The Kansas City Chiefs got Patrick Mahomes a new pass catching threat in the first round of the 2024 NFL Draft last week, as the team executed a trade with the Buffalo Bills to move up and select Texas speedster Xavier Worthy with the No. 28 overall pick. Now that that’s out of the way, the team has turned its attention to making sure Mahomes’ all-time favorite target doesn’t go anywhere.
According to Ian Rapoport of NFL Network, the Chiefs and Travis Kelce agreed to a 2-year contract extension that will make the Hall of Fame right end the league’s highest-paid player at his position.
No more Champagne Problems: The #Chiefs and All-Pro and Pro Bowl TE Travis Kelce have agreed to terms on a new 2-year contract extension to make him the NFL’s highest-paid tight end, sources say.
In a bit of news that will come as a surprise to absolutely no one, Mahomes could not be happier that Kelce — who floated that retiring could be on his horizon last season — has decided to return to Kansas City for a few more years.
While Kelce’s numbers took a small step back during the regular season last year, he was nothing short of excellent as the Chiefs went on to win the Super Bowl. Kelce caught 93 balls for 984 yards and five touchdowns in 15 games last year before reeling in 32 catches for 355 yards and three scores in four playoff games last year.
Three isn’t always a crowd. In fact, in the case of Luca Guadagnino Challengers, it’s the foundational formula for one of the horniest sports movies ever committed to the screen. When clips of the Justin Kuritzkes-penned drama began to trickle online last year, a consensus was drawn. Soaked in sweat and throbbing synth beats, sporting hunks grunting their way through a hard-court showdown as a bobbed-up Zendaya watched on, this tennis drama wasn’t really about tennis. In fact, its athleticism and setting – a high-pressure environment that breeds aggression, ambition, and chiseled physiques – was just a tool for hammering out the finer aspects of a storytelling trope that’s been done to death on-screen.
The love triangle has been a plot device favored in everything from Greek mythos to 90s rom-coms, Shakespearean tragedies and CW-housed teen soap operas. It’s most bare-bones, heterosexual interpretation is two men duking it out for the affection of the same woman, but over the years, cinema has toyed with that premise. Some films, like the 90s thriller Wild Things, use the framework to sexualize female women for a male character’s gratification. Others, like Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Favourite, use the story structure to pit anti-heroes against one another, reveling in themes of betrayal, revenge, and the pursuit of power.
But Challengers, a story about three toxically co-dependent athletes whose emotional growth has been stunted by their insular profession, leaving them perpetually horny (and angry about it), is a different animal. It’s not the first love triangle to explore Queerness – see last year’s Passengers and Alfonso Cuaron’s Y Tu Mama Tambien as examples there. Nor is it a film that uses its metaphorical shape to glut itself with sex scenes meant to shock and awe audiences – see The Dreamers, Spring Breakers, Savages.
Instead, Kuritzkes’ tale is a love story that begs a laughably straightforward yet refreshingly revolutionary question: What if all three sides of a cinematic love triangle touched? What if, through the lens of a performance-based profession, one built on rules, routine, and self-regulation, we contemplated the inherit instability of love, especially when it involves wanting more than one person?
“What’s true about a love triangle is that every love triangle is, by its nature, queer,” Kuritzkes told Variety of the film’s premise. “Whether you intend to be or not, you’re in an intimate relationship with two other people.”
While Zendaya’s Tashi Duncan, a prodigiously talented tennis player whose star is on the rise at the beginning of Guadagnino’s film, is the fulcrum on which Challengers’ plot rests, the intimate relationship audiences are first introduced to is that of Patrick (Josh O’Connor) and Art (Mike Faist). Friends and on-court partners who’ve grown up together, Patrick and Art’s dynamic is loving… and complicated. Even before they met Tashi, there’s tension and familiarity in the way they touch and rib each other, a constant push-and-pull that speaks to their competitive nature and their yearning for the others’ approval. When the pair have an orgasmic romantic epiphany watching Tashi decimate an opponent on the court, they do so while embracing each other. Gripped thighs, backs encased in casually-thrown arms, sexual innuendos involving tennis racquets – their hunger, for Tashi, for the greatness she possesses, is always shared.
