Month: September 2023

In interview with Complex’s new interview with Megan Thee Stallion, writer Jessica McKinney wondered if Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion considered recording a joint project after the success of their past work.

Naturally, fan accounts on the app formerly-and-forever-known-as Twitter ran with Megan’s answer, posting that the two women “might” have a joint EP on the way. Of course, this led to the assumption that they are almost certainly releasing a shared project, but as with most things on social media, the truth is a little more complicated. So…

Will Cardi B And Megan Thee Stallion Make A Project Together?

Cardi and Megan are now two-for-two when it comes to their history of teaming up for high-profile collaborations. Their 2020 collab “WAP” was a juggernaut, spending four weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 chart, while their latest, “Bongos,” entered the Hot 100 just outside the top ten and is likely to rise in the coming weeks. With that kind of a track record, it’s no surprise that fans are now wondering if there’s more were that came from.

However, if you take a look at what Megan actually said, it sounds like any sort of project would just be a natural effect of how productive the two have been together. “So I’ve done two songs for her,” she said. “And now I feel like I’m in a space where I know exactly what songs I want her to do for me. So we’re really building a little EP already… So if she wanted to do a little EP, I would definitely be so down to do that, but we are making enough music to already have that.”

So, while the two rappers likely have recorded or will record enough music to put together a short project, it doesn’t sound like there are any immediate plans for one. For one thing, Cardi is gearing up for the release of the follow-up to her debut studio album Invasion Of Privacy. Meanwhile, she has already said that she plans to drop a joint mixtape with her husband Offset and an album in Spanish, so her schedule sounds pretty full for the time being.

Still, Cardi and Meg’s chemistry is such that a joint project would probably be pretty well-received among most music listeners, so if they did decide to go all Watch The Throne, I’m sure they’d have plenty of folks tuning in.

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

American Horror Story: 1984 actress Angelica Ross accused co-star Emma Roberts of making anti-trans remarks on the set of the FX series.

“I’m standing in front of Emma, talking to her like this, and she’s in front of me, her back against the mirror,” Ross, who is trans, said on Instagram Live on Tuesday. The actress claims Roberts turned to someone named John — possibly producer John J. Gray — and said, “John, Angelica’s being mean.” Ross continued, “John is like, ‘OK, ladies, that’s enough. Let’s get back to work.’ And she then looks at me, and she goes, ‘Don’t you mean lady?’ And she turns around like this and covers her mouth. I’m staring at her looking her dead ass in the [camera] and I’m like trying to process the f*ck she just said.”

The Hollywood Reporter has more:

Ross alleged this was not the first time Roberts has had negative interactions with an actor on a set, telling her Instagram Live viewers that her own decision to not report the incident was based on a fear of retaliation after the outcome of another alleged interaction between someone and Roberts. “My blood is boiling because I’m like, if I say something, it’s gonna be me that’s the problem,” she explained. “I know this because there was someone who spoke up about what she was doing, and they got repercussions from it.”

Ross also alleged that Roberts dropped her voice “several octaves” to impersonate her: “The funniest part? We’re all sitting around & I’m copying Cody’s accent. Didn’t know he had one. Emma then copies my voice & laugh and drops it several octaves. I was SHOOK. She read me for blood with my own words… of course I was self conscious about my voice on set after that.”

In another tweet, she wrote:

On Wednesday, Ross revealed that Roberts reached out to her. “Thank you @RobertsEmma for calling and apologizing, recognizing your behavior was not that of an ally,” she wrote. “I will leave the line open to follow up on your desire to do better and support social justice causes with your platform.”

(Via the Hollywood Reporter)

The music of Queen has a profound visceral effect on everyone. Few pieces of art can cause complete strangers to put aside their differences and come together in song, but by golly, “Bohemian Rhapsody” is one of them. It would be cheesy if it weren’t so absolutely beautiful.

This pertains even to non-English-speaking countries, it appears. Recently, thousands of Harry Styles concertgoers in Warsaw, Poland, began cheering as those iconic beginning piano notes penetrated the air.

