Month: April 2024

There comes a time in every long term relationship when the honeymoon phase has ended, and your partner’s little quirks begin to reveal themselves. You know, that habit of hogging the blanket at night, or making an audible “ah” sound after every sip of soda. Those fun little idiosyncrasies that are both endearing and exasperating all at the same time.

And while these pet peeves can be aggravating, they also invite love on a deeper level. When you can truly appreciate someone for their imperfections, without judgment or resentment—and they can do the same for you—the result is more humor, trust, connection and joy. Frustrations dissolve into moments of laughter. And flaws become celebrations of each other’s humanity.

Recently, someone asked the folks on Reddit to share the “weirdest thing” their partners did, that they’ve learned to accept. The answers were adorable, hilarious, strange, and all around a fairly profound glimpse at what human relationships are all about.

Let’s take a look.

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“When he’s alone, he talks to himself in 3rd person, making comments on the things he’s doing. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, xxxx has done it again, he’s made the best omelet in history.. for the 3rd time this month. He’s the man of the year. Look at him getting a glass, and opening the fridge.. oooh is he going for orange juice? yes he is! okay now he needs to do something but what was it? ah righttt the toast. The toast, everybody. He almost forgot the toast.’ Stuff like that. I’m glad he does it loudly, it’s hilarious. Especially when he gets tired and stops mid-sentence but keeps doing what he’s doing in silence. Even funnier when he starts speaking again all of a sudden.”

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“She never, ever, ever eats the last bite of anything. She’ll always have a bite of whatever left on her plate after a meal. She’s never once, in the 20 years I’ve been with her, eaten the last piece of pizza. She’ll never take the last peanut. I’ve never seen her finish a can of Pringles. Upside for me: I get the last everything.”

“When he wakes up in the morning, he puts on ALL his clothes, just to walk to the bathroom, take them off and have shower. Why?? I will never understand that lol”

“My wife is a neat freak, always cleans up after herself and is putting things away. However I noticed that when she runs out of toilet paper she will just take the new roll and stand it on top of the empty tube instead of replacing it. I asked her why she does that and she said “it’s the one thing I allow myself to be lazy about”. I think it’s hilarious. OR My amazing, incredible wife absolutely refuses to reload the TP roll. It is complete out of character for her, but it’s such a locked in behavior I have given up on correcting it. At least she isn’t putting it on backwards!!”

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“He lays on the floor to decompress, which isn’t too bizarre. But he lays down in weird spots and occasionally accidentally scares the shit out of me. One time, he was lying on the floor in the front entrance closet, petting the cat, and fell asleep. I just saw his legs on the ground sticking out from the closet. My first thought was that he had fallen, hurt himself, and was unconscious. But he was just snuggling the cat. Another time, I couldn’t find him anywhere in the house and started to freak out. But he was lying on the back deck on his belly, talking to the skunk that lives under the deck. This was at night. So all I see is a man sprawled on the deck in the dark. Scared me silly.”

“She sleeps with her eyes open occasionally, and will also sometimes laugh like someone just told her the greatest joke ever told while sleeping. I’ve accepted my little demon.”

“He always finds random objects around the house to make into a ‘hat’ for me. Fresh laundry? Hat. Random plushies? Hat. Bubble wrap? Hat. Then he makes one for himself, we take a funny picture and hang it on our ‘hat photos’ wall.”

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“She does gatherer things. bringing little trinkets home and presenting them to me. I always say very impressive! she puts little piles of things all over the house and gets upset if they are disturbed or I suggest getting rid of them.”

“My husband occasionally talks in his sleep and will also laugh like a little girl in his sleep. It absolutely cracks me up and creeps me out at the same time.”

“I don’t know how weird this is, but my boyfriend constantly talks to himself. He also gives voices to our pets- 2 cats and a dog. Each pet has a distinct voice and accent. Some of them have catchphrases.”