It’s only when Tashi accepts their invitation to insert herself into their relationship that the dynamic changes – not necessarily because of jealousy, but because she pushes them to confront hidden parts about themselves. Perched on a rock overlooking the water, Tashi is the siren luring their friendship – in its current form – to its doom.
When she visits their hotel room, pulling uncomfortable truths about past girlfriends (or the lack thereof) and pubescent explorations, their bond begins to fray. It’s easy to see that, while Patrick seems to be more at ease with the fluid nature of his sexuality, Art is resistant to experimentation. That contrast pops up when discussing the boys’ game as well. Patrick is wild, uncontained energy on the court, clawing for every point, chasing down every ball, and acing opponents with what may be the technically ugliest serve depicted on screen. Art, meanwhile, is all controlled patience, content to wait for his winning moment instead of actively pursuing it. Neither player sees tennis the way Tashi does – as a relationship between two people on a court who perfectly understand each other for a fleeting moment in time – but then, neither man sees the reality of their relationship the way she does either. It’s what compels her to seduce the pair into a makeout session that ends with her playing voyeur to their unleashed physical desires. It’s also why she dangles herself as the reward for whoever wins their next match. In some ways, Tashi sees Patrick and Art more clearly than they do themselves, understanding that, while they’re happy to coast on their talent on the court, and aimlessly tread water in their relationship off it, their shared desire for her might unlock something greater in them both.
While Guadagnino flirts with positioning Art and Patrick as true rivals, every scene that sees them battling over Tashi or tennis carries an undercurrent of unrequited (or unrealized) lust. They’re chugging protein smoothies and deep-throating bananas, backhanding each other’s genitals and manspreading on the steamed planks of a two-person sauna. They’re drowning in sweat and stripping their clothes at some backwoods tennis tournament put on by a tire store. In a scene that may just be the spiritual on-screen successor to Barry Keoghan’s now legendary bathwater slurping moment in Saltburn, the pair chomp each others sugared churros while tussling over Art’s manipulative attempts to cause a rift in Patrick’s relationship with Tashi. Instead of upsetting him, Art’s vicious longing – for Patrick’s girlfriend, his game, maybe even Patrick himself – only arouses the struggling pro, proving what he’s always known to be true, that Art is just as dirty and hungry as he is.
Repressed desire is a theme of Kuritzkes’ love triangle. It’s why he chose tennis as the sport to facilitate its evolution. “Tennis is about being all alone, and being at a distance from somebody, and trying not to touch them. It’s a very repressed sport,” he told Variety. “The point is no contact. The point is to just miss the other person. To me, that’s almost like a Victorian romance. It’s very sexy. So tennis, of its nature, is erotic, and you usually play tennis against somebody of the same gender. So tennis, by its nature, then becomes almost homoerotic.” That sentiment mirrors how both O’Connor and Faist chose to interpret the friendship between Patrick and Art – and their eventual throupling with Tashi.
“He is the least talented out of the three in terms of the sport itself, the least secure,” Faist said of Art to The Advocate. “So he is attracted to these people, these two who are so secure in who they are. There’s kind of this quality that he does not possess. He can’t help but be attracted to that, to the point of, I always say, to want to consume them is the truth of the matter.”
But it’s not just Art longing for things he can’t have in the film. Patrick’s Tinder-swiping for a nightly place to sleep reveals the absence of real intimacy in his life. He’s in a locker room filled with other pros, but all alone in this world, inferring that he yearns for what he had with a former teammate who he obviously still thinks about. Tashi’s focus on Art’s career once her own is prematurely ended by injury borders on obsession. It’s why she’s willing to risk her marriage and professional reputation to bribe an opponent to lose in order to bolster her husband’s confidence. Well, it’s part of the reason. Her brief interludes with Patrick over the years – at swanky bars and in the backseat of his beat-up SUV – demonstrate the lack of passion in her life. She craves a challenge, to be tested, to be pushed, to compete again. Patrick gives her that when Art cannot or will not.