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It wasn’t long before the entire stadium was singing along to that beloved tune and acing every single lyric. As one person commented on YouTube, even though most people in Warsaw don’t speak English, “they sing Queen.”

The passionate impromptu performance serves as a reminder of how special both Queen and the late Freddie Mercury remain today.

“No other band will ever come close to Queen. They were lightning in a bottle and Freddie was a whale in a teardrop. Once people keep singing his words, FM will live on forever,” another YouTube viewer wrote.

Indeed, seeing an entire stadium come alive with “Bohemian Rhapsody,” you can’t help but feel Mercury’s soul return to the mortal plane, as if we’ve all been transported back to that historic Live Aid concert in 1985 when he had the entirety of Wembley Stadium wrapped around his finger for 21 glorious minutes.

Watch below, and try not to sing along. Scratch that—sing your heart out.

This article originally appeared on 7.14.23

Nine months after being found guilty of shooting Megan Thee Stallion and six weeks after being sentenced to 10 years in prison for said crime, Tory Lanez has been transferred to state prison to begin his sentence. TMZ posted a new mugshot of the Canadian rapper which sees him looking pretty unkempt and less-than-pleased with the situation.

In 2020, Lanez was accused by Megan Thee Stallion of shooting her the backs of her feet after a dispute following a party in the Hollywood Hills. Although Lanez maintained his innocence, he also failed to put forth an alternative theory, hinting but never outright accusing that Megan was shot by her friend Kelsey Harris in an argument after both romantically pursued him.

Unfortunately for Lanez, his defense’s inability to present any compelling explanation for Megan’s injuries left a jury no choice but to find him guilty of the assault. In fact, one of his defense teams star witnesses basically confirmed that it was Lanez who did the shooting despite ostensibly being coached ahead of time.

While Tory’s team bid hard for a new trial, their requests were denied. Later, they requested a lenient sentence for the rapper, but ultimately, the judge decided that his actions during ahead of the trial warranted a stiffer penalty.

In an interview published a few days ago, Rolling Stone co-founder Jann Wenner spoke about Black and female musicians, and his take was decidedly not beloved, to the point that Wenner later apologized. Not many people have gone to bat for Wenner in light of all this, but now Bob Guccione, Jr., founder of Spin magazine, has decided to in a new opinion piece shared today (September 20).

The piece starts, “I have always admired and respected Jann Wenner, and still do. Yes, I know what he said in the New York Times about Black and female musicians, and that a day later he was unceremoniously dumped from the Board of Directors of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, which he co-founded. But he’s entitled to his opinion, isn’t he?”

Guccione goes on to write about how while he believes the content of what Wenner said was wrong, but that the biggest issue here is the response to it:

“It’s inaccurate — and you can’t always say someone is wrong in their opinion, but in this case he’s empirically wrong — but all he’s really guilty of is expressing that opinion in clumsy language, if we’re being generous, or stupid, insensitive language if we’re not. Mostly he’s guilty of expressing a sentiment that is not politically correct. One that’s not part of the prescribed, sanctioned set of things you can say and think in America today. And that’s what horrifies me, sickens me. That’s the greatest danger, not his indelicate way of saying that he thinks only old white rock stars can properly explain rock ‘n roll.”

He later added, “We all talk about free speech a lot these days, but it’s a sham. What the most virulent, nauseatingly sanctimonious of the free speech woke folks want is freedom for their speech. Just their speech. They do not want freedom for any dissenting speech. That they want crushed, vaporized. And they want to punish anyone who has the temerity, or stupidity, or just plain bad luck to utter something not in sync with the One True Gospel of How Everyone Must Think and Act.”

From there, Guccione gets into Róisín Murphy’s recent controversy, “phony ‘liberals,’” and more, so find the whole piece here.

Back in 2021, Bob Odenkirk suffered a near-fatal heart attack on the set of Better Call Saul, and the actor has repeatedly credited the fast work of the medical team at Sony studios for saving his life. It was a profound moment in his life that has understandably affected how he approaches his family and work, so leave it to Fox News to dump a conspiracy theory all over it.

