Month: May 2023

Nothing can ever fully prepare you for being an adult. Once you leave childhood behind, the responsibilities, let-downs and setbacks come at you fast. It’s tiring and expensive, and there’s no easy-to-follow roadmap for happiness and success.

A Reddit user named u/Frequent-Pilot5243 asked the online forum, “What’s an adult problem nobody prepared you for?” and there were a lot of profound answers that get to the heart of the disappointing side of being an adult.

One theme that ran through many responses is the feeling of being set adrift. When you’re a kid, the world is laid out as a series of accomplishments. You learn to walk, you figure out how to use the bathroom, you start school, you finish school, maybe you go to college, and so on.

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However, once we’re out of the school system and out from under our parents’ roofs, there is a vast, complicated world out there and it takes a long time to learn how it works. The tough thing is that if you don’t get a good head start, you can spend the rest of your life playing catch-up.

Then, you hit middle age and realize that life is short and time is only moving faster.

Adulthood also blindsides a lot of people because we realize that many adults are simply children who grew older. The adult world is a lot more like high school than a teenager could ever imagine.

The Reddit thread may seem a bit depressing at first, but there are a lot of great lessons that younger people can take to heart. The posts will also make older people feel a lot better because they can totally relate.

Being an adult is hard, exhausting and expensive. But we’re all in this together and by sharing the lessons we’ve learned we can help lighten each other’s load just a bit.

Here are 21 of the most powerful responses to the question: “What is an adult problem nobody prepared you for?”

1. Lack of purpose

“Lack of purpose. All your young life you are given purpose of passing exams and learning, then all of a sudden you are thrown into the world and told to find your own meaning,” — Captain_Snow.

2. No bed time

“You can stay up as late as you want. But you shouldn’t,” — geek-fit

3. Friendships

“Where did all my friends go?” — I_Love_Small_Breasts

Most of them are at the same place as you are … Probably wondering the same thing,” — Blackdraon003

4. Bodily changes

“I’m closer to fifty than forty, would have been nice to be better prepared for some of the ways your body starts to change at this point that don’t normally get talked about. For instance your teeth will start to shift from general aging of your gums,” — dayburner.

5. People don’t change

“Didnt know that other adults have the emotional intelligence of teenagers and its almost impossible to deal with logically,” — Super-Progress-6386

6. Money

“$5K is a lot to owe, but not a lot to have,” — Upper-Job5130

7. Our parents age, too

“Handling the decline and death of your parents,” – Agave666

8. Free time

“Not having a lot of free-time or time by myself,” — detective_kiara

9. No goals

“Not having a pre-defined goal once I was out of college. Growing up my goals were set for me: get through elementary school! then middle school! Then high school, and get into college and get a degree, then get a job, and then…? Vague “advance in your career, buy a house, find a spouse, have a kid or multiple, then retire.” At 22 I had no idea how to break that down more granularly,” — FreehandBirdlime

10. Constant upkeep

“Life is all about maintenance. Your body, your house, your relationships, everything requires constant never ending maintenance,” — IHateEditedBGMusic

11. Exhaustion

“Being able to do so many things because I’m an adult but too tired to do any of them,” — London82

12. Loneliness

“Being an adult feels extremely lonely,” — Bluebloop0

13. Dinner

“Having to make dinner every. Fucking. Day,” — EndlesslyUnfinished

14. Time changes

“The more life you’ve lived, the faster time seems to go,” — FadedQuill

15. You’re responsibile, even if you didn’t mean it

“You are held to account for bad behaviour for which you are negligent even if you had no intention to cause harm. As a lawyer, I see this all the time. People don’t think they’re responsible for mistakes. You are,” — grishamlaw

16. Work is like high school

“The intricacies of workplace politics,” — Steve_Lobsen writes. “

“When you’re in school, you think that you won’t have to deal with gossiping and bullying once you leave school. Unfortunately, that is not true,” — lady_laughs_too_much

17. Nowhere to turn

“How easy it is to feel stuck in a bad situation (job, relationship, etc) just because the cost and effort of getting out can seem daunting. And sometimes you just have to accept a figurative bowl full of shit because you can’t afford to blow up your life,” — movieguy95453

18. The happiness question

“Figuring out what makes you happy. Everyone keeps trying to get you to do things you’re good at, or that makes you money, but never to pursue what you enjoy,” — eternalwanderer5