“Sometimes when he’s getting ready for work in the morning, I’ll hear him having conversations with the pets and himself in all the various voices. It’s hilarious and adorable. Sometimes I catch myself doing it now, too.”

“She mostly closes doors, but only mostly. Not fully ajar, not fully closed. I have never seen this wonderful woman completely close a door in 13+ years.Luckily, it’s just inside doors.”

“He gets very concerned about his socks to the point he will count them when he’s folding laundry and get irritated when he can’t find all of them. Then he accused me of doing something with them. Like I would do anything with his stupid socks.”

“He needs the GPS even though he knows the area and the way. If the GPS goes out, he’ll oddly panic.”

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“Anything that could go or fit on top of anything else is called a “hat.” There are no lids, there are no covers, there are no toppers or caps. We have a top-loader freezer. She wouldn’t say ‘close the lid.’ She’d say ‘put the freezer hat back on.’ Bottle caps? No. Bottle hats. Does the pot of boiling water have a lid? Nope. It has a hat. Wine bottle stopper? Try again. That’s a hat. Trash bin cover? Trash bin hat*. There are hats and only hats. Edit to add that she’s a native English speaker, but her family is Lithuanian. I think it’s something she picked up from her dad as a kid and it just became a habit. She is aware that it’s goofy.”

“All sauces are gravy. What kind of salad gravy do you want?”

“He does this loud chicken noise (like a baw-kak!) just randomly and it could be anywhere. It’s never been inappropriate, but it’s always surprising and I laugh every freaking time.”

“To my wife, everything is a ‘counter.’ Tables, dressers, nightstands, basically any flat surface that is not the floor is the counter.”

“He randomly licks me. We will be cuddling and he just will lick my shoulder real quickly. I don’t get it.”

“My youngest had trouble learning to eat solids and my wife spent 3-5 meals a day for like 6 months mimicking eating to her. It’s now 9 years later and after every first bite of a meal she goes MMMMMMMMMM! It’s a charming relic of a stressful time in life.”

“He does sock shoe sock shoe like a psycho.”

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“She usually dresses normal but sometimes she goes through phases where she dresses like people from different eras. Like a 70s disco phase outfit or a 80s rock chick outfit or a 1950s dress outfit. It’s one thing to do this for a day or something… she will do it for like 3-4 weeks straight, ordering clothes on amazon to make new outfits, wearing the outfits to go grocery shopping or walking the dog etc. And then she rinses and repeats every once in a while. She also will obsessively watch movies from that era when this happens. She has been doing this for 20+ years. She is known in our neighborhood for doing this.”

“Bf is a biologist and absolutely cannot stop himself from interacting with any animal/insect/bird that his brain has deemed interesting. I’ve spotted him softly talk to bugs and bees when he thinks no one’s looking. Also as long as he has deemed it safe, if we spot a snail (and he’s REALLY GOOD at spotting snails it’s insane) he WILL pick it up no matter the circumstances. We’ve spent HOURS in parks/sanctuaries in one single spot if he’s spotted a cool lizard or an animal because we must make new animal friends. His parents tell me all the different insects, bugs and tiny animals he used to bring to them as a baby lmfao.”

One of the biggest differences between being a cat owner and a dog owner is that cats are experts at grooming themselves. While dogs require regular bathing, cats don’t—in fact, it’s generally recommended that you don’t bathe kitties for non-medical reasons because it can dry out their skin and disrupt the cat-owner relationship.

(For real, if you didn’t know this about cats, barring any health issues, they are meticulously clean and their fur actually smells good, even up close. Some cats have a mild cologne-like scent that’s quite pleasing, and they do it all by themselves.)

However, occasionally something might happen that requires a human to bathe a cat. When it does, it’s an adventure, as Jennifer Garner hilariously demonstrated in a video on her Instagram page for National Pet Day.

