice via her Toxic Chocolate Hotline skit, which you can watch above.

Kali’s already off to a great start and will build on that momentum this month when she joins her “Mmm Mmm” collaborator, fellow Atlantan Latto, on the Monster Energy Outbreak Tour kicking off March 19 in Santa Cruz, California, with more episodes of her Hotline to come.

Watch episode one of the Toxic Chocolate Hotline series featuring Sukihana above and stream Toxic Chocolate here.

Orville Peck, famous shoegaze cowboy, announced his new album Bronco last month alongside the release of “C’mon Baby, Cry,” and stated that he was “inspired by country rock, ’60s & ’70s psychedelic, California and bluegrass with everything being anchored in country.” Today, Chapter Two of the album is out, following the unveiling of Chapter One.

Chapter Two includes the singles “The Curse Of The Blackened Eye,” “Kalahari Down,” “Trample Out The Days” and “Hexie Mountains,” the first of which comes with a music video. Despite the humor of his fringed mask and incredibly deep baritone, his words hold wisdom: “It ain’t the letting go / it’s more about the things that you take with,” he intones with certainty.

“The songs on Bronco’s second chapter explore some of the most vulnerable places I’ve ever gone to with my music,” Orville said. “I sing about home, escape, longing, resentment… This chapter, lyrically, has some of my favourite songs on the album. Plus I’ve always been a sucker for a ballad.”

These songs join the previously-unleashed “C’mon Baby, Cry,” “Daytona Sand,” “Outta Time,” and “Any Turn” from Chapter One. All that’s left now is Chapter Three.

Bronco will be out 4/8 via Columbia Records. Pre-order it here.

“A little while before we went into lockdown, a boy in my class came up to me and said that his dad told him to stay away from Chinese people,” Mila de la Garza of punk band The Linda Lindas says at the start of a now-viral video of the band performing their song “Racist, Sexist Boy.” “After I told him that I was Chinese, he backed away from me.”

Mila wrote the song with bandmate Eloise Wong. “I was really angry at the person in [Mila’s] class and I was really angry at the world in general,” Wong said over Zoom. “I think it was something that I really needed to get out.” Mila added: “It’s not okay to say or do things like that and it’s so important for all the other people who have also experienced something like that, to let them know that they’re not alone. And I think it was really awesome and cool that we got to do that.”

The video, filmed at the Los Angeles Public Library for AAPI Heritage Month in May 2021 now has over 4 million views on Twitter and over a million views on YouTube. The band has gotten shout-outs from musicians like Hayley Williams, Tom Morello, and Questlove.

The song’s most compelling lines spell out exactly what The Linda Lindas — and punk in general — set out to do: call out injustice and push for change. “You are a racist, sexist boy / And you have racist, sexist joys / We rebuild what you destroy,” Wong sings with confidence and defiance.

“As younger people, as kids, or as girls, or as people of color, we’ll, a lot of the time, feel like, ‘What can we do about it? What can we do in our lives that can actually make a difference?’ And it was cool that that video actually did. People reached out to us and told us about how it somehow impacted them – that was really special to us,” Lucia said.

The Linda Lindas got their name from the 2005 Japanese film Linda Linda Linda in which a group of teen girls perform the song “Linda Linda” by the Blue Hearts. The Asian and Latinx band includes sisters Mila (11) and Lucia de la Garza (14), on drums and guitar respectively, with their cousin Wong (13) on bass and family friend Bela Salazar (17) on guitar, with all four members trading off on vocals.

For most of the band’s members, their interest in music started with their parents. Lucia and Mila’s father, Carlos de la Garza, is a Grammy-winning mixer, sound engineer, and producer. Not only has he worked with Paramore, Bleached, and Best Coast, but he also produced The Linda Lindas’ upcoming record, Growing Up. Wong’s parents put on the Save Music in Chinatown series to raise money for the music program at her school, Castelar Elementary. Her father, Martin Wong, is the co-founder of Giant Robot magazine.

“There was always a record going on in my house,” Wong said. “We were constantly making mixtapes and making zines. I was surrounded by punk culture.” But the four of them didn’t play their first show until 2018, when Kristin Kontrol from the Dum Dum Girls invited them to be a part of a cover band of kids playing Girlschool LA in 2018. That same summer, Salazar asked the rest of the band to play with her at another gig.

Since then, they’ve become a part of Los Angeles’ DIY punk scene, playing with Best Coast, Bleached, and Alice Bag and opening for Bikini Kill’s reunion show at the Hollywood Palladium in 2019. In May 2021, they signed to punk and hardcore label Epitaph Records, which was founded by Bad Religion guitarist Brett Gurewitz, cementing the young band’s status as punk mainstays. “We were drawn to punk because of the energy and the freedom in it. It’s like, do it yourself, do what you want, do what matters to you, do what you love, do it with people you love,” Lucia said.

The Linda Lindas brought their love of punk to the screen when they wrote their first song “Claudia Kishi,” for Netflix’s documentary The Claudia Kishi Club, about the character from the Baby-Sitters Club series. They also performed a cover of Bikini Kill’s “Rebel Girl” in the Amy Poehler-directed Netflix film Moxie.

They’re committed to releasing socially-conscious music. In 2020, they released “Vote!” which contains the lyrics “You can’t just watch and stare / While the people in charge are unfair / You’ve gotta put it to a stop / And go to the ballot box.”

Their upcoming debut album was written in the summer and fall of 2021, before “Racist, Sexist Boy” went viral. It was written remotely, complicated by the fact that all four members write songs, and each has her own distinct taste in music. The songs were mostly written individually, apart from “Racist, Sexist Boy,” “Oh!,” which was written by the whole band together, and “Magic,” written by Mila and Lucia.