During Tuesday night’s episode of Gutfeld!, Odenkirk was the topic of conversation as host Greg Gutfeld decided to harp about the actor’s recent revelation that, prior to his heart attack, he began ignoring his doctor’s advice because he wasn’t a fan of his politics. Gutfeld devoted an entire segment to Odenkirk’s remarks, which prompted panelist Tom Shillue to toss out some conspiratorial red meat to the show’s conservative audience.

Via Mediaite:

Well, it’s interesting because like I say, like you said … you give the guy credit because it seems like he’s learning. And that was a revelation for him. “Oh, wait a minute. This guy’s a Republican, but maybe he’s the guy who was going to give me the good advice.” Actually, I don’t like his advice. I don’t like statins, there’s too many people on them. So, just, you know, I don’t think there’s any reason to think that that’s why he had his heart attack. You know, maybe it was a different thing that caused this heart attack, like the injection he got three months before he had the heart attack. The experimental injection.

This conspiracy theory pops up anytime a famous actor or athlete has a heart attack, which routinely occurred before the COVID-19 pandemic. But that hasn’t stopped right-wing conspiracy theorists from blaming the vaccine even though there is no evidence that the shot is causing cardiac arrest.

Great job, Fox News.

(Via Mediaite)

In 2023, it might not be too surprising that franchises are taking over the internet and box office. There is a fandom for basically any type of franchise that exists in the world, and they sure love going to bat for everything and anything they need to, even when it seems completely off track. Did you know there is still a dedicated Heroes fan base? Wouldn’t it be nice to live perpetually in the year 2007?

This year, online community and data firm Fandom surveyed their site for the top fandoms and nobody was surprised that Barbie landed there, but some of the others were a little unconventional. Still no Paddington though, for some reason.

“Franchises made up 95% of the top blockbusters and games in 2023, yet there has been no single unified view on what’s capturing fan attention and why,” Fandom CEO Perkins Miller said (per Deadline). “The Franchise Factor framework gives creators, producers, and marketers actionable insights and tools to strengthen their franchises in an increasingly competitive landscape.” AKA, when fans gather together and enjoy content, more content will be made! Everyone wins. Sometimes.

Star Wars and Marvel led the list, with the One Piece fandom clocking in at No.3, which is perfect timing for the franchise, which was around for over three decades before Netflix jumped on board. What might be a surprise is Yellowstone landing at No. 7, ahead of Disney, which sits at No. 9. Those Disney princesses are nothing compared to Kevin Costner looking retrospective in a cowboy hat.

The five key elements to a franchise, according to Fandom, are “world-building; high ratings [from critics and fans]; fierce fanbases; cultural relevance; and consistency.” The company analyzes these in order to determine a numerical “Franchise Factor” score. With numerous spin-offs in the works, it’s no wonder Yellowstone is on everyone’s minds. Except for Costner himself.

While this is all fine and interesting, there is one fandom clearly missing from the list, and that’s the Dom Toretto fandom. Where are all the Fast fans?! Probably busy getting speeding tickets. You can check out the full list here.

(Via Fandom, Deadline)

Over the past two weeks since my return from Burning Man, I’ve found myself fielding an array of concerned inquiries from friends, family, and total strangers alike. Everyone and their mother seems to have caught the hilariously overinflated headlines: “State of emergency – Humanitarian Crisis – Ebola Outbreak!” (Yes, someone actually published that.) There was a litany of articles and reports about the storm-stricken conditions that turned this year’s Burn on its head and left tens of thousands “stranded” in the northern Nevada desert. The problem is, that almost all of the early reports came from the outside looking in. Mainstream media outlets love to lead with disaster (“if it bleeds, it leads”) and have no shame about leveraging hyperbole and omission for clicks.

While it is true that the unseasonal heavy rainfall wreaked havoc on the physical landscape of the Black Rock Desert and threw a sizable wrench in the works for literally everyone in attendance, the spirit of the event remained largely unbroken (as Uproxx previously profiled) and, if anything, the immense challenges brought about some of the best human to human connection and interpersonal care ever to arise from the fabled dust.

