Ted Cruz once grew ragey over a Fight Club edit in China and received comeuppance as a result. That tends to happen when he takes on pop culture, but he cannot help himself, as evidenced by his campaign against Barbie. Ted has been raging all week against the candy-colored movie because he’s convinced that the film is communist propaganda, and he even took that argument to Fox News, where the Texas lawmaker admitted that he hasn’t watched the movie, but he’s only seen “the stupid map.”
That’s a reference to the quirkily drawn map of the world includes controversial dash marks. Some right-wingers consider this to be the film’s assertion that China is all-powerful over the South China Sea, and this argument even led to the Fox News chyron of “Ted Cruz Declares War On Barbie.” As if this couldn’t sound more like a parody, Ted told Jesse Watters, “[T]hey’re trying to kiss up to the Chinese Communist Party because they wanna make movie selling the movie in China.”
Well, Ted’s anti-Pink crusade has generated a lot of pop cultural coverage, and that led to a Vanity Fair article (by Katey Rich) that included this kicker: “For anyone who was on the fence about seeing Barbie but enjoys sticking it to Ted Cruz, your decision has just been made.” Ted saw the publication’s tweet that contained this kicker, and he responded with a sarcastic “TLDR”-style edit: “We love Chinese communists!”
He’s so mad. It’s so silly. And that makes me wonder about a possible repeat of that time that Cruz got caught flying to Cancun during a deadly Texas ice storm. What if Ted had to go see Barbie for any reason at all? (He does have two daughters.) And what if someone spotted him doing so while wearing a silly disguise? Keep your eyes peeled is all I’m saying.
During his latest It’s All A Blur Tour concert in Brooklyn, Drake gave attendees an update about his upcoming album, For All The Dogs. He’s been going all-out with the teasers lately, from rocking a Doberman mask while out and about to encouraging the men in the crowd to bark like dogs. But last night at Barclays Center, he gave the most promising teaser yet; during a break between songs, he said the album is coming “in a couple weeks, or some sh*t.”
If he sounds unsure, it might be because he’s totally focused on touring at the moment — or maybe he’s just playing up the loose, off-the-cuff vibe of his current album rollout. He is, after all, one of maybe a dozen artists who could still conceivably get away with a surprise release these days — and an even smaller number of rappers (it goes: Drake, Kendrick, Travis, Cole, maaaaybe Tyler).
Meanwhile, Drake’s been using his tour to take pokes at all kinds of foes, from Anna Wintour, who shut down his and 21 Savage’s joke Vogue covers last year, to Childish Gambino, who admitted that “This Is America” was originally going to be a Drake diss before it evolved into the semi-social commentary it ended up as. Drake’s going to end up in a dog fight at this rate — but maybe that’s just what he needs to keep up his insane release schedule.
James Harden is one of the two All-Star guards in the NBA who is trying to make his way to a new team this offseason. While Damian Lillard has his sights set on joining the Miami Heat, Harden reportedly wants the Philadelphia 76ers to send him to the Los Angeles Clippers, as there appears to be some bad blood between him and top basketball executive Daryl Morey over how extension talks went this offseason.
Harden’s issue here is that he picked up his player option for 2023-24 and is an unrestricted free agent after the season, so while he seems prepared to make the Sixers regret not trading him, Philly is set on getting a whole lot back if he’s moved. But while things are in a holding pattern there, Michael Scotto of HoopsHype brings word that the two sides are discussing a trade involving another former Houston Rocket, too.
PJ Tucker, Harden’s longtime teammate with the Rockets and Sixers, has come up in trade discussions between the 76ers and Clippers, league sources told HoopsHype. The Clippers covet Tucker’s ability to guard multiple positions and defend the league’s top opposing scorers. Tucker is owed $11 million this upcoming year and has a $11.54 million player option for the 2024-25 season.
It would be very interesting if Philly actually moved Tucker, because while it’s easy to assume his future is tied to Harden’s due to their lengthy history together, it’s worth remembering that he joined the Sixers after Joel Embiid said following the team’s ouster from the 2022 playoffs that they lacked a guy like him.