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It seems that her cat, Moose, had a bit of a poo issue, which Garner doesn’t elaborate much on but that required some assistance to remedy. That assistance involved a bath—or sink shower in this case—which many cats aren’t too keen on. Despite the viral videos showing cats who mysteriously love the bathtub, most domesticated cats don’t, and they will let you know it in the only way they know how.

For Moose, that message was sent by climbing out of the sink and onto his owner mid-scrub, creating a scenario that left Garner asking aloud, “What’s to be done? What would my mom do?!?”

Watch:

See on Instagram

The helplessness of having a cat clinging to you for dear life is real. You don’t want to pull them off because they’ll just dig their claws in further, and when they climb up over your shoulder, you don’t have any leverage to do anything with them anyway. It’s definitely not a one-person job to try to bathe a cat who doesn’t want to be bathed.

According to Britannica, most domesticated cats hate water because wet fur is uncomfortable and it takes a long time to dry. There’s also the totally not-backed-by-science possibility that cats simply find the prospect of being bathed offensive. After all, they spend a large chunk of their waking hours cleaning themselves—how dare we measly humans suggest they aren’t doing a good enough job of it?

Along with encouraging her to get her wounds cleaned and treated well, as cat scratches can be dangerous, people weighed in on the video with some hilarious commentary.

“I’m pretty sure Moose would have killed you if you’d gotten to the conditioner,” wrote one person.

“I think the conditioner would have tipped Moose over the edge,” agreed another.

“That cat went straight for the carotid. Much like my toddler when I suggested she put pants on this morning,” joked another.

“You are so brave! Also, this was a tad reminiscent of Buddy the Elf trying to hug that raccoon, 😂” offered another.

All in all, Moose’s bath could have gone worse. There are actually some ways to make a cat bath a bit more pleasant—and safe—for everyone involved. The ASPCA recommends these five steps for bathing a cat:

1. Prep Your Cat – If you’re wondering how to keep a cat calm while bathing, it can be helpful first to get your cat used to being in the sink or tub—try putting them in without water, giving them a few treats, and then lifting them out. If possible, you can do this several times in the days before you plan to give your cat a bath to help things go smoother.

2. Add Cat to Water – Put a few inches of lukewarm water in the sink or tub and place your cat gently inside. Keep your cat calm by talking soothingly and praising them for good behavior. (I know, easier said than done!)

3. Wet Your Cat Down – Wet your cat’s body and tail while avoiding the face. Most cats don’t like water in their face, and you’ll definitely want to avoid upsetting your soaked kitty.

4. Lather and Rinse – Add the shampoo, lather, and rinse your cat thoroughly. Try not to leave any soap residue behind, which can irritate your cat’s skin.

5. Clean the Face – Use the soft cloth to wipe off your cat’s whiskered face carefully. You can also clean the outside of the ears with a cotton ball. Never use a Q-tip or other instrument to clean the inside of your cat’s ears, which could cause injury.

Garner’s poopy bath adventures with Moose is prime evidence that cat ownership is never boring. You can follow Jennifer Garner for more relatable cat mom fun on Instagram.

Have kids, they said. It’ll be great, they said. Well, one dad may have a bone to pick with those mysterious “they,” in that colloquial saying. A man running the Instagram account Havea_676, posted a video that has parents on the internet not only laughing at his tender moment turned embarrassing, but sharing their own savage kid moments.

The dad was having a sweet moment with his daughter asking her about her day and what she was excited about for the next day before tucking her into bed. Things appeared to be going well and his daughter who is off camera can be heard answering all of the questions. But at some point during the father daughter moment, the little girl was over the many questions the man was asking.

“Daddy, can you please stop with your questions, I’m trying to sleep and also your breath stinks,” the litter girl reveals.

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Yikes. Dad didn’t have much to say after that bombshell. He simply readjusts so his mouth isn’t pointing in her direction and says, “goodnight, I love you.” There went that sweet moment being caught on video but after uploading the unexpected roast session, the dad was joined by fellow parents commiserating.