Before getting into the boots-on-the-ground recounting and my personal reflections from this year’s Burn, I shall venture to give readers a teaspoon of context. It is more than fair to say that Burning Man is as widely misunderstood as it is alluring to those who have never undertaken the wild and wondrous pilgrimage to “The Playa” — our amorous nickname for the vast dry lake bed where Burning Man is held. While the recent increase in attendance of notable celebrities and pictures of wild outfits and raging parties paint a predominant picture, much like the Met Gala, what happens on the inside has exponentially more substance to it than the Getty images and IG posts reveal.

As the late Ram Dass so eloquently put it “To him who has had the experience no explanation is necessary, to him who has not, none is possible.” Still, this writer shall do his best to take a swing.

Burning Man is a completely unique cultural experiment. Yes, it is a ticketed event, but though often written up and referred to as the Burning Man Festival, it is actually run by a nonprofit organization named the Burning Man Project whose goal is the celebration of art and proliferation of culture, not capitalism. Though they may arise in the same conversation and seem similar from afar, when you look under the hood, Burning Man and festivals like Coachella or EDC have little to nothing in common. Yes, some of the world’s biggest DJs do show up and play for the masses, but you’re not buying a ticket to a show, and none of the artists, whether musical, visual, or otherwise get paid for their attendance and participation.

None of them. Not a cent. Not even Diplo.

Sure, you can dance to his music as he spins on a neon submarine at sunset (and I did this year), but you can also watch a classical philharmonic orchestra playing Beethoven and Bach or catch a bluegrass band at a country-style bar serving home-distilled moonshine. Yes, you could spend your day in the infamous orgy dome engaged in the wildest perversion imaginable (I never have), but you can also spend your days doing yoga, sitting in traditional tea ceremonies, or listening to TED-style talks delivered by high-profile global thought leaders from every sector (and sure, probably a few douches).

The point being, there is literally something for everyone, at all times, day and night. Burning Man is a celebration of the entire scope of human existence and expression, not just a drug-fueled party for the weirdos of the world to convene and cut loose. Although… let’s be honest… it is that too.

To say that it was business as usual at Burning Man before the rain is ludicrous. This was my eighth year in attendance since 2013 and no two Burns have ever been remotely the same. How could they be? The temporary and ephemeral nature of Burning Man is a cornerstone of what makes it so special. Every year, nearly eighty thousand people converge from all corners of the globe and create a temporary city in one of the most austere and uninhabitable places on earth. Before The Burn, there is quite literally nothing out there. We bring every piece of material needed to build our personal shelters, our camps, massive communal structures, and intricate art installations, only to either break them down and pack them out or burn them to the ground. When we leave, we Leave No Trace (one of the 10 core principles by which we conduct ourselves in the dust). I’ll admit that there has been some recent and perhaps valid scrutiny here, but I’ll also note that teams of volunteers literally stay for weeks after the official end of the event, walking arm in arm to pick up every last fallen sequin and discarded bottle cap that may have blown astray. You can check in on playa restoration digitally — try it!

All this to say, no Burn is ever the same.

This year, for the first time since I co-founded my current camp in 2015, much to our dismay we were placed near the far outer edge of the city. Yes, it is a fully functional city. We’ve even got a post office that will deliver your mail! In years past we’d been as close in as A but we’ve spent the past several years in the sweet spot between B & E. (For context, the streets of the city ripple outward from the center by letter, from A to K). This year we were all the way out at I, as in “I don’t know what we did to deserve this.” My co-founder and I definitely had some initial gripes about being relegated to the boonies as it makes for a laboriously long ride home after a full night of partying; however, our new address in the burbs proved to be a massive blessing in disguise.

So let’s get to the rain, shall we?

On Thursday, my dearest dusty campmates and I were in not-so-rare form. The combination of substances in our systems was curated to perfection and the overall energy of the whole city seemed to be in perfect harmony with our high. Just before sunset, we mounted up and rode our bikes out in a pack through a whiteout dust storm to catch Diplo’s set on that aforementioned magical submarine. As seems to always happen, I found at least another dozen friends from other camps on the dance floor and the first drops of the coming deluge kissed our faces as we danced away the daylight and welcomed the darkness.