“You look at someone like P.J. Tucker,” Embiid said after Miami beat Philadelphia in six games in the conference semifinals. “Great player, but it’s not about him knocking down shots. It’s about what he does, whether it’s on the defensive end or rebounding the ball. You look at, obviously, defensively, he plays with so much energy, believes that he can get from point A to point B, and he believes that no one can beat him. And he’s tough. He’s just physical, and he’s tough. And they have a few of those guys, whether it’s Bam and all those guys. And since I’ve been here, I’d be lying if I said that we’ve had those types of guys. Nothing against what we have, it’s just the truth. We never had P.J. Tucker.”
Having said that, there have been reports that Philly would prioritize having a whole lot of cap space ahead of the summer of 2024 with an eye on making a huge splash in free agency. While it remains to be seen if they could actually make some noise on the free agent market and there’s no guarantee he’d pick up his player option for 2024-25, moving Tucker would help make that easier.
Miranda Lambert has been in the headlines quite a bit lately after calling out fans at her concert for taking selfies while she was in the middle of performing. Though many gave her slack for embarrassing her own fans, it was reported that these “fans” were a group of six women turned away from Lambert and blocking the view of other fans while using flash.
However, LL Cool J gave his take on the controversy while appearing on the radio show Mercedes in the Morning. He was asked if he would call out a fan for taking a selfie at his concert, and he laughed and answered, “No,” and added, “Miranda, get over it, baby. They’re fans. It’s fans.”
He continued, “I can’t speak for her. I’m not gonna judge her. I have nothing unkind to say about her. I wish her the best. She has the right to her feelings. But to me, I let the fans be the fans and do what they want to do.”
Lambert would probably disagree. When calling out the fans, she said, “I’m gonna stop right here for a second, I’m sorry. These girls are worried about their selfie and not listening to the song, it’s pissing me off a little bit. Sorry, I don’t like it at all. We’re here to hear some country music tonight. I’m singing some country damn music.”
The Barbie soundtrack album is full of artists you would expect in a Barbie movie, like Lizzo, Charli XCX, and Dua Lipa. Even the Matchbox Twenty song makes sense, considering director and co-writer Greta Gerwig’s affinity for bands that reached their commercial peak in the 1990s. But a Stephen Malkmus reference? That came out of nowhere.
Spoilers to follow, but during a sequence where the Barbies are intentionally making the Kens feel so smart as a distraction, one of the Kens tells a Barbie that the Pavement singer and guitarist was influenced by the Velvet Underground’s Lou Reed. Or something to that effect. I can’t remember the exact context because I was busy being feeling seen.
Unless Oppenheimer has a Silver Jews joke, Indie Rock Twitter is now Team Barbie.
ok other people are talking about it so rq the stephen malkmus joke in barbie had me fucking DEAD
“I listen to music when I write,” Gerwig said in 2018. “Not all the time, but I find writing to be quite isolating at times because it feels like the all the kids are outside playing and you have to stay inside and work and it can be lonely.” She then listed five of her favorite songs: “Hounds of Love” by Kate Bush, “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” by Bob B. Soxx & the Blue Jeans, “The Pearl” by Judee Sill, “Baby Doll” by Laurie Anderson, and “Lay My Love” by Brian Eno.
This Barbie thinks “Spit on a Stranger” from Terror Twilight should have made the cut.
The fact that Minx and its buffet of dicks is back for season two feels a bit like a miracle – like water turning to wine or all life emerging from a big bang. Not too long ago, the feminist comedy beloved by fans and buzzed about by critics was stuck somewhere in Dante’s first circle of streaming hell. A follow-up season had been greenlit and shot, then canceled with just a week left of filming. Then, newly minted Warner Bros. Discovery czar David Zaslav decided to purge what remained of the show from its streaming home on HBO Max (renamed just Max).
Where would the raunchy, 70s-era saga about a women’s magazine masquerading its feminist leanings behind a parade of penises go from here? To Starz, of course.