19. Constant cleaning

“The kitchen is always dirty. You’ll clean it at least three times every day,” — cewnc

20. Life costs money

“One adult problem nobody prepared me for is how expensive everything is. I always thought that as an adult I would be able to afford the things I wanted, but it turns out that’s not always the case! I’ve had to learn how to budget and save up for the things I want, and it’s been a difficult process,” — Dull_Dog_8126

21. Keeping above water

“All of it together. I was relatively warned about how high rent is, car bills and repairs, how buying healthy food is expensive as hell but important for your health, how to exercise and save what you can, my parents did their best to fill in my knowledge about taxes and healthcare and insurance that my schooling missed, about driving and cleaning a household, about setting boundaries at work but working hard and getting ahead if you can, about charity and what it means to take care of a pet and others, about being a good partner if you were lucky enough to have one, about how dark and messed up the world is when you just read the news and what all that means to me and my community… I was reasonably warned about all of it.

“No one could have ever prepared me for how hard doing all of it at the same time and keeping your head above that water would actually be,” — ThatNoNameWriter

This article originally appeared on 01.28.22

Dolly Parton just announced her new album Rockstar after teasing it for quite some time. The lead single “World On Fire” quite obviously confronts the political climate: “Don’t get me started on politics / Now how are we to live in a world like this / Greedy politicians, present and past / They wouldn’t know the truth if it bit ‘em in the ass,” she sings.

On The Today Show, Parton discussed the song. Interviewer Jacob Soboroff asked which politician it’s about, and she answered, “All of em! Any of em!” Parton said. “I don’t think any of ’em are trying hard enough. I’m sure they’re all trying, but I just really think that, often, they worry more about their party than they do about the people. If we just do what we felt was the right thing, rather than who’s gonna lose, who’s gonna win this, who’s gonna look better if they do this, rather than working from the heart.”

She also revealed off-camera to Soboroff that she declined an invitation to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Joe Biden, after she rejected it twice from Donald Trump. She said she didn’t want to be associated with either.

Parton’s also doing something she rejected and then accepted: going to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. “I had always thought I might do one, but I hadn’t thought about doing it right now,” she said. “But I thought, Well, why not right now, with all the hoopla and all the craziness that went on around this?”

Rockstar is out 11/17 via Butterfly Records. Find more information here.

Victor Wembanyama is heading to the San Antonio Spurs. Barring something completely insane happening, the Spurs getting the No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 NBA Draft means that the ultra-talented Frenchman will begin his NBA career in San Antonio, as he’s slated to join a pair of Hall of Fame inductees in David Robinson and Tim Duncan as big men who the franchise took No. 1 overall.

There is, of course, a ton of history for French players with the Spurs. Tony Parker is a franchise icon (and someone who has mentored Wembanyama), Boris Diaw won a ring with the team in 2014, and a few other Frenchmen have come through San Antonio over the years. In fact, Wembanyama said after the Draft Lottery that he believes France, as a whole, wanted the Spurs to get the top pick.

“There’s a special relation between France and the Spurs, because of Tony, of course, and also Boris,” Wembanyama said. “And I know half of the country, if not the whole country, wanted the Spurs to have the first pick. So, I was looking at everyone in the room, was happy. So I was, too.”

Wembanyama also took to Twitter and is ready for what his future holds.

The Spurs will officially make Wembanyama the No. 1 pick in the 2023 NBA Draft on June 22.

Over the weekend, Ja Morant was once again spotted on an Instagram Live with a gun in his hand, mere months after picking up what became an 8-game suspension for doing the same thing in the middle of the season — ultimately costing him a spot on the All-NBA teams and nearly $40 million on his new contract extension. He was, again, suspended indefinitely by the team as they investigated the matter alongside the league.

After the first incident, Morant apologized and did interviews about how he was in the wrong and was learning his lesson, which meant whatever he said after this latest video was going to be met with plenty of eyerolls. He didn’t help his cause by waiting to release a statement until Tuesday night as the fourth quarter of Game 1 between the Lakers and Nuggets was going on (and after the Draft Lottery earlier in the evening). Morant was at least aware enough to know that his “words may not mean much right now,” committing once again to working on himself.

Morant is correct in noting that very few people are going to take much from his statement, and it’s now on him to show that he’s actually trying to make the changes that clearly didn’t stick after the first time we went through this situation. Earlier in the evening, Adam Silver told ESPN he was “shocked” when he saw the video, with the league still looking to determine if it was what it appeared to be. Morant’s statement certainly seems to confirm that, and with reporting he could face a lengthy suspension for a second incident, he will likely have plenty of time for reflection over the summer and the start of next season.