In Challengers, no one’s motivations run a clear line from point A to point B. Tashi doesn’t just want Art, or Patrick. She wants tennis – damn good tennis that resembles that relationship she’s been missing ever since she left the sport. And she knows she can experience it again by pushing the men she loves to be better than what they are. Art doesn’t just want Tashi, or to beat Patrick. He wants to be desired the way those two desire each other, to be free like his friend, to be of worth like his wife. And Patrick doesn’t just want to come between Art and Tashi, he wants to embed himself there, to become a permanent angle in this shape they’ve been orbiting for most of their lives. Whether any of that happens or not after the final point is played is up for interpretation, but it’s the idea that a love triangle on film can be used to explore the desires of three people in equal measure that makes Challengers so damn interesting.
Atlanta singer 6lack is going on tour through the months of May and June; the No More Lonely Nights Tour will start in Honolulu, Hawaii on May 18 and encompass seven dates in Albuquerque, San Antonio, St. Louis, Cincinnati, and more. The tour picks up where his Since I Have A Lover Tour left off, and overlaps with his dates on Russ’ It Was You All Along Tour.
So when can fans buy tickets for the tour?
Tickets available will become available starting April 30 via presale, with the general sale beginning on May 3. Both sales begin at 10 AM local time.
According to a press release, “The intimate performances will capture the raw emotion that lines the collection of songs on Since I Have A Lover that delve into 6lack’s personal journey with mental health, healing, personal growth, love and his own journey of finding his way — the good and the bad.” In addition to his headlining sets, he’ll have several opening dates with Russ.
6lack’s 2024 Tour Dates: No More Lonely Nights Tour
05/18 — Honolulu, HI @ The Republik
06/09 — Albuquerque, NM @ Revel Entertainment Center
06/11 — San Antonio, TX @ The Aztec Theater
06/18 — St. Louis, MO @ The Pageant
06/19 — Cincinnati, OH @ Bogart’s
06/22 — Waukee, IA @ Vibrant Music Hall
06/27 — McKees Rocks, PA @ Roxian Theatre
On Monday, April 29, 6lack revealed he will be heading back out on the road as a headliner with his No More Lonely Nights Tour — “a limited run of shows visiting seven US cities,” according to a press release.
“The intimate performances will capture the raw emotion that lines the collection of songs on Since I Have A Lover that delve into 6lack’s personal journey with mental health, healing, personal growth, love and his own journey of finding his way — the good and the bad,” the press release relays.
The tour will start in Honolulu, Hawaii on May 18 and stretch until June 27. 6lack’s Artist Presale will run from Tuesday, April 30, at 10 a.m. local time through Friday, May 3, at 9 a.m. local time. The general sale is scheduled for May 3 at 10 a.m. local time. Find all ticketing information here.
6lack’s 2024 Tour Dates: No More Lonely Nights Tour
05/18 — Honolulu, HI @ The Republik
06/09 — Albuquerque, NM @ Revel Entertainment Center
06/11 — San Antonio, TX @ The Aztec Theater
06/18 — St. Louis, MO @ The Pageant
06/19 — Cincinnati, OH @ Bogart’s
06/22 — Waukee, IA @ Vibrant Music Hall
06/27 — McKees Rocks, PA @ Roxian Theatre
Actress Kristen Bell lives with anxiety and depression.
Maybe you wouldn’t have guessed it scanning through her work on IMDb. She’s the voice behind Anna in “Frozen,” after all; the star of a former hit show called “The Good Place,” for goodness sake.
Those seem like, um … happy roles. Right?
That’s why Bell is speaking out again about her mental illness.