The Jake Johnson, Olivia Lovibond-starring workplace dramedy found a new home on a streaming platform eager to buy into its cheeky wit, eclectic ensemble, and surprisingly insightful social commentary. And so, here we are, prepping for a second season that sees Lovibond’s Joyce Prigger navigating the unexpected success of her brand of enlightened erotica while the rest of the Bottom Dollar crew carve out their own futures in the publishing industry when new money wants a slice of the peter pie.
Uproxx chatted with Lovibond about the show’s wild hiatus, the show’s surprising season two villain, and testing the comedy limits with Johnson’s help.
The show got picked up for a second season. Then canceled after you filmed most of its second season. Then removed from HBO Max’s platform. During all of that, were you ever worried Minx might not be coming back?
I think from the outside looking in, it was a lot more dramatic than it was. After the initial surprise of HBO removing it from the platform, we knew quite quickly, within a few days from Lionsgate, that there were about three different streamers that were very, very keen to have the show. So we knew really early on, we don’t know where exactly we’re going to be re-homed, but we will be re-homed. So we felt reassured by that.
But the thing that was really lovely that came out of it was that the fans were very kind of vocal on Twitter and TikTok and things saying, ‘This is crazy. We love the show!’ And that was not something that we had anticipated happening. So when it did, we got that feedback from people and thought, ‘Oh my God, we’ve made something that people are eager to see again.’ So it was kind of a happy accident.
You found out about the cancellation during the last week of filming season two. How did that affect the vibe on set?
We did. The final week was so fun. The whole shoot was fun. There’s always been a camaraderie but that final week we kind of banded together. Jake says we were essentially shooting an indie that week. Someone would give us a note and we’d be like, ‘Who’s this note for? This isn’t for anyone right now.’ It was quite freeing in that way. But because we’d seen the reactions on Twitter, we knew people wanted to see this. So we kind of redoubled our efforts to make it the best final week we could make it, because we knew that there was an audience waiting to watch it, regardless of what platform it was on.
It strangely mirrors the journey Joyce is on this season of having a product everyone wants and yet not knowing where it’s going to end up.
Yeah, that was completely fortuitous. We had already shot all of those things. We were coming back and we were going to be bigger and better than ever. We’d shot all of that months prior. So watching it back when we were sent the episodes, I thought, ‘Oh, that’s quite strange.’ It’s quite meta. Joyce trying to find the right home for the magazine, and she’s got all of these different publishers bidding for her, but it doesn’t quite feel right. There were a lot of the things that sort of resonated in a strange way, that we had no idea filming it and then watching it back you think, ‘Well, that’s a bit eerie.’
How would you sum up Joyce’s journey this season compared to last season?
My view of it is you see Joyce, not necessarily struggle with power or what to do with it … I think the power she’s well equipped to handle. I think it’s more the things that come with notoriety. Remember, she’s quite geeky, quite nerdy. She’s sort of had a sheltered existence. And she’s not been the popular girl, she’s not been invited to parties, she’s not had money or fame or anything. And suddenly, she’s given a lot of money, everyone wants a piece of her. And that goes to her head a little bit. And you see her not quite knowing how to navigate it, she’s gone from being really kind of buttoned up and terrified to jumping in headfirst and she’s forgetting the writing that has got her there in the first place.
And it was something that when I spoke to Ellen Rapoport, the showrunner about it. I was just like, ‘How do we go from Joyce season one to this Joyce?’ And she said, ‘People are different in different circumstances. They’re still the same person, but different characteristics are brought out by circumstances.’ And so she said, ‘Let’s explore that in Joyce. Let’s see her make mistakes.’
In season one, her second-wave feminist ideals were challenged a bit. This season, is she the one pushing boundaries?
She’s realized how narrow-minded she’s been about things. In season two, she’s saying, ‘Isn’t it great that our magazine appeals to all kinds of different people? Isn’t that a thing to be celebrated?’ And she truly believes that. And you see the money saying, ‘No, not yet. We’ve just about got a foot in the door.’ And that is reflective of the second-wave feminist movement at that time — that was what was happening in 1973.
