The Simpsons writers’ room was the origin of many of the greatest jokes in television history. It was also a total dump.
On a recent episode of the Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast, host and former Simpsons writer Conan O’Brien was asked by guest Ed Sheeran if he had any stories about his time on the animated series. “What’s funny is that, you know, I was there from… let’s see… Simpsons fans know everything, and they get upset that I don’t know it because I was there and I was there during a fairly early stage considering how long it’s run,” Conan said. First off, yes, we do. Secondly, “a fairly early stage” is a nice way of saying “the golden era.”
After sharing how episodes were pitched, O’Brien discussed the urine-soaked hellhole (or pee pee-soaked heckhole) that was the Simpsons writers’ room. “So many people think, ‘Oh my god, this epic television show known for its really good writers,’ these people I got to work with are insanely talented, and the room is just awful. The room is terrible,” he said. “It looks like the worst — I mean, it did at the time, I think it’s much nicer now — there was just a bad shag carpet. Sofas that if, y’know, you’re in your first year at college or university, you just get them off the sidewalk.” You can see it for yourself here.
The writers would “sit there and eat fried food” (and Butterfinger BB’s), and O’Brien sat next to another writer who “smoked all the time… so when I die, it will be because of him.” Sounds like John Swartzwelder.
As a special treat, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard uploaded a mashup video for the project’s first three singles, “Theia,” “The Silver Cord,” and “Set.” In a statement by the group’s Stu Mackenzie, he shared the inspiration behind the tracks.
“The first version’s really condensed, trimming all the fat,” he said. “And on the second version, that first song, ‘,’eia’, is 20 minutes long. It’s the ‘everything’ version – those seven songs you’ve already heard on the first version, but with a whole lot of other shit we record while making it. It’s for the Gizz-heads. I love Donna Summer’s records with Giorgio Moroder, and I’d never listen to the short versions now – I’m one of those people who wants to hear the whole thing. We’re testing the boundaries of people’s attention spans when it comes to listening to music, perhaps – but I’m heavily interested in destroying such concepts.”
Watch King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard’s latest video above. Continue below for the album artwork and track listing.
With the WGA and SAG strikes in the headlines for the past several months, unions have been at the forefront of pop culture for some time. Plenty of music listeners have likely found themselves whether there is a similar guild for recording artists and musicians… and, as it turns out, yes, there is! In fact, there are two: One is the American Federation Of Musicians, while the other is SAG-AFTRA’s sound recordings division. This may lead to another question:
Who Is In The Musicians Union?
According to the American Federation Of Musicians website, 70,000 musicians comprise the AFM. These musicians are generally instrumentalists who work in the realms of film, television, on Broadway, and in live settings such as orchestras, backup bands, and more.
Some examples include International Vice President Dave Pomeroy, who has played electric and acoustic basses on over 500 albums with stars like Elton John, Willie Nelson, and more. The AFM’s International President, Tino Gagliardi, was a trumpet player in New York City, playing with the Met Opera, New York Philharmonic, NYC Ballet, and others.
And while this is good news for those musicians who play in orchestras for black-tie events, there’s a still a ways to go in terms of organizing on behalf of artists in the popular music field, who negotiate directly with major and independent record labels — and often feel like they got burned in the process.
Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos seem like a fun couple. The Live with Kelly and Mark hosts and former All My Children co-stars have been married since 1996, which is an eternity for Hollywood, and Peopletells me that Ripa calls working with her hunky husband “a dream come true.” Getting paid many millions of dollars to hang out with your partner? I’m happy for them. But if I ever have to hear about their personal and/or sex lives again, I’m going to scream.
I haven’t spent time in any mechanic or dentist waiting rooms in awhile, so I’m behind on Live with Kelly and Mark (no spoilers). Maybe it’s become an informative show that takes a hard-hitting look at the biggest issues plaguing society today. But based on the clips I’ve seen online, Live with Kelly and Mark is mostly an excuse for Ripa and Consuelos to talk about their genitals.
Kelly Ripa Makes Mark Consuelos “Lightheaded” With NSFW Description Of Her Body On ‘Live’: “Nipples That Have Nursed Three Kids And Now Need To Be Rolled Up”
Kelly Ripa Wants to See How Cold Plunge Shrinkage Affects Naked Mark Consuelos: “We All Want to Know What Everything Looks Like in Ice Cold Water”
I’m going to stop here. You get the idea.
I’m sorry if this makes me sound like a prude, but I shouldn’t know about the shape of Mark’s penis, or that Kelly’s nipples are like Fruit Roll-Ups. This is a silly morning show. Stick to unlikely animal friendships, cooking demonstrations, and dance lessons (but don’t dance too closely). I’m glad these two are still very into each other, but keep it in the bedroom, guys.