The media we consume — on our phones, in the magazine aisle, even in Bell’s own delightful TV series and films — rarely convey an accurate depiction of reality. And Bell is advising anyone else living with mental illness not to be fooled.
In a video produced by the Child Mind Institute, Bell opened up about what she’d like to tell her younger self.
“What I would say to my younger self is don’t be fooled by this game of perfection that humans play,” she said. “Because Instagram and magazines and TV shows — they strive for a certain aesthetic, and everything looks so beautiful, and people seem like they don’t have any problems. But everyone’s human.”
She continued (emphasis added):
“Everyone has problems. Everyone feels yucky on the inside sometimes. And you deserve to feel just as beautiful on the days that you wear no makeup, and the days you don’t shower, and the days that you feel like you’re depressed. And you have an obligation to take care of yourself from the inside out, because that’s how you can truly feel beautiful.”
In recent years, Bell has spoken up candidly about her own mental health in hopes it can benefit others.
The actress was diagnosed with anxiety and depression when she was 18 years old. As she explained to “Off Camera with Sam Jones” in 2016, her mom had been the one to fill her in on their family’s history with mental illness.
Bell started taking medication to help — and has no qualms about it. “I still take it today; I have no shame in that,” Bell explained. “You would never deny a diabetic his insulin, but for some reason when someone needs a serotonin inhibitor, they’re immediately ‘crazy’ or something.”
Her anxiety and depression, Bell noted, is probably the biggest differentiation between her own life and the characters she portrays on screen.
Depression and anxiety affect millions of Americans of all ages. But despite their prevalence, stigma surrounding mental illness — dissuading people from reaching out, for instance, or shaming them for taking medication — remains a major barrier stopping people from accessing the resources they need.
Bell wants every kid to know they deserve to feel better.
“Never feel embarrassed or ashamed about who you are,” Bell advises viewers in her new PSA. “Never feel embarrassed or ashamed about the uniqueness that is you, because there are people out there to help. And we’re all just human. And you can do it.”
The Child Mind Institute is an independent nonprofit dedicated to transforming the lives of children struggling with mental health and learning disorders.
Trigger warning for discussion of sexual assault and violence.
A recent video by Just Not Sports took two prominent female sportswriters and had regular guys* read the awful abuse they receive online aloud.
Sportswriters Sarah Spain and Julie DiCaro sat by as men read some of the most vile tweets they receive on a daily basis. See how long you can last watching it.
*(Note: The men reading them did not write these comments; they’re just being helpful volunteers to prove a point.)
It starts out kind of jokey but eventually devolves into messages like this:
These types of messages come in response to one thing: The women were doing their jobs.
Those wishes that DiCaro would die by hockey stick and get raped? Those were the result of her simply reporting on the National Hockey League’s most disturbing ordeal: the Patrick Kane rape case, in which one of the league’s top players was accused of rape.
DiCaro wasn’t writing opinion pieces. She was simply reporting things like what the police said, statements from lawyers, and just general everyday work reporters do. In response, she received a deluge of death threats. Her male colleagues didn’t receive nearly the same amount of abuse.
It got to the point where she and her employer thought it best to stay home for a day or two for her own physical safety.
The men in the video seemed absolutely shocked that real live human beings would attack someone simply for doing their jobs.
Most found themselves speechless or, at very least, struggling to read the words being presented.
Think this is all just anecdotal? There’s evidence to the contrary.
The Guardian did a study to find out how bad this problem really is.
They did a study of over 70 million comments that have been posted on their site since 2006. They counted how many comments that violated their comment policy were blocked.
“Although the majority of our regular opinion writers are white men, we found that those who experienced the highest levels of abuse and dismissive trolling were not. The 10 regular writers who got the most abuse were eight women (four white and four non-white) and two black men. Two of the women and one of the men were gay. And of the eight women in the ‘top 10’, one was Muslim and one Jewish.