So I like that we are tussling with that. It’s difficult hearing that now. Reading that as a feminist in 2023, you go, ‘God, that’s so unappealing and it’s so not how you would navigate things now.’ But that is what was happening. And I like that you see Joyce, realistically, go, ‘That’s ugly and I don’t like it, but I don’t quite know how to respond to it yet. I’m kind of putting up with it so I could keep the money to make the magazine.’
Joyce and Doug are still so combative this season. Jake Johnson loves to improvise. Did you get to do more of that this time around?
I love doing scenes with him because of that. You can play so much more, there’s a lot more freedom. I think we just keep each other on our toes. You just have to play with how much you push it, like how angry you would get or how much you might relent. And then just when they think that you are going to yell at them and go overboard, you just shrug and give them nothing, and it kind of destabilizes and something else happens. It sends the pinball off in a different direction. The great thing about Jake is that he’s really generous. He just wants the show to be the best it can be, he’s not hogging the limelight, he’s all about him. He gives you so much to make the scene the best it can be.
Doug deals with his own sense of inadequacy amidst the magazine’s success. He starts to fall back into old patterns. Why is it so hard for him to have a woman in charge?
I don’t think that he’s against the idea that a woman is in charge, it’s that anyone is in charge. He was his own boss. He just sees people as ways to make money. So if you’re a woman suggesting a great idea, he’s not going to discount it because you’re a woman. He’s like, great, it’s a great idea, I can make money off that. That’s why he employs Joyce, that’s why he kind of takes on this magazine, which he thinks is really boring, but he’s like, ‘Oh, I’ll put some dicks in it and it’s going to make money.’
I think by the end of it, he’s gone from being his own boss to having two bosses, who happen to be women. But my viewpoint is, that it’s not them being women that is a problem, it’s the fact that they’re bossing him around.
Minx becomes an adjective this season. How would you define what “minxy” is?
Minx-y, I suppose it’s … what would it be? Intelligence and erotica, where they meet.
With just a little bit of spunk …
Oh, well …
Dammit, you can’t say anything with this show.
I know, innuendo is are everywhere you go. You can’t swing a cat without hitting an innuendo.
This morning (July 21), the music world learned of the death of Tony Bennett, who is dead at 96 years old. Bennett clearly had a passion for music, as evidenced by his professional career that lasted for over 70 years. He was even still singing just days before he died, as indicated in a message shared on Bennett’s social media pages today. Furthermore, the final song he sang was a special one in the story of his career.
The post reads, “Tony left us today but he was still singing the other day at his piano and his last song was, “Because of You,” his first #1 hit. Tony, because of you we have your songs in our heart forever. [heart emoji].”
Tony left us today but he was still singing the other day at his piano and his last song was, “Because of You,” his first #1 hit.
In a 2021 interview on The Late Show, Lady Gaga spoke about how Bennett was different when he was performing, saying, “His Alzheimer’s just started to set on and I said, ‘Let’s go into the studio now,’ and we did. And when I tell you that when jazz begins, this man lights up in a way that is such magic. It just reminded me that anybody that has a family member or somebody that they love that’s suffering from Alzheimer’s or dementia, music is… music is magic. Music is a miracle.”
The official trailer for The Marvels just dropped, and it offers the biggest look yet at the intergalactic sequel to Captain Marvel. This time around, Brie Larson‘s Carol Danvers is front and center as she catches up with Samuel L. Jackson‘s Nick Fury. (As for how or if this movie ties into Secret Invasion is anybody’s guess.) Turns out whatever Carol has been doing has angered a Kree revolutionary, Dar-Benn, played by Marvel newcomer Zawe Ashton.
Using an unearthed armband that looks very similar to the one worn by Iman Vellani’s Ms. Marvel, Dar-Benn manages to entangle the young hero to Carol and Teyonah Parris‘ Monica Rambeau. Whenever the three of them use their powers, they switch places, no matter where they are. It’s not exactly the most convenient situation, especially with Darr-Benn mounting an assault across the cosmos.
More importantly, like The Marvels teaser, this latest trailer leans into a badass cover of the Beastie Boys “Intergalactic” that surprisingly sells the whole thing. It slaps.