With the writers’ strike over and the actors’ strike reportedly nearing an agreement, the streaming networks are ready to get back to work. They’re also ready to raise prices as they enter a world with increased residuals on the table.
While some platforms like Disney+, Hulu, and technically Amazon, have already announced their upcoming price increases, others like Netflix are reportedly working on price jumps that could arrive sooner rather than later. So to make things easier on the average consumer, we broke down where all of the major streamers currently stand on subscription prices and made sure to include any increases that are coming or are already here.
You can follow our handy guide below:
Netflix
According to The Wall Street Journal, Netflix is reportedly “discussing” a price increase that will go into effect after the SAG-AFTRA strike is settled. The increase will reportedly target ad-free plans and will happen sometime in the “next few months.” The WSJ did not have an exact date or dollar amount for the price hike.
Here are the current monthly prices for Netflix plans as of this writing:
Standard with ads: $6.99
Standard without ads: $15.49
Premium without ads: $19.99
The Basic plan without ads was eliminated over the summer.
Amazon Prime Video
Amazon technically has no plans for a price increase. However, there is a change coming to Prime Video that could still hit subscribers in the wallet.
Starting in early 2024, Prime Video shows and movies will include “limited advertisements.” The price for Amazon Prime will remain the same, but if users want to avoid the commercials, they will be able to purchase an ad-free option for $2.99/month. While this move technically isn’t a price increase, it will be for subscribers who wish to continue enjoying ad-free programming.
Amazon Prime membership: $14.99/month or $139/year
Just Prime Video membership: $8.99/month
Disney+ and Hulu
Starting on October 12, both Disney+ and Hulu will significantly raise the prices on their ad-free plans while making changes to their bundle subscriptions. In addition, Disney+ will reportedly be cracking down on password sharing in a move similar to Netflix.
Here are the new prices for Disney+ and Hulu starting October 12:
Disney+ Basic (with ads): $7.99/month or $79.99/year
Disney+ Premium: $13.99/month or $139.99/year
Hulu (with ads): $7.99/month or $79.99/year
Hulu: $17.99/month
Hulu Live TV: $75.99/month
Disney Bundle Duo Basic (Disney+ and Hulu with ads): $9.99/month
Disney Bundle Duo Premium (Disney+ and Hulu): $19.99/month
Disney Bundle Trio Basic (Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+ with ads): $14.99/month
Disney Bundle Trio Premium (Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+): $24.99/month
Max
Max, the streaming platform formerly known as HBO Max, raised its prices back in April 2023. There are no known price increases on the horizon, but the trend among its competitors could change that.
With Ads: $9.99/month or $99.99/month
Ad-Free: $15.99/month or $149.99/year
Ultimate Ad-Free: $19.99/month or $199.99/year
Paramount+
After adding Showtime as an option earlier in the year, Paramount+ changed up its subscription tiers and made a few slight price increases to reflect the extra added content that’s now available to users.
Losing a loved one is easily the worst moment you’ll face in your life. But it can also affect the doctors who have to break it to a patient’s friends and family. Louis M. Profeta MD, an Emergency Physician at St. Vincent Emergency Physicians in Indianapolis, Indiana, recently took to LinkedIn to share the reason he looks at a patient’s Facebook page before telling their parents they’ve passed.
The post, titled “I’ll Look at Your Facebook Profile Before I Tell Your Mother You’re Dead,” has attracted thousands of likes and comments.
“It kind of keeps me human,” Profeta starts. “You see, I’m about to change their lives — your mom and dad, that is. In about five minutes, they will never be the same, they will never be happy again.”
“Right now, to be honest, you’re just a nameless dead body that feels like a wet bag of newspapers that we have been pounding on, sticking IV lines and tubes and needles in, trying desperately to save you. There’s no motion, no life, nothing to tell me you once had dreams or aspirations. I owe it to them to learn just a bit about you before I go in.”
“Because right now… all I am is mad at you, for what you did to yourself and what you are about to do to them. I know nothing about you. I owe it to your mom to peek inside of your once-living world.”
Profeta explains that the death of a patient makes him angry:
“Maybe you were texting instead of watching the road, or you were drunk when you should have Ubered. Perhaps you snorted heroin or Xanax for the first time or a line of coke, tried meth or popped a Vicodin at the campus party and did a couple shots.”
“Maybe you just rode your bike without a helmet or didn’t heed your parents’ warning when they asked you not to hang out with that ‘friend,’ or to be more cautious when coming to a four-way stop. Maybe you just gave up.”
“Maybe it was just your time, but chances are… it wasn’t.”
