Month: September 2023

The news of Jimmy Buffett’s passing has the music world in shock. Across several decades, the “Margaritaville” singer set trends in the realm of music with his escapist fusion of rock, country, and pop.

Following the news several artists have taken to social media to mourn the loss of Buffett and express condolences to his friends and family.

Buffett’s “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere” collaborator Alan Jackson shared a photo of them two on Instagram at a past CMA Awards ceremony.

“Shores distant shores, There’s where I’m headed for, I got the stars to guide my way, Sail into the light of day…,” read the post’s caption, quoting Buffett’s song, “Boats To Build.”

Kenny Chesney shared a carousel of video clips, one of Chensey covering one of Buffett’s songs while sitting on the beach with a guitar, another one of him and Buffett performing together.

“So goodbye Jimmy,” read the post’s caption. “Thanks for your friendship and the songs I will carry in my heart forever. Sail On Sailor.”

On Twitter, Toby Keith shared two pictures of them two together, and noted Buffett’s impact within music.

“The pirate has passed. RIP Jimmy Buffett. Tremendous influence on so many of us,” said Keith.

Country star and Barmageddon game show host Blake Shelton also took to Twitter to express his sadness about the loss of Buffett, and to share a special memory of them.

“Heart broken this morning hearing of Jimmy Buffett’s passing,” said Shelton. “What an incredible talent and man. His songs will live on forever. I’ll bet most of y’all don’t know that he wrote the theme song for @BarmageddonUSA for me about 2 years ago. Raising a glass today to the Son of a son of a Sailer.”

Kenny Chesney and Blake Shelton are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Remember Gwyneth Paltrow’s vagina candle? The former actress-turned-entrepreneur — who’s, by the way, totally fine no longer making MCU movies — used to sell a line of candles called “This Smells Like My Vagina” on Goop. Two of them reportedly blew up on their customers. It was also a perhaps inevitable fixture of fun. Well, Paltrow noticed people dragging it, and now she’s defending it as a “strong feminist statement.”

“So many women have been raised, at least in my generation, to think there’s something wrong with themselves or that the vagina is weird or gross or something to be ashamed of,” Paltrow said in a video posted on Instagram Stories (which you can watch over at TikTok). “The candle is supposed to be a very strong punk-rock kind of F-you to anyone who ever made us feel like that.”

The candle, one could argue, gained extra significance last year, when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, prompting a massive backlash against conservatives trying to replace women’s bodies. Paltrow argues it wasn’t right for the candle to become a joke.

“People tried to make it about something else, which is kind of a shame because it was really meant to be this strong feminist statement,” Paltrow said, adding, “But we no longer make the candle.”

It’s worth noting that the candle technically didn’t bear the exact scent of Paltrow’s vagina. Instead it was a mix of bergamot, geranium and cedar juxtaposed with damask rose and ambrette seed. Though the vagina candle is no longer for sale, Goop still sells a perfume called “This Smells Like My Vagina Roll-On.”

(Via HuffPost)

Jim Harbaugh will not be with the Michigan Wolverines for the first three games of the 2023 college football season. Prior to the start of the year, the university self-imposed a three-game suspension for their longtime coach, which means that he will have to watch as the Wolverines play East Carolina, UNLV, and Bowling Green.

ESPN has reported that this was all done to hopefully “soften the potential ruling from the NCAA” that is expected to come in 2024 for alleged recruiting violations during the COVID dead period in 2020. But no matter what, Wolverines players are very unhappy that this is a problem at all, and as a result, they used Saturday’s season opener against the Pirates to show support for their coach.

This extended to the team’s first offensive snap of the game. Instead of breaking the huddle and going up to the line of scrimmage, Wolverines players lined up in a straight line, held up four fingers — the number he wore during his playing days in Ann Arbor — and then lined up.

“I will continue to do what I always tell our players and my kids at home, ‘Don’t get bitter, get better,’” Harbaugh said in a statement of his suspension.

Harbaugh will return for the team’s fourth game of the season, which is a home tilt against Rutgers.

It’s been a few months since Tucker Carlson was unceremoniously fired by Fox News. How’s he doing? If his mostly low video view counts and tinfoil hat ravings about Trump being “assassinated” are any indication, not great! Still, he used to be considered hot stuff, enough that Elon Musk once quickly tried to scoop him up after he was let go.