It was mild weather. Negligible even. If anything, the few small sprinkles throughout the night felt refreshing as we slid from one dance floor to the next. We knew there were reports of rain coming on Friday, but most of us had experienced a little drizzle on the playa in previous years. It had only ever given us a few hours pause. As far as we were concerned there was nothing to worry about, so we kept it going until the wee hours and finally said our goodnights around the campfire just before dawn.

When I awoke Friday afternoon just after 2 p.m., three RVs from our camp had already rolled out. No surprise there. They weren’t trying to beat the storm. This was just their premeditated departure. Parents getting home to their kids. Husbands going home to their wives. My RV mate for the week and I had intended on leaving Friday as well, so I made coffee and began to pack us up. Then it started. As we were loading the last of our things the heavens opened up and the sky dumped all over our planned early exodus.

The rain started coming down so fast and hard that I was soaked in a matter of minutes. The ground beneath my feet went from hard-packed to a thick and sticky clay that clung to my boots and quickly accumulated to the point that I stood at least an inch taller. There was no question about it, driving out in these rapidly degrading conditions was not an option. So — following the hard-earned wisdom I’ve integrated after a decade of attending Burning Man — I surrendered to what is rather than fighting foolishly for what was or what I hoped to be.

We were staying to ride out the storm. Like it or not.

This brings me to the first important point that begs to be made about the consciousness of the Burner community and why we thrived through the experience of the most challenging conditions to date. Everyone who’s ever spent more than a couple of days at Burning Man knows that even the best-laid plans will often fall apart out there and the most magical moments lie around every corner when you learn to roll with the punches. There’s an adaptability mindset that most people in the “default world” (the Burner term for normal life outside Black Rock City) simply do not possess. We flow rather than fight the current. To appropriately follow the liquid metaphor I refer to the famous and oft-truncated Bruce Lee quote — “Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it.”

So, we flowed with the flood. There were still plenty of people left in our camp and those of us present at the onset of the full downpour all piled into one RV and made proverbial lemonade out of the situation. The owner of the RV made hot tea and bone broth for everyone. We all contributed something from our individual provision stashes and created a buffet that actually turned into a multiple-course hot dinner. We ate and drank and told stories. Packed in like soggy sardines, we sighed deeply as one, knowing that the coming days would bring unknown challenges but that as long as we had each other, we’d be fine.

In the midst of our patchwork peace, Mike, the brother of our RV refugee host flung open the door. Drenched to the bone and caked in mud he exclaimed “I can’t remember the last time I was this miserable!” He’d been out in the open playa when the rain hit and his e-bike simply ceased to handle the thickening terrain. He’d dragged the 70lb bike nearly a mile back into the city and left it on the inner ring near Esplanade before trudging the remainder of the way home. Oooof! This was the first account of really difficulty we’d gotten. We welcomed him into the warmth and with the help of a hot meal and a cold cocktail his energy quickly rose to meet ours.

Still, we couldn’t help but begin to wonder as to the whereabouts and wellness of our other campmates not present at our little sardine party. Our minds and our conversation drifted into conjecture about the state of the city at large. Mike is a big dude. If he was having a rough go of it, there was no telling how bad it could get for others.

Eventually, things cleared up a bit and we decided to trek out and survey the streets for ourselves. It was eerily quiet. The once flat-packed ground was now a thick oatmeal at best. In the more heavily trafficked areas, it was a veritable swamp of ankle-deep clay. Clay is the word. Let me be clear, this was no ordinary mud. The alkaline dust of the Black Rock lake bed doesn’t behave like dirt when wet. This clay was thick enough to make pottery and elaborate sculptures, which many eventually did. Still, we trudged our way a few avenues inward and eventually found a small airplane-themed bar that was playing music and hosting the few folks brave enough to venture out from the safety of their camps. This was Friday night the Burn, usually the single most active and wild night of the week! Had they been present, you could have literally heard crickets chirping.