Profeta goes on to explain why he checks a patient’s Facebook page:
“So I pick up your faded picture of your driver’s license and click on my iPhone, flip to Facebook and search your name. Chances are we’ll have one mutual friend somewhere. I know a lot of people.”
“I see you wearing the same necklace and earrings that now sit in a specimen cup on the counter, the same ball cap or jacket that has been split open with trauma scissors and pulled under the backboard, the lining stained with blood. Looks like you were wearing it to the U2 concert. I heard it was great.”
“I see your smile, how it should be, the color of eyes when they are filled with life, your time on the beach, blowing out candles, Christmas at Grandma’s; oh you have a Maltese, too. I see that. I see you standing with your mom and dad in front of the sign to your college. Good, I’ll know exactly who they are when I walk into the room. It makes it that much easier for me, one less question I need to ask.”
“You’re kind of lucky that you don’t have to see it. Dad screaming your name over and over, mom pulling her hair out, curled up on the floor with her hand over her head as if she’s trying to protect herself from unseen blows.”
“I check your Facebook page before I tell them you’re dead because it reminds me that I am talking about a person, someone they love — it quiets the voice in my head that is screaming at you right now shouting: ‘You mother f–ker, how could you do this to them, to people you are supposed to love!'”
Sabrina Benaim’s “Explaining My Depression to My Mother” is pretty powerful on its own.
But, in it, her mother exhibits some of the most common misconceptions about depression, and I’d like to point out three of them here.
Misconception #1: Depression is triggered by a single event or series of traumatic events.
Most people think depression is triggered by a traumatic event: a loved one dying, a job loss, a national tragedy, some THING. The truth is that depression sometimes just appears out of nowhere. So when you think that a friend or loved one is just in an extended bad mood, reconsider. They could be suffering from depression.
Misconception #2: People with depression are only sad.
Most people who have never experienced depression think depression is just an overwhelming sadness. In reality, depression is a complex set of feelings and physical changes in the body. People who suffer from depression are sad, yes, but they can also be anxious, worried, apathetic, and tense, among other things.
Misconception #3: You can snap out of it.
The thing with depression is that it’s a medical condition that affects your brain chemistry. It has to do with environmental or biological factors first and foremost. Sabrina’s mother seems to think that if her daughter would only go through the motions of being happy that then she would become happy. But that’s not the case. Depression is a biological illness that leaks into your state of being.
Think of it this way: If you had a cold, could you just “snap out of it”?
No? Exactly.
These are only three of the misconceptions about depression. If you know somebody suffering from depression, you should take a look at this video here below to learn the best way to talk to them:
A childhood game can go very wrong in the blink of an eye.
“You’ll never get me!”
“Freeze! Put your hands up.”
If you’ve ever played cops and robbers, you know how the game goes.
John Arthur Greene was 8 and he was playing that game with his older brother Kevin. Only the two brothers played with real guns. Living on a farm, they were both old hands at handling firearms by their ages.
The blast from the gun must have startled them both.
“We were always extremely safe. They were never loaded,” John said.
Except this time it was. And John’s brother died in his arms while he watched.
It happens more often than you would ever want to imagine.
In federal data from 2007 to 2011, which is likely under-reported, an average of 62 children were accidentally killed by firearms per year.
“In Asheboro, North Carolina, a 26-year-old mother was cleaning her home when she heard a gunshot. Rushing into the living room, she discovered that her three-year-old son had accidentally shot her boyfriend’s three-year-old daughter with a .22-caliber rifle the parents had left in the room, loaded and unlocked.”
And the numbers may actually be getting worse.
With an increase in unfettered access to guns and philosophical opposition to gun regulations, the numbers seem to be on the rise. Here’s how many accidental shootings happened at the hands of children in 2015 alone, by age:
From January 19-26 of 2016 — just one week — at least seven kids were accidentally shot by another kid.
If the pace holds up for the rest of the year, America would be looking at over 300 accidental shootings of children, in many cases by children, for the year. That’s far too many cases of children either carrying the guilt and pain of having shot a loved one or hurting or killing themselves by accident.
John Arthur Greene has been able to manage his feelings of guilt and sorrow through music and by sharing his story for others to hear.
He told his story during an audition for the final season of “American Idol.” He says music has helped him keep his brother’s memory alive:
“Right now I lift him up every day and he holds me up. Music is how I coped with everything.”
It’s a powerful reminder. No matter how we each feel about gun safety laws, guns should always be locked away unloaded and kept separately from ammunition.
Our babies are too precious to leave it to chance.
Watch John Arthur Greene’s audition for “American Idol” here:
“Just because you didn’t do marriage well doesn’t mean you can’t do divorce fabulously.”
That’s something my mother-in-law said to me when her son and I were ending our young, impetuous, and ultimately-not-right-for-us marriage. It stuck with me through the years.