“Kids are brutally honest with no filter. I was helping my daughter button her shirt one morning and I asked her if she brushed her teeth. She said yes… then there was an awkward pause before she frowned and said ‘did you? Cuz it don’t smell like it’ Needless to say I don’t help the lil heffa get dressed for school anymore lol,” one mom says.

“Kids know how to cut deep with one slice!! Haha,” someone else writes.

“I came home yesterday and asked my daughter if she missed me…She said NO with her whole chest,” another commenter reveals.

See on Instagram

Kids are just brutally honest until they get a bit older to realize there are gentler ways to deliver news. But if this dad learned one thing from his lengthy conversation, it’s to brush your teeth before goodnight chats so you don’t melt your kid’s face off.

This article originally appeared on 1.29.24

Atlanta, Georgia, has been the dominating hub of rap music for well over a decade now, but the region’s run began long before that. Rico Wade laid the groundwork for the South as part of the pioneering production team Organized Noize and Dungeon Family collective.

Sadly, the mastermind behind the sounds of OutKast, Goodie Mob, and Killer Mike, to name a few, has died at the age of 52. Today (April 13), a representative of the late musician reached out to AllHipHop to confirm the tragic news.

Several media titans and entertainers have taken to their official social media pages to share a touching message in Wade’s honor. One of the most moving came from Killer Mike.

“I don’t have the words to express my deep and profound sense of loss,” he wrote on Instagram. I am praying for your wife, children, the Wade family, and us all. I deeply appreciate your acceptance into the Dungeon family, mentorship, friendship, and brotherhood. I don’t know where I would be without y’all.”

Others who have shared their condolences online include Phonte, Juicy J, Ebro Darden, Arrested Development’s Speech, and Alchemist. View their statements below.

Details surrounding Rico Wade’s death have not yet been revealed.

Nicole Kidman loves producing and starring within projects based upon Liane Moriarty’s works as executive produced by David E. Kelley. That much is obvious from the possible third season of HBO’s Big Little Lies. Kidman and Kelley also collaborated upon HBO’s The Undoing (based upon the thriller novel by Jean Hanff Korelitz), but for more Moriarty, they hopped over to Hulu with Nine Perfect Strangers. This series debuted way back in August 2021 and, on the surface, resembled The White Lotus in that sinister happenings went down at a resort frequented by the privileged.

A second season was finally greenlit in 2023, which is somewhat surprising, given the confusing way (and purposefully so) that the first season ended. Ambiguity seemed to be the name of the game, and let’s chat about what might come next with a mostly new cast.

Plot

In the first season, Kidman was joined by Melissa McCarthy, Bobby Cannavale, Michael Shannon, Melvin Gregg, Regina Hall, and Samara Weaving. The show revolved around unhappy, stressed-out characters who took their privileged selves to Tranquillum House, the resort led by Kidman’s Russian guru, Masha. The lost souls sought her reinvigoration of mind, body, and spirit, but healing did not come easily. Masha was revealed to be far from legit and drugged her guests with psychedelics for supposedly therapeutic purposes. Add in a rather WTF ending, and the masses flocked to the series, making it the most-watched series on Hulu at the time, even surpassing The Handmaid’s Tale.

As a result of those viewing numbers, the limited series suddenly became not-so limited, and a second season eventually landed in the cards, although honestly, man, this must have been a difficult show for which to dream up more content.

As the first season finale revealed, where each character ended up might or might not have been real, and their fates might have been the work of Frances (McCarthy) in a book called Nine Perfect Strangers. As for Masha, she had been arrested, although she was later shown driving down the highway and sitting next to her dead daughter. There were also changes from Moriarty’s book that included Masha’s previous near-death experience (in the show) being a result of getting shot by Carmel, who was somehow also at the resort with her identity unnoticed until the end.