As per Mediaite, Carlson did an interview with Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy Thursday, during which he reflected on his firing. Fox News didn’t just can him; they did the same to some of his team.

“Thankfully, they fired my executive producer, Justin Wells, like within four minutes of firing me. He really didn’t do anything wrong. He was the best producer in all of television and everyone knew it,” Carlson said. “And Fox has a lot of nice people, a lot of very incompetent people obviously running it. And he was one of the only competent people in the whole business. But they fired him, too.”

News spread fast that Fox News had kicked its biggest star to the curb, prompting the head of what was then still called Twitter to take action.

“And within I don’t know, an hour of that happening, Elon called him and said, ‘You should come to Twitter,’” Carlson said. “So I’ll never stop being grateful for that.”

News that Carlson had found a new home at Twitter came not long after he lost his job, though Musk clarified that the two weren’t as tight as it seemed. Carlson had a smash debut, though the numbers soon plummeted, spiking when he has a big guest interview. Then again, unlike with television, it’s hard to tell if people actually watch his videos in full or just start them and then quickly get bored.

(Via Mediaite)

When Donald Trump was arrested the other week, one detail jumped out above most: He claimed he was 215 pounds. It’s not an ideal weight; he’s 6’3”, which according to BMI calculators means he’s on the low end of overweight. Still, many weren’t buying that one. But at least one person thinks a guy who subsists on McDonald’s is somehow in great shape: his daughter-in-law.

Lara Trump, a person who married Eric Trump, went on Newsmax to sing the praises of her father-in-law regarding his alleged physical fitness. “Donald Trump is a very young 77,” she claimed. “For some, yes, age is just a number.”

Is it, though? The Daily Beast reflected on Trump’s checkered history when it came to reporting on his health:

In 2015, Harold Bornstein, a Manhattan doctor who had treated Trump, who is considered obese, has high cholesterol, and famously does not exercise, wrote in a letter that, if elected, Trump would be “the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.” Bornstein, who died in 2021, later confessed that Trump himself had dictated the letter.

It’s true that Trump has more energy than most his age. Even the young would find it draining to juggle political rallies and four indictments. Then again, maybe the constant strain on his brain is what leads him to doozies like “hamberders” and “roomer.”

(Via The Daily Beast)

Last week Joe Biden took the high ground: He said nice things about Republicans. After Mitch McConnell suffered a second bout of “freezing” up in public, the sitting president called the Senate Minority Leader a “good friend” and said he’d be reaching out to see if he’s okay. He also expressed enthusiasm in working with Florida governor Ron DeSantis to help out after Hurricane Idalia. It appears that was a one-way street.

As per Mediaite, DeSantis appears to have blown off a planned meeting with Biden. On Friday, Biden said he’d be jetting down to Florida for a pow-wow with his (very unlikely) 2024 presidential rival. DeSantis’ office then claimed no meeting had been planned. Who was lying? According to FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell, it’s DeSantis who’s not being level.

On Saturday morning, Criswell told CNN that there had been a “tremendous amount of coordination” between Biden and DeSantis’ teams about the meet-up.

“I traveled with the governor on Thursday and we went to some of the more rural coastal communities and access is fairly limited there,” Criswell said. “And so when the president contacted the governor to let him know he was going to be visiting, we mutually agreed. The governor’s team and my team mutually agreed on a place that would have minimal impact into operations.”

Criswell said she “would have to defer you to the governor on what his schedule is going to be,” but that “the president and the first lady are really looking forward to meeting with these first responders and these communities that have been impacted and letting them know that the government is here and that the president has directed all of us to bring the resources we have to help them on their road to recovery.”

Is it smart for the governor of a state recently impacted by a dangerous hurricane to blow off the president? Is he worried he’ll be smeared like Chris Christie was after he met with then-President Barack Obama after Hurricane Sandy? Is he putting his flailing presidential campaign over his constituents? Sure seems that way.

It’s yet another example of DeSantis’ cowardice? After all, this is the guy who’s afraid of a 15-year-old kid.

(Via Mediaite)

When one reaches a certain level of pop stardom, their fans are often going to pick apart lyrics and search for various clues and Easter eggs. Back in June, Olivia Rodrigo kicked off the era for her sophomore album Guts with her new song, “Vampire.”