Here’s the official synopsis:
Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel has reclaimed her identity from the tyrannical Kree and taken revenge on the Supreme Intelligence. But unintended consequences see Carol shouldering the burden of a destabilized universe. When her duties send her to an anomalous wormhole linked to a Kree revolutionary, her powers become entangled with that of Jersey City super-fan, Kamala Khan aka Ms. Marvel, and Carol’s estranged niece, now S.A.B.E.R. astronaut Captain Monica Rambeau. Together, this unlikely trio must team-up and learn to work in concert to save the universe as “The Marvels.”
Lizzo’s “Pink” was a highly anticipated track that wasn’t shared as a single, along with songs by Sam Smith and Tame Impala. It has her typically buoyant, extravagant ambiance and her confident vocals: “In pink, goes with everything / Beautiful from head to toe / I’m read’ to go, you know, you know,” she sings. “It’s pink, good enough to drink / We like other colors / But pink just looks so good on us.”
Last month, Lizzo spoke about how Beyoncé has influenced her. “Today was one of those days where I was very angry, very angry at the world,” she said. “Saw a lot of mean sh*t about me on the internet, and I wanted to give up. There are days where the hate outweighs the love so badly that I want to quit music and just disappear. I definitely have enough money to go and buy a farm and just never f*ck with anybody ever again, because f*ck everybody. Then, I reminded myself to get up, get out, and get some sun, and I put on Renaissance.”
Listen to “Pink” above.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items could vary, as could the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest, or from this week. The important thing is that it’s Friday, and we are here to have some fun.
ITEM NUMBER ONE – I would take a bullet for this man
The Righteous Gemstones has an embarrassment of riches on its hand. The cast is just stacked. Look at Walton Goggins chomp up scenery in the best way possible as Baby Billy Freeman. Watch Edi Patterson stomp around like the biggest grown brat you’ve ever seen as Judy Gemstone. See the weariness in John Goodman’s eyes as he plays Gemstone patriarch Eli and sighs so deeply the ground underneath him rumbles a bit. Sluggers straight through the lineup. Borderline unfair to other shows.
My favorite character on the show right now is BJ, though, Judy’s sweet and simple husband who does not swear or drink and is so pure straight down to his core that he’s practically translucent. I could type more words here to try to describe BJ’s aura, but I think this GIF of him at the dinner table swirling and sniffing a glass of milk like it’s an expensive Cabernet will do the job much better.
HBO
He’s a lovely man.
This got weird for him this week, though. For reasons that I will dance around a little bit in case you aren’t all caught up on this season (COME ON), BJ ended up in a nasty little street fight with a fully nude man that ended with screaming and nut-twisting and things really just getting as silly and dark as anything I’ve ever seen on television. It was honestly incredible. I don’t remember a single scene of television this year that made me laugh harder. Please go watch it. Or watch it again.
(I would love to drop in a screencap or a GIF here to drive it all home, but every good one I found featured full-frontal male nudity. Which is not a problem I had ever encountered before. First time for everything. I recommend reading the extensive breakdowns of the scene at Vulture and GQ for further research.)
The best part is that this isn’t even the first time BJ has been in a violent altercation of some kind. He also got tangled up with the cycle ninjas — fun phrase to type — last season and ended up with a throwing star in his head.
HBO
It’s just a really nice piece of character work all around, from the writing to the performance by Tim Baltz. Taking someone this sweet and dropping him into the Gemstone viper pit makes for consistent comedy. It’s honestly become my favorite aspect of the show, or at worst second behind “every single thing Baby Billy does and says, especially the thing where he tosses an unnecessary ‘now’ at the end of about 70 percent of his sentence,” which is pretty hard to top.
I want to know so much more about BJ. I want to know everything. Give me a full-on flashback episode about his youth. Show me the first date where he took Judy out. Let Tim Baltz play the teenage version of BJ and never explain why or how a 40-year-old man is strolling around a high school. We need — we deserve — the origin story of BJ using rollerblading to blow off steam, which he did this week before his big fight…
HBOHBO
… but also did last season, too.
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The man fascinates me. I hope he ends up taking over the whole church somehow. I hope he becomes president. But mostly, I just want him to be happy with his street skates and his glass of milk. That would be nice.