These sweet images from Brittany Peck’s wedding have struck a chord with families across the Internet, and they seem to be getting that very same lesson about “doing divorce well” through to millions.
The photographer got a clue something unusual was about to happen.
Delia Blackburn, an Ohio photographer, was snapping pictures at the nuptials, as you do. She described to WKYC3 what happened when the father of the bride, Todd Bachman, approached her.
“He said, ‘I’m going to do something special, just be ready.'”
Before Bachman finished walking his daughter down the aisle, he turned around in the direction of his daughter’s stepdad, who was also in attendance.
Then Brittany’s stepdad details what happened next.
“And he came up to me and reached out and grabbed my hand and he said, ‘Hey, you’ve worked for this as hard as I have.’ He said, ‘You deserve this as much as I do. You’re gonna help us walk OUR daughter down the aisle.’ At that point, I had no clue what was going on.” — Todd Cendrosky, stepfather of Brittany Peck
Todd B. looks like a dad on a mission — to be the coolest guy ever.
“I got weak in the knees and everything — I couldn’t have had anything better in my life. That was THE most important thing in my life.” — Brittany’s stepdad
Todd C. is like, “What is even happening right now?”
Todd Bachmann explains his last-minute decision like this:
“It hasn’t always been peaches and cream, by any stretch of the imagination. … There’s no better way to thank somebody than to assist me walking my — walking OUR daughter — down the aisle.”
And that’s how you do it, folks.
And Brittany herself was pleased with the outcome.
The bride sent a video message from her honeymoon to WKYC, saying, “We’ve seen it all, been through it all, but at the end of the day we’re all happy.”
Divided families know that love isn’t a finite thing — there’s enough to go around.
A story that recently went viral on Reddit’s AITA forum asks an important question: What is a parent’s role in taking care of their grandchildren? The story is even further complicated because the woman at the center of the controversy is a stepparent.
The woman, 38, met her husband Sam, 47, ten years ago, when his daughter, Leah, 25, was 15. Five years ago, the couple got married after Leah had moved out to go to college.
Leah’s mom passed away when she was 10.
Last year, Leah became pregnant, and she wanted to keep the baby, but her boyfriend didn’t. After the disagreement, the boyfriend broke up with her. This forced Leah to move back home because she couldn’t afford to be a single parent and live alone on a teacher’s salary.
Leah’s story is experienced by many young mothers who are facing difficulties. The father isn’t involved in the baby’s life as a caretaker or financially. Sadly, 33% of all children in the U.S. are born without their biological fathers living in the home.
The new mother is a teacher and can’t afford to live on her own with a child. A recent study found that out of the top 50 U.S. cities, Pittsburgh is the only one where a new teacher could afford rent.
The stressors of taking care of the baby made Leah realize she needed help.
“But once she had the baby around 4 months back, Leah seemed to realize having a baby is not the sunshine and rainbows she thought it was,” the woman wrote on Reddit. “She barely got any sleep during the last four months. All the while Sam was helping her with the baby while I did almost all chores myself.”
“Now her leave is ending. She did not want to leave the baby at daycare or with a nanny,” the woman continued. “Sam and I both work as well.”
Leah asked her stepmother if she would stay home with the baby. The stepmother said no because she never wanted to have a baby and she has a job. “I asked why Leah can’t stay home with the baby herself,” the woman wrote. “She said how she was young and had to build a career. I said many people take breaks to raise kids, and she broke down crying about how she was so tired all the time being a mom and needed something else in her life too.”
After the woman told her stepdaughter no, her husband pressured her to stay home with the baby. But she refused to give up her job to raise her stepdaughter’s child. “Leah said yesterday how she wished her mom was alive since she would have had her back. She said I didn’t love her, and my husband is also mad at me,” the woman wrote. The woman asked the Reddit community if she was in the wrong for “refusing to help my stepdaughter with the baby,” and the community responded with rapturous support.
“[The woman] should tell her husband to knock it off and stop trying to pressure her into raising his daughter’s baby. If he wants a family member to look after her baby while she works, then he can do it,” Heavy_Sand5228 wrote.
“This is Leah’s baby that she alone chose to have. That doesn’t obligate you to change YOUR life to suit her desires. The whole business of saying you don’t love her because you won’t quit your job to watch her baby is manipulative and messed up, and I’m shocked your husband is siding with her,” SupremeCourtJust-a** added.
Leah and many women like her are in this situation because, in many places, teachers are underpaid, rent is high, and not all dads pay child support, even those required by law.
Another commenter noted that the baby is much more the father’s responsibility than the stepmother’s. “To add, Leah should consider seeking child support from her ex. Her kid should be getting that money,” Obiterdicta wrote.
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