Upon the release of “Vampire,” many fans thought Rodrigo was singing about Zack Bia or Joshua Bassett, to both of whom she had previously been linked romantically. But some theorized that the song might not even be about an ex of hers at all.

On the song’s chorus, Rodrigo sings about a “bloodsucker, fame-f*cker, bleeding me dry like a goddamn vampire.” Some fans thought this particular line might have been about Taylor Swift.

In an interview the The Guardian, Rodrigo didn’t confirm or deny these rumors, however, she admitted she was rather shocked when she read some of these theories.

“How do I answer this?” Rodrigo said “I mean, I never want to say who any of my songs are about. I’ve never done that before in my career and probably won’t. I think it’s better to not pigeonhole a song to being about this one thing. I was very surprised when people thought that.”

Rodrigo has long been open about how Swift has been an inspiration to her, however, rumors circulated that the two were no longer friends, after Swift booked Sabrina Carpenter — who, along with Bassett, is said to be one of the subjects of Rodrigo’s breakthrough single, “Drivers License” — as one of the openers for the Latin American leg of her Eras Tour. There was also said to be tension between Swift and Rodrigo after Rodrigo gave 50% of royalties from her song “Deja Vu” to Swift, as it sounded similar to Swift’s song, “Cruel Summer.”

But rumors aside, Rodrigo seems to be unfazed by these rumors.

Guts is out 9/8 via Geffen. Find more information here.

This article originally appeared on 01.11.19

Disney princesses are a magical thing, sometimes most of all for the princesses themselves.

Amber Shaddock Roberts used to visit Disneyland every year as a child. And from ages 2 to 15, she stopped to say hello and take pictures with the woman who was dressed as Snow White.

Amber Shaddock Roberts/Facebook

Amber Shaddock Roberts/Facebook

Roberts says the park employee remembered her by name each year, something that made her annual visits even more magical.

Fast forward several years and Roberts heard that the woman who portrayed Snow White was still working at Disneyland, only now portraying the Fairy Godmother. Roberts was able to track her down and brought her photo album of their shared memories in tow. What ensued was pure, magical bliss. As Roberts wrote in her Facebook post:

When I was 2 years old, I met Snow White. Every single time I saw her until I was 15, she recognized me and knew me by name. She made my Disney childhood so incredibly magical. I haven’t seen her in person since, but I knew she was now the Fairy Godmother. Today I tracked her down & got to hug her neck. Best day ever!!(And yes I cried!)

Amber Shaddock Roberts/Facebook

Amber Shaddock Roberts/Facebook

Amber Shaddock Roberts/Facebook

We hear you, Amber. We hear you. Is that fairy dust in our eyes?

And so does the world. The post was barely up on Facebook for 24 hours before it had been shared more than 80,000 times with no sign of slowing down.

This article originally appeared on 03.04.20

There are few more fulfilling hobbies than having a love of books.

Reading isn’t just a great way to have a good time. Reading increases brain connectivity, makes people more empathetic, reduces depression symptoms, improves vocabulary, and may even cause you to live longer.

It’s a huge benefit for a child’s development as well. According to Parent.com, reading “stimulates the side of the brain that helps with mental imagery, understanding, and language processing, and that brain activity.”

Sure beats wasting time playing video games.

Thirteen-year-old Callum Manning wanted to share his love of reading with the world, so he created an Instagram account where he posted photos of the books he’s read. It started with a post about Stephen King’s “The Shining.”

“So I guess I’m going to start this account off with one of my favourite books, Callum wrote. “This book was the first book I read in 1 day. And I was like 10. So yeah it scared me.”

See on Instagram

He would go on to fill his pages with books such as “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley, “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen, “1984” by George Orwell, and current classics such as “A Game of Thrones” by George R.R. Martin and “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” by J.K. Rowling

Kids Callum’s age can be exceptionally cruel. A group of them created a group chat where they bullied him for his love of books and then invited him to join. After subjecting him to emotional abuse, they kicked him out of the chat.

“I don’t tend to cry that often but I think that was the first time in a while I’ve actually cried,” Callum told PA Media.