Everything felt flat-out unpredictable, so the second season could go anywhere, too. We could learn that much of the first-season aftermath never happened, and hell, perhaps they are all still taking drugs or dead or dreaming. The only guarantee is that the second season should be equally or more bonkers than what viewers have already seen.

Cast

Kidman is back as Masha despite the ambiguity of, well, everything.

As The Hollywood Reporter recently revealed, three new cast members — Henry Golding, Mark Strong and Lena Olin — signed on for the next vaguely ominous wellness escape. They will join (as reported by Variety) Murray Bartlett, Annie Murphy, Dolly De Leon, Lucas Englander, Christine Baranski, Maisie Richardson-Sellers, and Aras Aydin.

Yep, Murray Bartlett has crossed over from The White Lotus to Nine Perfect Strangers. Will he poop in a suitcase? Perhaps that’s a question best not answered.

Release Date

The show’s renewal announcement was complicated by strike time in Hollywood, so this return might not happen until 2025.

Trailer

No trailer exists yet, but here’s a bit of trivia from Kidman’s husband, Keith Urban, who revealed (to Kelly Clarkson) that she didn’t really drop the character too easily, which gave him mixed feelings.

Most of us view money as a problem. It comes with a slew of questions we just don’t have the answers for. How do we get more of it? How do we spend less? Where should we invest it? What should we use it for? Will we ever have enough?

Luckily, the onus of solving these financial dilemmas doesn’t rest solely on us. These days, the financial advice market is flooded with experts – on social and IRL – ready and waiting to put their hard-earned knowledge to use in the name of fixing your bottom line. They go by many names – financial planners, debt counselors, money coaches, accountants – and they specialize in different areas, but they all deal in cold hard figures on bank statements that give them a roadmap for fixing your money problems. But what if you need a hand diving into how those problems developed in the first place?

Those wanting to be a bit more proactive when it comes to financial decision-making might need to take a more psychological approach to money matters, and that’s where a fairly new form of financial advising comes in: financial therapy. According to the Financial Therapy Association, financial therapy is “a process informed by both therapeutic and financial competencies that helps people think, feel, communicate, and behave differently with money to improve overall well-being through evidence-based practices and interventions.”

“It’s just changing the way we think, feel, and behave with our money,” Nathan Astle, a Certified Financial Therapist and founder of Relational Money, tells Uproxx.

Astle was finishing his graduate degree in family therapy at Kansas State University when he stumbled into the field. In talking with mentors and his own therapist, he realized money was at the root of a lot of his mental health issues.

“I hated money,” he shares. “Hated talking about it, hated thinking about it, and it was because I associated it with all these negative experiences I had when I was a kid. And then, it affected how I behaved as an adult.” That animosity toward money even carried over into Astle’s relationship when he tried to put a budget together after getting married.

“When I got to school and I was doing all this therapy stuff, I realized, ‘Oh, this goes deeper.’ It’s not just, ‘Do a budget.’ It’s a personal thing.”

What Is Financial Therapy?

The best way to define financial therapy might be to point out how it differs from a more well-known area of money advisement – financial planning. According to Astle, financial planning tends to be focused on long-term numbers.

“They’re trying to get you to retirement or to save for a house, whatever your goal is, but it’s mostly a plan about how we get the numbers where we want them to be,” he explains.

Financial therapy, however, is all about examining how we experience money.

“We might focus on behaviors like shopping or overspending, but the end goal is fundamentally different,” Astle continues. “Where financial planning is focused on a financial outcome, financial therapy focused on overall wellness. Financial planning advice in general has been very narrow and very math-oriented, and money is inherently an emotional experience. We can’t have a math answer to what is often an emotional problem. That’s not going to work forever.”

Who Could Benefit From Financial Therapy?

Now that we’ve better defined financial therapy, the next step is figuring out if it’s the right path for your money needs. Astle may be biased, but he thinks most people can benefit from financial therapy. Those who really need his services though tend to fall into certain categories.