The final product is an insight into the band members’ lives, dealing with isolation and uncertainty during the pandemic. Growing Up also covers a range of topics including bullying (“Oh!”), self-doubt (“Talking to Myself”), and Salazar’s cat (“Nino”.)

There are also forays outside of punk. Salazar wrote “Cuantas Veces” in Spanish — inspired by Bossa Nova and Latin music — about feeling out of place. “I grew up listening to a lot of Bossa Nova. I grew up speaking Spanish – I learned Spanish and English at the same time – and speaking Spanish is really important to me,” Salazar said.

The Linda Lindas have exploded at the same time rock music is spiking in popularity, especially punk-influenced music. “It’s been making a comeback, partly because of a lot of civil rights movements, a lot of political stuff and because people are saying, ‘We need to say something because it’s been going on for too long,’” Lucia said. And The Linda Lindas are using their songs to get across important messages. “Punk is amplifying your own voice when no one else will. I think that’s a really cool part of punk. Making zines is totally telling your story when no one else will tell it. Or writing music like, ‘Racist, Sexist, Boy,’ it’s telling [Mila’s] story when no one else was talking about it,” Wong said

The band’s sound draws from punk across eras, but there’s a distinct riot grrrl influence. The ’90s’ feminist punk movement was criticized for not being intersectional, but The Linda Lindas represent an updated, more inclusive take on the genre. Rock and punk acts today are more diverse than they were before, but it hasn’t come without challenges for those artists, when audiences sometimes view them through the lens of their identity. There’s an added dimension for The Linda Lindas: they’re all under 18. “Obviously we are kids, but that doesn’t mean we don’t know stuff,” Mila said. “It doesn’t mean we don’t want to say things, doesn’t mean we don’t understand what’s happening and we want to understand,” Lucia added.

The Linda Lindas are pushing past these challenges to make the music they want, and it’s inspiring others. “Representation matters,” Lucia said. “You don’t see a lot of all-girl bands, or all people of color bands or anything like that – all the things that we are. I think it’s important that everyone, of every age, of any gender or any race, knows that they can do anything, whenever, at any point in their life. There’s something inside them and it’s really special.”

Growing Up is out 4/8 via Epitaph. Pre-order it here.

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

In addition to being a rap star with beloved mixtapes like 1999 and party-starting singles such as “The Revenge” to his name, Joey Badass has been building out his acting resume, adding roles in Hulu’s Wu-Tang: An American Saga and Grown-ish to his ever-expanding list of accomplishments. However, he recently missed out on a highly coveted role in the Jay-Z-produced, Jeymes Samuel-directed Western, The Harder They Fall, as he revealed in a new interview with Ebro Darden for Apple Music. Originally, the role of cocky quickdraw gunslinger Jim Beckwourth, played in the film by RJ Cyler, was meant for Joey.

After meeting Samuel at the Roc Nation Brunch in 2020, Joey says Samuel first pitched him the role of Beckwourth. “He said he was working on this crazy film, which was The Harder They Fall,” Joey recalled. “He had this role for me. Like, you see dude with the pistols and sh*t? That’s supposed to be me. Shout to my man RJ [Cyler] though, who actually got the role. The young dude with the two pistols and everything. Jeymes wanted me to play that role.”

Unfortunately, it turned out Joey’s success in securing new acting roles actually prevented him from accepting this one. “[Samuel] called me a few months later, it was like March,” he continued. “He was like, ‘Yo, I need you to come to Arizona,’ I think that’s where they were shooting it, or New Mexico, something like that, so I could do this role. I had just accepted the role on Power for Unique, so now it was like a conflict. We were still trying to make it work, but unfortunately, it didn’t work.”

Eventually, though, Samuel helped Joey land the role in the Oscar-winning short film Two Distant Strangers, so things weren’t all that bad. You can check out the video of the full interview below.

Following the success of The Mandalorian and its spinoff, The Book of Boba Fett, Disney+ is gearing up to release Obi-Wan Kenobi, its next live-action Star Wars series set that dives back into the world of the Prequel Trilogy. Taking place 10 years after Revenge of the Sith, the story will focus on an exiled Obi-Wan (Ewan McGregor) as he keeps a watchful eye over a young Luke Skywalker, who’s hidden from his villainous father Darth Vader (Hayden Christensen) on the planet Tatooine. However, judging by the teaser trailer, the Empire’s elite Jedi-hunting force of Inquisitors comes dangerously close to the boy as they’re shown on Tatooine hunting for a Jedi on the run.

As for when Obi-Wan Kenobi will premiere on Disney+: May 25, just in time for the Memorial Day weekend. The live-action Star Wars adventure will arrive shortly after Marvel’s Moon Knight, making Obi-Wan Kenobi the streaming platform’s banner series for the summer as it runs for six episodes, all directed by Deborah Chow.

Here’s the official synopsis for Obi-Wan Kenobi, which as you can see, boasts one heck of a cast:

The story begins 10 years after the dramatic events of “Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith” where Obi-Wan Kenobi faced his greatest defeat—the downfall and corruption of his best friend and Jedi apprentice, Anakin Skywalker, who turned to the dark side as evil Sith Lord Darth Vader. The series stars Ewan McGregor, reprising his role as the iconic Jedi Master, and also marks the return of Hayden Christensen in the role of Darth Vader. Joining the cast are Moses Ingram, Joel Edgerton, Bonnie Piesse, Kumail Nanjiani, Indira Varma, Rupert Friend, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Sung Kang, Simone Kessell and Benny Safdie.

Obi-Wan Kenobi starts streaming May 25 on Disney+.