His older sister, Ellis Landreth, was understandably upset about the cruelty, so she tweeted about the group chat, hoping about “20 or 30 of my friends [would] like a few of his posts or follow him or give him some words of encouragement.”

Her tweet would go viral, receiving over 180,000 likes.

Canu2019t believe how awful kids are. My little brothers made an Instagram reviewing and talking about books and kids in his new school have seen it and have created a group chat calling him a creep slagging him off about it and added him to it so he could see pic.twitter.com/wuuj2XlO34

— Ellis (@Ellis)
1582972178

She was bombarded by responses from people who wanted to support her brother.

I think the love from all around the world has probably let him know he isn’t alone. But all the interesting people I know were once considered weird kids with books. Including me.

— Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) March 2, 2020

I’ve followed him and dropped him a little message but I’d love to buy him a book or send him over an amazon gift card – I’m sure he has a lot of books on the way but please DM me if there’s any book he doesn’t have 😊

— beffy (@beffybadbelly) March 1, 2020

Just a few hours after the tweet, Callum received thousands of followers on his page. In just three days, he’s up to nearly 400,000 followers. He’s also received countless messages of support through the page.

English novelist Matt Haig sent Callum a collection of books, adding: “Hey let’s all follow Cals Book Account on Instagram and show him some support.” A book store near Manning’s home in northeast England promised him a book on the house.

Callum’s story was shared on Instagram by authors Caroline Kepnes and Malorie Blackman.

The teenager received over 15,000 messages in his DMs. “He’s absolutely overwhelmed,” Landreth told CNN. “He can’t even get through all his DMs.”

Callum’s mother is over the moon about the response. “She’s so happy people are spreading positive messages about these issues,” Landreth said. “No matter how small some things seem, they can stick with kids forever.”

Parenting is the most important job that most people will ever have in life. Your decisions as a parent will be some of the most important determining factors in whether your child becomes a happy and productive adult or not. It’s a huge responsibility.

Parenting is a difficult and important undertaking, but many parents simply repeat the same strategies used by their parents. How often do we hear people rationalize their decisions by saying, “That’s what my parents did and I came out OK.”

This approach to raising children negates the fact that with every generation there are countless studies done on child development, many of which run counter to popular parenting wisdom from the past.

Dr. Kristyn Sommer, who has a PhD in child development, has received a lot of attention on social media because of her dedication to teaching “evidence-based parenting.” This expertise has made her an advocate for strategies that run counter to conventional parenting wisdom and have stirred up a bit of controversy.

Here are five TikTok videos where Sommer shares some of her evidence-based parenting strategies.

@drkristynsommer Play > rote learning for toddlers 🙌 #playbasedlearning #learningthroughplay #playmatters #earlylearning #earlychildhoodeducation #preschool #toddler ♬ original sound – DrKristynSommer

Three Things I Do Differently as a Mum with a PhD in Child Development

In Dr. Sommer’s first video where she references her degree she admits she refuses to sleep train, co-sleeps with her daughter, and never calls her “naughty” or “bad.” She delves deeper into her thoughts on discipline in the next video.

How To Discipline Your Child So They Actually Learn

Dr. Sommer uses positive reinforcement to discipline her child and as she said in the previous video, avoids the use of terms such as “naughty” or “bad.” If her daughter is doing something wrong she asks her to contemplate whether she’s making a good or a bad decision.

How to Handle Tantrums

Most people tend to think of a tantrum as naughty behavior. However, they are actually a combination of a bunch of little stresses that the child has experienced throughout the day that eventually overwhelm them. Once they hit the tipping point, all of their big feelings bubble up to the surface, resulting in a healthy expression of emotion.

Should You Spank Your Child?

Dr. Sommer is passionately against “spanking, corporal punishment, physical punishment, what ever you want to call it.” She says it needs to stop because it has little effect on behavior and can lead to antisocial tendencies in the future.

She Doesn’t Teach ABCs and 1,2,3s

Dr. Sommer isn’t worried about teaching her child her toddler alphabet or how to count. She says that it “doesn’t really help them with anything” but they should spend that time playing because that’s where they learn best.

@drkristynsommer

Play > rote learning for toddlers 🙌 #playbasedlearning #learningthroughplay #playmatters #earlylearning #earlychildhoodeducation #preschool #toddler

This article originally appeared on 08.03.21