Before long the majority of our crew decided to turn back and hunker down for the night. Somehow, with renewed vigor, Mike and I opted to carry on and not succumb to the gloom. As we ventured deeper in toward the center of the city the roads became more treacherous with each passing street. Somewhere around D, we encountered a moored art car with less than a dozen people dancing. It wasn’t the vibe.

Onward and inward we pushed. Our energy and optimism waning with every strenuous step.

Finally, we reached Esplanade, the innermost ring of the giant crescent we’ve all seen in aerial shots. To say it was a haunting sight is grossly insufficient. Looking out at the open playa, usually a buzzing hive of frenetic energy and infinite potential, there was nothing moving. Not a single art car. Not a single bike. Most staggering of all, The Man himself was dark. That never happens.

The Man is the central beacon by which every burner navigates the night. He’s our Orion and Big Dipper in one. The literal mascot of the movement. Until he disappears in a flaming ball of cathartic glory on Saturday night, The Man is damn near the one thing you can always count on. And he wasn’t there.

Then, in contrast to the desolation that lay before us, two blocks over to our left we spotted clear signs of hope. Fires still raging. Bodies in motion. A beat beckoning us to come closer. As we made our way to the flaming oasis, the full picture filled me with overwhelming joy and more importantly, hope.

There were probably 50 wildlings gathered around in full raucous revelry. At least a dozen were naked and covered in the muddy clay from head to toe, having turned our mutual obstacle into an impromptu adornment. They danced circles around the fire, each step plowing further down into muck that reached up to mid-calf at its deepest point. Two bartenders poured drinks directly into people’s open mouths like a scene from spring break in a Mexican resort town. The DJ left us craving a little more skill and finesse in his transitions, but nobody really cared. All that mattered was that in the midst of the newly minted ghost town, the few and the fearless refused to give in to despair and dim down.

I’ve seen just about every shade of wild shit at Burning Man, (short of the aforementioned orgy dome that is), but something about this moment was different. It was savage. It was defiant. It was completely unhinged and cohesive all at once. There was a knowing in each one of us that we were there for far more than our own entertainment and experience. That night, we were the torchbearers for all of our brothers and sisters huddled in their shelters wondering what would become of our storm-battered city. That night, we were The Man.

Saturday revealed all of our true colors. Back at our camp, the 50’ x 70’ communal lounge we’d built had collapsed in the night. The conduit piping that framed our shade structure had been ripped up and bent like a handful of plastic straws. Our collection of couches and rugs we’d continually accumulated year after year were all soaked through beyond salvation. Basically, ⅔ of our shit was ruined, and we were not alone. The storm had completely ravaged many of the smaller and mid-sized camps and still done its share of damage to even the biggest structures in the city. BMIR, the official independent radio station of Burning Man announced that the gates to the event had been locked down and there was a no-driving order issued to prevent further damage to the terrain.

We were indeed being instructed to “shelter in place.” Crisis management language if I’d ever heard it.

Shit had suddenly gotten real; nonetheless, my crew didn’t bitch, moan or blink. We packed up both wreckage and remnants alike with an uncanny efficiency. Normally the process of breaking down our camp is a slow and much belabored burden. Somehow the utter chaos gave us a sense of purpose and urgency that made it all fly by. Our teamwork was seamless. In just a few hours we’d cleaned and packed up nearly 90% of our shit and a sense of calm predominated in spite of the material losses and inherent question of “WTF now?!” in the back of all our minds.

Stripped down to only the essentials, we lit an afternoon fire and once again created a buffet of both snacks and libations. As we lounged and laughed, we began to welcome others in need of respite. Two weary firefighters came trudging down our street and we offered them cold beers and tangerines. They sat down to rest and told us stories from across the city. There were a few injuries and incidents of shitty attitudes but they mostly spoke in admiration of the resilience and goodwill exhibited all around. It seemed that everyone was rising to the challenge that Mother Nature had set before us. As the sun dropped behind the mountains and the evening crept over us, we had a literal visit from Santa Claus. An older burner with a snow-white beard wearing the classic Santa suit and gold-rimmed circular spectacles came and sat with us for the better part of an hour. We fed him cookies and the ladies of our crew took pictures on his lap as they made their wishes for the remainder of the burn. I

t was comical and jovial. Frankly, it was wholesome.