“I would say it’s especially important if you are struggling to make a change,” he says. “If you have maybe some behavior that you’re like, ‘I know I need to do this thing more, but I just can’t. There’s some mental block here that’s keeping me from being able to engage in this thing.’ Or if you’re noticing huge amounts of distress when you think about money, talk about money, and if it’s showing up in ways like, ‘I get so anxious when I think about money that I never open my bank account statements.’ If it’s keeping you from making adult decisions around money, then it would be beneficial.”

Younger generations – the Gen Zs and Millennials of the world – might also be prime candidates for financial therapy. That’s because, according to Astle, we’ve experienced an economy that’s radically different from that of our parents. Because of that, Millennials and Gen Z might be stuck with some nihilistic views when it comes to planning our financial futures.

“I think there’s quite a bit of avoidance because as a generation, they’ve lived through a ton of traumas, and I think they’re kind of disenchanted with a lot of things,” Astle offers. “What that does behaviorally then is it’s less likely they’ll put the effort into making a solid long-term financial plan. They might be more hesitant to invest and invest early, which we know is a huge predictor of long-term wealth, including retirement. I think what happens is a lot of people get discouraged and then they don’t do things that could prevent a lot of heartache in the future and in the present.”

Another emotional issue younger generations struggle with that could affect their bank accounts is shame. We’re constantly being marketed to, being sold what Astle calls “shoulds.”

“We should have this,” or “I should be doing that.” We compare ourselves to our peers, to influencers, to celebrities, and when we don’t measure up, it affects not only how we see ourselves, but how we spend on ourselves too.

“There’s a lot of shame we have collectively around money, about how we’re supposed to have more, how we’re supposed to not have spent it this way, how we’re supposed to have all these things,” Astle says. “Shame is the enemy of change. We don’t beat ourselves up, we beat ourselves down. And so, we have to be able to give ourselves some grace and some compassion and make plans coming from a kinder place to ourselves.”

To do that, Astle gave us a few tips for curbing impulse spending, a common struggle for the over-marketed to millennials and Gen Z crowd.

Tip #1: Name It, Tame It

This is a basic tenant of therapy in general, but it works especially well in your finances. To fix the problem, you need to be able to identify it.

“If you can name it, you can tame it,” Astle says. “So, when you’re like, ‘I want to go shop,’ or, ‘I don’t want to look at my bank account,’ try and name the emotion that you’re feeling. I really like a tool called the Feelings Wheel. It’s just an image, but it’s a really good tool for describing emotions that you’re having.”

“So, that’s a starting point,” Astle continues. “’What am I feeling before, during, and after a financial choice?’”

Why do this? Because finances are an inside job.

“If we’re trying to change the way we approach our finances, it might be math decisions, but a lot of times with our day-to-day stuff, it’s about emotion regulation,” Astle explains. “It’s, ‘How do I deal with an uncomfortable emotion?’ And that can lead to huge retail therapy [binges] or just a little thing here or there that adds up both financially and emotionally.”

Tip #2: Write Down Your Money Story

Again, what therapist doesn’t hype the wonders of journaling? But, instead of jotting down your feelings in the present, Astle wants you to put pen to paper as a way to recap your financial journey thus far.

“We call it your money story,” he explains. “It’s just telling someone your life story by saying, ‘What money messages, experiences, and lessons did my parents teach me and what did I feel? What do I believe because of the experiences that I’ve had?’”

Identifying where some of your biases towards money, or some of your worst habits might have originated from gives you useful insight into how best to correct them. If your parents argued about money constantly, you might view it negatively and avoid it altogether. If finances were tight growing up, it might cause you to stress more when it comes to your own bank account. If your family was constantly buying new – cars, clothes, homes – it might make it difficult for you to understand the concept of saving and budgeting. If you can glean those messages and reject or alter them, you can build a stronger financial foundation.