ITEM NUMBER TWO – No
I am very happy for people who enjoy Comic-Con. I am also very happy for people who enjoy cruises. Life is very short and nothing is guaranteed so you should do things you enjoy as often as possible. If these are your things, again, god bless. Both seem like miserable experiences to me, for reasons ranging from crowds to overexcited fantasy enthusiasts to being stranded out in the middle of the unforgiving ocean on a floating Petri dish filled with sweaty tourists and human waste. No thank you to either, in my book.
Especially no thank you to… oh dear god… both. At once. That’s right, people. There’s a Comic-Con cruise now.
San Diego Comic Convention, the parent company of the international comic convention, and Entertainment Cruise Productions — which has previously produced a Star Trek cruise experience — are teaming to launch Comic-Con: The Cruise. The full-ship charter will take fans from Tampa to the Mexican island Cozumel onboard Royal Caribbean’s Serenade of the Seas, with its first voyage set for Feb. 5-9, 2025.
I really must stress once again that I am thrilled for you if you saw all the words in that paragraph and got excited about it. But I must also really stress that this sounds like the type of thing an instructor at a culinary school would use as a threat to whip slacker aspiring chefs into shape. (“If you keep burning the cream sauce, Trevor, you’ll be flipping omelets on a Comic-Con cruise that sets sail from Tampa.”) I would pay you money not to go on it. I’ll give you $100 today if you promise I’ll never end up on it even by accident someday. Tell me who to make the check out to.
But again, happy for you.
Fans will be immersed in a one-of-a-kind experience dedicated to comics and popular arts. Fans will have the chance to interact with actors, creators, authors and more as part of a lineup of special events and activities, including talent-hosted tastings, trivia sessions and live demonstrations. There will also be theme night parties and cosplay events featuring party bands and DJs, competitive video and tabletop gaming, vendors, group panels and Q&A sessions, meet and greets, as well as autograph and photograph sessions.
I swear I am a nice person. I swear I am friendly and warm and good to animals. But if, maybe, when this sucker hits the ocean, things go sideways and we end up with phrases like “Comic-Con Poop Cruise” in headlines around the world, I need you all to know in no uncertain terms that I will laugh a little bit.
ITEM NUMBER THREE – It is almost Harley Quinn time
We’ve talked about the Harley Quinn animated series before. Kind of a lot, actually. Most recently in February when the show put out a fully deranged Valentine’s Day special that I loved very much. It’s a good show, a perfect little mix of funny and sweet and foul and stupid. I started watching it during the early stages of the COVID lockdown in 2020 and ripped through all the available episodes about three times through. It comes with my highest recommendation, which I hope carries extra weight after I just kind of wished a bobbing fecal hellscape on the Comic-Con cruise.
That’s why I’m so excited that the new season drops next week. There’s a trailer for it up there, one that also gives you a little refresher on the events that led up to this season. That’s useful. There really are a lot of shows. It’s okay if you don’t remember all of them. Lord knows I do not.
I’m looking forward to seeing what everybody gets up to this time around, from Harley working with the Bat Dorks to Poison Ivy working with the Legion of Doom, but I’m mostly looking forward to seeing what the show’s big dumb sweet version of Bane does. I love that guy. They took one of the most self-serious and monosyllabic characters out there and turned him into a lovable goof. Yes, this is where I — once again — post the GIF of a supersized and super-horny Bane crumbling Gotham’s skyscrapers with pelvic thrusts.
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Again, it’s a good show. Just unbelievably silly. You deserve one of those every now and then.
“We are so excited to re-introduce Dogstar with our new single ‘Everything Turns Around,’” said the band in a statement. “It feels like a fun summer song to us. It has an uplifting message and a positive vibe that hopefully makes your day a little bit lighter. It’s one of our favorite songs to play live and can’t wait to share it on our upcoming tour.”
You remember Dogstar, yes? The rock band that John Wick star Keanu Reeves plays bass guitar for? The one with an objectively cool name? (Dogstar!) Well, either way, here they are. Back again. With a new single and a new album and a new tour. It’s all happening.