The Terminator series has been around so long that we’re only six years from where it all began: in grim, robot-ravaged 2029. That doesn’t mean it’s survived because people wanted it to. The first sequel may have been the biggest money-gobbler of 1991, but that’s the last time one of its films was a sensation. The third, released the following decade, did, you know, pretty good. (And it is pretty good!) The last three have all been critical and commercial failures. The franchise could always live on. But if it does it’ll have to do so without its precious original robo-killer.

The Hollywood Reporter has a new profile of Arnold Schwarzenegger, who seems pretty optimistic about being in his mid-70s. “My plan is to live forever,” he says. If so, it sounds like he won’t spend any of his eternal life playing the un-killable titular terminator.

“The franchise is not done. I’m done,” Schwarzenegger declared. “I got the message loud and clear that the world wants to move on with a different theme when it comes to The Terminator. Someone has to come up with a great idea.”

The muscle man-turned-actor cited the series as “largely responsible for my success” (evidently even moreso than Conan the Barbarian/Destroyer). He then broke down his thoughts on each of the series’ films.

“The first three movies were great,” he said. “Number four [Salvation] I was not in because I was governor. Then five [Genisys] and six [Dark Fate] didn’t close the deal as far as I’m concerned. We knew that ahead of time because they were just not well written.”

He’s not wrong. (And again, the threequel is solid!) And even if he did live on indefinitely, it’s still best not to waste one’s time. So while his onetime rival/now friend Sylvester Stallone keeps returning to old gigs, Schwarzenegger will probably just keep reuniting with old friends.

(Via THR and IndieWire)

Last fall, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard shared three new albums: Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms And Lava; Laminated Denim; and Changes. Now they’ve announced that they’ll be releasing a double LP album with a predictably wild title: PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation.

The album is their 24th record so far. The lead single is “Gila Monster” and it comes with a video done by SPOD. “I wanted to shoot Lord of the Rings 4 but also make a video game, so I mixed both mediums and came up with this majestic journey for truth and power in a cursed world,” SPOD said in a statement. “I mixed 3D animation, modeling & live footage in a 3D video game program to create this marvelous voyage of man & beast. Friend or foe?”

They have residencies coming up this summer.

Watch the video for “Gila Monster” above.

Find the album artwork and tracklist below.

1. “Motor Spirit”
2. “Supercell”
3. “Converge”
4. “Witchcraft”
5. “Gila Monster”
6. “Dragon”
7. “Flamethrower”
8. “Dawn of Eternal Night” feat. Leah Senior (Audiobook, VINYL EXCLUSIVE)

PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation is out 6/16 on KGLW. Find more information here.

Three weeks have passed since Fox News went and canned their biggest star, Tucker Carlson. There’s still no official word on why they did it. Was it part of their pricey settlement with Dominion Voting Systems? His allegedly sexist behavior at work? Some petty nonsense on Rupert Murdoch’s part? Whatever the case, they’ve been hemorrhaging viewers, especially in the once golden primetime slot. And if a new report is to be believed, it might only be the beginning.

A new piece by Variety (in a bit caught by The Daily Beast) delves into Tucker’s attempts to get the next act in his career going, which may involve him surrendering millions so he can move to Twitter. There’s one fascinating aside, though: Tucker vowing to battle Fox News over his contract, which is supposed to be in effect until January of 2025, has reportedly inspired some of the network’s other stars to think about leaving, when the time comes.

Says Variety:

A handful of Fox anchors have reached out to Carlson directly or had their surrogates contact him to say they are eager to join whatever venture he starts on Twitter when their contracts are up, according to sources.

The report, of course, doesn’t name names, so all one can do is make educated guesses. But what could happen is a bunch of stars who helped get Fox News sued — and Dominion isn’t the only company out for their blood — could wind up leaving them in the lurch. But should Fox News suddenly be absent its biggest draws, its older audience, as NBC News’ dark web expert Ben Collins pointed out, might not want to venture to a social media service to get their regular fix of Tucker misinformation.