Tip #3: Take Five

Time fixes all things, even our overspending habits. We live in a very impulse-driven society that thrives on one-click-buying prompts, coupon codes, and influencer-sponsored Amazon storefronts. Before you give any of them your money, take a few minutes, a few hours, or maybe a few days to sit with your future purchase.

“Give yourself time between stimulus and response,” Astle suggests. “If you want to buy that book on Amazon, it’s okay to put it in your cart. We don’t shame ourselves out of financial behavior. You can’t say, ‘Oh, I don’t need that.’ That’s not really a long-term solution.”

Instead, Astle advises that people hold off on checking out for a day or two. “It’s kind of a mindfulness skill. You’re allowing yourself to be in a different emotional state. If you still want the thing after some time, after some thought, and after you’re in a different emotional state, then there’s less guilt there. It’s like, ‘No, I genuinely want this thing,’ and not, ‘I’m having an impulse.’”

While we can’t promise that following these tips will 100% make you feel better about your finances, they’re a great prompt to evaluate your situation and consider whether a financial therapist might be a help.

Sometimes things are things and sometimes, to borrow some poetry from Don Draper, they serve as a time machine, bringing us back to a memory that we want to hold close. Those things are wonderful.

Anthony Marques is a success story – as a small business owner and in the comic book industry where he’s worked for years as a freelance artist and editor who has drawn everything from Batman to Back To The Future and the Ghostbusters – but he can remember a time when none of that seemed assured. Back before he got into the revered Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art as a student, when he was laboring in construction and tending bar, trying to figure out how to make a dream work.

Marques is sitting in his office while talking to me over Zoom more than 15 years later, waxing nostalgic about that more uncertain time, the power of gestures, and an art table that is to his right. “It’s a very basic cheap particle board, put together drawing board from Michael’s, but it means more to me than the fanciest thing you could pick up.”

Anthony hasn’t built his success alone. His wife, Jackie, is his partner in life and business, the two of them juggling work and life, raising two kids together. “I love working with my wife,” Anthony says. “She’s the best business partner you could have. You’re not going to find somebody that has a better drive, is as organized, or as smart as she is. She’s wonderful. You hear that expression, ‘If you’re in a foxhole, who do you want sitting or standing right beside you?’ Her. She will out-think anybody.”

Jackie bought in early, getting that desk and building it for Anthony in that more uncertain time – something that Anthony says signified, “that she believed I could actually do this.”

Anthony and Jackie own and operate The Kubert School now, taking it over in 2019. They also run Dewey’s Comic City, a Madison, New Jersey comic staple founded in 1991 by Dan Veltre. Anthony and Jackie bought Dewey’s in 2017 as Veltre was retiring, expanding into another side of the comic book industry after Anthony spent years as an artist and editor at Dynamite. With both Dewey’s and The Kubert School, they just couldn’t accept the idea that these places might go away. The risk involved with jumping into not one, but two distinct businesses wasn’t a deterrent.

“There’s risk involved in any choice that you make, right? But I think if you overthink it, you’re never going to do it anyway. So you’ve got to jump,” says Anthony, adding, “I think whenever you approach anything, you weigh out stuff but figure it out along the way as well. Don’t be afraid to make the move and then put it together as you’re going forward.” While Anthony is happy with the choice that he and Jackie made, it hasn’t come without challenges.

Six months. That’s the approximate space between when Anthony and Jackie brought The Kubert School into the fold alongside Dewey’s and the start of a pandemic that would shake up every industry and facet of life. By the summer of 2020, the two had made the hard choice to consolidate their operations, moving Dewey’s to the art store within the Kubert School building. While the familiar Madison location would shutter, the plan was always to return Deweys to its hometown. They just had to get through a moment of worldwide economic uncertainty.