This is the picture of the muddy mayhem that the mass media failed to report. People caring for people. Acts of service and compassion with no agenda. Humor through hardship. We didn’t descend into an episode of The Walking Dead with warring bands guarding our battered encampments from scavenging raiders. If anything, we all opened our hearts and our homes up even wider than before. I’ve heard multiple stories of camps adopting those who couldn’t make it home in the peak of the storm and offering them a warm meal and bed for the night. Though we all brought limited resources to sustain us through a finite period of time which was now being stretched indefinitely, everyone seemed to be willing to give more. We weren’t hoarding in fear. We were sharing with love and compassion knowing that we were all in it together. This is the spirit of Burning Man that keeps me and tens of thousands of others coming back year after year.

The ostensible climax of every Burning Man is literally the burning of The Man. Every Saturday night circa 9 pm, every art car, every bike, and every dusty soul on the playa gathers around in the very center of the city to form a giant circle and watch as our namesake effigy is engulfed in a massive pyre packed with explosives and fireworks. It’s a cacophonous, cathartic clusterfuck that symbolizes the release of our collective hopes, dreams, intentions, and efforts for this hallowed week in the wild. On this Saturday night, for the first time in the history of Burning Man, The Man would not burn. The playa was thrashed. The necessary precautions for such a massive pyrotechnic display were rendered untenable.

Did it stop us from celebrating as if the great fire was raging? Absolutely not.

My campmates and I once again braved the slog through the streets and though still noticeably less boisterous than usual, the city was very much alive. Having worked through the day to clean up and re-establish our footing on the literal and metaphoric unstable ground beneath us, we were reinvigorated and doubly determined not to let this Saturday night be spent in woe. We found our way to multiple neighborhood parties where everyone was in a celebratory high vibe. We danced with every bit of abandon that we would have offered up to the burning of The Man. Maybe more. This night was a triumph over adversity beyond anything we could have conceived. There’s a long-standing axiom that “You’ve gotta earn your burn.”

Well, giant checkmark to that!

The following morning, the sky was dry. There were reports of another storm on the horizon but it was still a few hours out. Despite BMIR still broadcasting reports that the gates were closed, my travel companion and I decided to make a break for it. The fact is, they wanted people out, they just didn’t want the chaos of a mad rush through the mud and all the potential dangers that would have entailed should they officially give the green light. We were already packed and after a few quick but deep hugs to our crew, we took our chances and pulled away from camp.

This is where our initially begrudged placement on the outer ring became a true blessing. The roads of the city were still far from solid but being in one of the lesser trafficked sectors, we still had plenty of traction. Had we been just a few short blocks deeper into the city, the conditions would have been impossible. We made it from our camp to the paved highway practically without stopping. Having waited in bumper-to-bumper congestion for up to 12 hours to get out in years past, I could not believe the ease of our escape. As we drove, we saw dozens of our fellow burners trekking out on foot with only a backpack and a heart full of hope.

One of our campmates had decided to hoof it out hours earlier to ensure he was back in LA for an important meeting on Tuesday. We ended up picking him up at a gas station only a few short miles down the road.

For the first several hours of our long drive home, the rain returned with a fury, possibly harder than the torrent that had initially hit Friday afternoon. There was no way to tell exactly what path the storm would take and we couldn’t help but wonder if our friends still on the playa were getting pummeled ever deeper into the clay crisis. Still, there was no sense of worry or despair for their or the rest of Black Rock City’s wellbeing. We’d seen firsthand the proof in the murky pudding that the Radical Self Reliance, Civic Responsibility, Communal Effort, and the rest of the 10 Principles of Burning Man had proven to be far more than lip service. They were the collective backbone by which we all stood upright and faced down the fray. We laughed about the idea that even the plug-n-play camps (camps that provide accommodations, meals, and other amenities for a hefty price tag, allowing those burners with deeper pockets to offset personal logistics and be far more luxuriously dependent) were getting a taste of “the real Burn” and would have to literally and figuratively get their hands dirty.