And it’s… cool. It’s pretty cool! People busted on Keanu for it when the band first started bouncing around a million years ago, but I don’t know if that’s fair. I think it kind of rules that one of our biggest movie stars of the last quarter century just plays bass in a rock band sometimes. He doesn’t even sing lead. This isn’t some sad passion project where an actor wants to prove they’re also a singer-songwriter. Keanu just wants to stand off to the side and jam with his dudes. Again, that’s pretty cool!
In addition to their upcoming album, which will mark their first since 2000, the band will also be hitting the road for a special tour.
DUDES
GUYS
BUDDIES
LET’S GO SEE DOGSTAR
I’M BARELY KIDDING
GOOD FOR KEANU
ITEM NUMBER FIVE – Frank Fartzone
HBO
Two things are worth noting here:
I, as regular readers of this column know, love a good fake name, anything from, like, to choose two of my favorite examples, Percy Billions to Brenda Sacramento to anything else silly enough to make me chuckle
I am, at heart, 11 years old
This is why I’ve gotten such joy out of a new-ish Twitter account — or at least new-ish to me — called Actual Names that scours the database of census reports to pluck out the funniest and most juvenile names throughout history. It’s also why I have been giggling about this one for almost a full week now.
I don’t think I will ever get over this one. I’ve sung it to the tune of the AutoZone jingle. Sometimes I add an “-ie” to the first name to make it Frankie Fartzone. That’s really fun. It sounds like something someone would call a buddy who is suffering from digestive issues after a gassy meal. (“OH, FRANKIE FARTZONE OVER HERE.”) I’m laughing out loud as I type this right now.
Two additional notes in closing:
No one tell me if this is fake because I do not care
I have a law degree
Thank you.
READER MAIL
If you have questions about television, movies, food, local news, weather, or whatever you want, shoot them to me on Twitter or at [email protected] (put “RUNDOWN” in the subject line). I am the first writer to ever answer reader mail in a column. Do not look up this last part.
From Paul:
[Brian Grubb voice] TWO THINGS:
— Nice work on the Mission Impossible rankings. I think they’re pretty close to the way my own line up, maybe with Fallout down a few spots and Mission Impossible III up closer to the top half. As long as we can agree Ghost Protes is at the top, we can make this work
— Which Muppet would fit the most seamlessly into Ethan Hunt’s team?
— So the answer to your question is Fozzie Bear (long history of being a useful sidekick, comic relief, etc.) but please also note that Animal would be a delightful Mission: Impossible villain, if only for the chaos of it all. Close your eyes right now and picture him flying a helicopter over… let’s say Mount Rushmore. I’m suddenly mad I can’t have this in real life.
A group of young men stole an entire tray of crumb cake from Colonial Bakery in Lavallette. The incident happened after midnight Sunday.
CAKE HEIST
The owners told News 12 New Jersey the thieves were identified within a few hours. Within a day, the owners say they were in contact with the people who pulled off the theft and made a deal with them. The owners want the thieves to pay the cost of the cake and post an apology video. The owners say if the thieves do this, they won’t press charges.
Well, this is pretty neat. Cake shop owners filing it under the Writ of Boys Will Be Boys and chalking it up as a lesson learned. I can dig it. It would be really funny if the owners demanded the apology video be in the form of a song or something, with choreography, just to add a little embarrassment to it to deter future pastry thieves, but maybe that’s a bit much. I’m not sure where the Constitution comes down on karaoke as a punishment for a crime. The Founding Fathers were suspiciously silent on that one.
The bakery also posted a poll to its page asking folks what to do with the thieves. More than 600 people voted on options from filing a police report to making them eat a whole pan of cake each in one setting.
This is just a wonderful little piece of business. And I suspect it’s getting them enough free publicity to offset the losses in pilfered pastries. I like this story a lot.
The owners told News 12 that they tried to make light of the situation but at the same time also settle this between the thieves and themselves without having police involved. They also want to show the thieves that to small businesses, this is no joke.
This is another reason to try to be cool about stuff. Things often work themselves out when you do. Good lesson to file away.
I really want a crumb cake now.
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