(Via Variety and The Daily Beast)

On Tuesday night, the San Antonio Spurs emerged as the victors of the 2023 NBA Draft Lottery by receiving the No. 1 pick. As such, the Spurs are now in line to select who many call one of the greatest prospects of all-time in French big man Victor Wembanyama. Like most other people, Wembanyama was watching the lottery from a living room and seemed quite excited when it became clear San Antonio had won the top pick. He grinned, clapped, and pumped his fists in celebration alongside friends and family.

Between 1997-1998 and 2018-19, the Spurs made the playoffs every season. Since then, they’ve failed to qualify, earning a Play-In berth in 2020-21 and 2021-22. Alongside other talented young players like Jeremy Sochan, Malaki Branham, Devin Vassell, and Tre Jones, Wembanyama will likely look to help snap that playoff drought for San Antonio. He’ll also hope to join all-time great big men Tim Duncan and David Robinson, both of whom were selected first overall by the Spurs, enjoyed decorated careers with the franchise and won multiple titles.

This is a major boon for both sides. San Antonio’s rebuild perhaps lacked that headlining talent, while Wembanyama gets to play for a team with a history of positive player development. Learning under the tutelage of head coach Gregg Popovich for as long as he decides to stay on the sidelines can’t hurt Wembanyama either.

The San Antonio Spurs won the most important NBA Draft Lottery in the last 20 years. On the heels of a season where the team accrued a 22-60 record, San Antonio was one of the teams with the best odds to pick No. 1 overall this year, and on Tuesday night, we learned that the ping pong balls bounced their way.

As a result, the Spurs are — barring something completely insane — going to take Victor Wembanyama in the NBA Draft next month. It’s the kind of franchise-changing event that should help lift San Antonio out of a few lean years, and there’s a personal connection for Wembanyama here, too, as he’s close with Spurs legend Tony Parker.

We’ll wait to see Parker’s reaction to the news, but in the meantime, another ex-Spur is pretty stoked about the development. Right after it was announced that San Antonio got the pick, Manu Ginobili took to Twitter and took an immediate victory lap.

One of Wembanyama’s presumed future teammates is excited, too, as Jeremy Sochan welcomed him to San Antonio, although he did not specify the person he was addressing when he tweeted in French.

Wembanyama will officially become a Spur on June 22 when the 2023 NBA Draft takes place.

The Walkmen announced their reunion last year after a decade-long hiatus. First they shared a couple of New York shows. Then they revealed more gigs for a 12-date run. This time, they’re hitting more locations.

The group will be playing nine concerts, kicking off in Nashville in September and ending in Toronto in October. To go with the tour announcement, member Peter Matthew Bauer shared a statement to explain what the reunion has been like. Read it in full:

“The last few weeks have been an absolute blast.

Honestly, when we decided to get back together to play these shows, we had no idea if anyone would even show up. It’s been an incredible joy seeing all these people out there, playing these shows, getting to run into old friends from all over the world.

There was a review of our first show back that said something really nice — that it felt like ‘time was bending back on itself.’ It really has and it’s been the strangest feeling. We all flew to New York, had dinner at Hamilton’s house with his family and actually did not practice as promised. The next day we played the Stephen Colbert show live on television. I think each of us hold on to playing Letterman as a very important memory. So, to be back at the Ed Sullivan Theater and be playing this song for the first time in ten years with your friends was like an out of body experience.

We are just getting going and I’m not really sure we want it to end. I will say, after being the dummy who I guess broke the band up last time saying something about an ‘extreme hiatus,’ I’m going to avoid saying anything like that again. I will say, what makes it all special is when you don’t know what’s going to happen next and when you can actually wonder if this is the last time you’re ever going to get the chance to do this. Everything feels ragged and lively which is what all of us thought was good about the band in the first place.

So, I don’t know what happens next but I do know these shows are just about the end of what’s happening now. We are headed west across the USA this fall. We’ll go all the way to California and the Pacific Northwest and play cities we haven’t in many years ultimately ending back east. Also, there’s still some tickets available for our UK run, so check the site and grab. We’ve got maybe one or two more in us to announce in the coming weeks. But that is it (I guess?)”

Find the tour dates below.

09/16 — Nashville, TN @ Brooklyn Bowl
09/18 — Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue
09/21 — Denver, CO @ Ogden Theatre
09/24 — Seattle, WA @ Showbox
09/26 — Portland, OR @ Aladdin Theater
09/29 — Oakland, CA @ Fox Theater
10/02 — Los Angeles, CA @ The Fonda Theatre
10/03 — Los Angeles, CA @ The Fonda Theatre
10/11 — Toronto, ON @ History