Whether bare bones burner or billionaire, everyone was subject to similar challenges and would inevitably emerge changed by the clay crucible. No one was exempt from the lessons wrought by the rain this year. As well it should be.

As I typed the final words of the first draft of this reflection on a Thursday evening, days after the official end of the event, I personally knew several people still out on the playa making the most of it long past their expected return plan. As I have watched my dusty friends from over the years returning to their city lives and posting their own reflections via social media, one theme seems to resonate across the board. This year was not cataclysmic but rather it was sacred, because it showed us what we are truly made of: Irrational optimism, uncanny ingenuity, unbreakable resilience, and unconditional love.

Yes, the final days of this year’s Burning Man presented us with innumerable obstacles; nonetheless, we endured through it all and seized even greater triumphs than we could have ever conceived possible. We are a community that exemplifies the best characteristics of humanity and when the going gets tough and the dust turns to mud, we’ve proven that we neither falter nor fold, we only dig deeper and call forth a better and stronger version of ourselves, together. No surprise. That’s just what burners do. We thrive in chaos. We shine through even the darkest of nights. We give life everything we’ve got and life itself gives it right back tenfold.

That’s the real Playa magic. It’s the soul of the people. We are all The Man, forever burning bright.

After the release of Dope Sick, The Drop Out, and, more recently, Pain Killer, there is no shortage of true stories about the opioid epidemic, and Pain Hustlers is Netflix’s latest take.

Pain Hustlers is based on the New York Times article of the same name, which then inspired the 2022 book The Hard Sell. The film has an all-star cast, including Emily Blunt, Chris Evans, Andy Garcia, Catherine O’Hara, Jay Duplass, Brian d’Arcy James, and Chloe Coleman.

The movie follows Blunt’s character Liza as she unexpectedly becomes involved in a drug conspiracy after taking a job at a pharmaceutical company. According to Netflix’s official description: “After losing her job, a blue-collar woman who’s struggling to raise her daughter takes a job out of desperation. She begins work at a failing pharmaceutical start-up, but what she doesn’t anticipate is the dangerous racketeering scheme she’s suddenly entered.”

Even though it’s based on a true story, the film is being called a “heavily dramatized account” of the rise and fall of a small opioid company called Insys Therapeutics that sold a pain relief spray with fentanyl as the main ingredient. Insys filed for bankruptcy in 2019 after several company executives were convicted of racketeering, but you can check out the story when Pain Hustlers hits Netflix on October 27th.

(Via Esquire)

Olivia Rodrigo isn’t afraid to put her feelings on display. She also isn’t afraid to handle heartbreak in many forms, as evidenced by her sophomore album, Guts, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.

But there is one thing that may just give her the heebie-jeebies. In the outtakes from her Rolling Stone profile, Rodrigo revealed that the one thing she fears more than anything is birds.

“Birds are so foreign to us — there’s not one body part that looks like ours,” Rodrigo said. “Everyone’s all afraid about aliens and sh*t. They’re like, ‘What are the aliens going to look like?’ I’m like, ‘We have birds on our planet, and we’re not scared of them. We’re fine!’”

Elsewhere in the interview, she joked about a theory that suggests that birds aren’t real.

“Everyone’s like, ‘Have you ever seen a pigeon’s nest? Have you ever seen a pigeon lay an egg?’ And me at 18 years old, I’m like, ‘Wow. I’ve never seen a pigeon’s nest!,’” Rodrigo said.

While birds might give Rodrigo a fright, one thing she can be sure of is her ability to craft hits. In addition to debuting at No. 1, Guts has spawned two No. 1 hit singles — including “Bad Idea, Right?” and “Vampire,” which initially debuted at No. 1 then returned to No. 1 this week after a nine-week absence from the top spot.

Guts is out now via Geffen. Find more information here.