And the 10 regular writers who got the least abuse? All men.”
So what can people do about this kind of harassment once they know it exists?
If you know someone who talks like this to anyone on the internet, CALL THEM OUT. Publicly, privately — just let them know it’s not OK to talk to anyone like this.
Don’t stop talking about it. Every day, the harassment continues. Don’t let it linger without attention.
There are no easy answers. But the more people who know this behavior exists, the more people there will be to tell others it’s not OK to talk to anyone like that.
On his Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast, Conan talked about his viral episode of Hot Ones, in which he guzzled hot sauce and rubbed it on his face and body (“I’ve never felt so alive! I’m erect for the first time in 15 years!”).
“The immediate response to being on was, I think my eyes were incredibly runny and my mouth really hurt,” he said. “The thing that was most interesting is that my wedding ring, some sauce, because I was rubbing my hands around in the sauce… some of the sauce got underneath my wedding ring.”
On the drive home, Conan — who earlier in the podcast discussed using his post-Hot Ones poop as welding material, in case that’s of interest to you — noticed his wedding ring was burning. “It hasn’t burned like that since they put it on me at the altar, he joked (no late-night host could resist that setup).
Once the Hot Ones episode was released, Conan started trending on social media, with people sharing their favorite Late Night, Tonight Show, and Conan clips. But some of his friends reached out to him because they thought he had died. Nope, not dead. In fact, he’s the “Tom Cruise of comedy,” according to co-host Matt Gourley.
In the wake of Post Malone’s Stagecoach-defining headlining set, Amazon Music — which live-streamed the festival over the weekend — has released one of his coveted country covers. Fans raved about the former hip-hop star’s string of covers of country staples and contemporary hits, and now, they can stream Posty’s version of Brad Paisley’s “I’m Gonna Miss Her (The Fishin’ Song).” The 2002 comedic (but still kind of sad) chart-topper was Paisley’s third No. 1 hit. You can check out Post Malone’s version of it below.
Post’s country turn hasn’t come out of nowhere, but like Jelly Roll before him, it’s turned out to be well-received, with the Dallas native teaming up with Beyoncé on “Levii’s Jeans” and with Taylor Swift on “Fortnight.” They’ve been successful for more than just Posty and his collaborators, as well; while “Fortnight” was one of the fourteen songs from Swift’s new album The Tortured Poets Department to take over the top fourteen spots on this week’s Billboard Hot 100 (leading the pack at No. 1), “Levii’s Jeans” reportedly apparently helped cause a 20% increase in Levi’s overall public value. Post also has an unreleased song with Morgan Wallen coming out sometime (presumably) soon, so he’s building his bonafides for that eventual album release.
The Hackney Diamonds tour kicked off on Sunday night, April 28, at NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas. The Stones will make a pit stop at the 2024 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival on Thursday, May 2, and then resume their headlining dates in stadiums across the country until July 17. See all of The Rolling Stones’ upcoming tour dates here.
How Long Is The Rolling Stones’ Hackney Diamonds Tour Concert?
According to fans’ logs on setlist.fm, The Rolling Stones performed for two hours from 9:15 p.m. and 11:15 p.m. local time in Houston, Texas on April 28.
Here Is The Rolling Stones’ Hackney Diamonds Tour Setlist
Again, the below setlist is as per setlist.fm.
1. “Start Me Up”
2. “Get Off Of My Cloud”
3. “Rocks Off”
4. “Out Of Time”
5. “Angry”
6. “Beast Of Burden” (fan-voted song)
7. “Mess It Up” (live debut)
8. “Tumbling Dice”
9. “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”
10. “Little T&A” (first time since 2016; Keith Richards on vocals)
11. “Sympathy For The Devil”
12. “Gimme Shelter”
13. “Honky Tonk Women”
14. “Miss You”
15. “Paint It Black”
16. “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”
Encore
17. “Sweet Sounds Of Heaven”
18. “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”
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