Anthony is, from what I can tell after spending about an hour with him, a very happy and engaged guy. When he breaks down his daily schedule for me, it’s impressive for its precision and scope, mixing his work with the school, running a comic book shop, and continuing his art career with family time for him, Jackie, and their two kids. Despite his numerous obligations, he doesn’t seem like a worrier. But that doesn’t mean there haven’t been “gut check moments” along the way.

“You can’t panic. If you all of a sudden jump in one direction because of fear, or you get worried that changes the way you make your decisions. I think you can get yourself in trouble,” he says, explaining the steady mindset that helped keep his and Jackie’s business afloat while, at the same time, keeping focus on the bigger picture and keeping his two young children safe.

While the move to the art school (which is about 20 minutes away in Dover, New Jersey) stood as a change, the new location still served the large North Jersey comic book community that Dewey’s had cultivated over the years even during the past worst of the pandemic. Anthony and Jackie were still able to support and be supported by their team, taking out a PPP loan from the government. “We did that. But we did it the right way,” Anthony says. “It was meant to take care of your employees. You had to do things the right way. We made sure we covered all of those bases and treated everyone and kept everybody on payroll as long as we could and kept it going.”

In January of this year, a new Dewey’s Comic City opened up in Madison with the shop in the Kubert School remaining open for overflow and bargain comics and trades. Anthony tells me that the plan took longer than they expected, but they also weren’t going to rush things or wind up in the wrong space. “You don’t want to just be sandwiched in between a dry cleaner and a liquor shop. I don’t think that that sends the right message to people.”

Madison is the dictionary definition of a charming, somewhat upscale suburban village, filled with small shops that are big on character. The new Deweys (located at 6 Green Village Road) is right next to a rare bookstore, within walking distance from both the old location and the train station. “The building is gorgeous. It’s one of my favorite buildings in Madison. It’s in the historic area, wonderful storefront surrounded by great buildings, Anthony tells me before listing the shop’s proximity to local colleges and ice cream parlors. “Everything is right there. It’s a prime location.”

In keeping with Anthony’s diverse portfolio – with the shops, the school, and his career as an artist – the new Dewey’s is similarly rooted in the idea of providing something for everyone, with major comics from DC and Marvel, indies, YA titles, anime, and action figures. There are also art classes. All of this goes a long way toward creating a welcoming environment for comics fans of all ages and interests.

When we discuss the grand opening of the new shop, Anthony talks about the emotion of that moment, seeing faces familiar and new, and about the community. He also talks about fitting in the occasional late night at the shop and at a local diner talking comics with friends and co-workers. Despite all the varied projects he’s involved in, it’s clear how being a part of that community nourishes him – not just as a merchant, but as a champion for comics as a craft, as a hobby, and as one of those things that functions as an escape hatch back into the wonder and glee of childhood. It’s that big-eyed child-like appetite for everything that he identifies with when I wonder if he worries about anything. “You want to keep being a kid forever,” he says when talking about all the many ways he stays tied to the capes and cowls of superheroes. “I just want to do this forever.”

While Anthony surely couldn’t have predicted all the interesting twists and turns of his career(s) when he first sat at that participle board art table that Jackie lovingly constructed all those years ago, it sure sounds like he’s in exactly the right place.

Coachella has once again become the site of hologram-related controversy. However, this time, rather than the unexpected (and borderline creepy) likeness of a deceased performer, the scandal is all about a real performer versus a virtual one — and which of them actually got to appear as the hologram.

During her headlining set Friday night, Lana Del Rey took a seat and let her hologram take over singing for her. However, fans on Twitter (which I will never call X) were less enthused than upset, as another artist whose set preceded Lana’s did NOT get a hologram, but arguably deserved it more.

For the uninitiated and non-weeb among our readers, Hatsune Miku is a virtual performer — something like Gorillaz but with less lore — based on a Vocaloid soundbank with a computer-generated animated avatar modeled after Japanese singing idols. Miku is generally represented via this avatar projected on a specially coated glass screen.

Miku had performed earlier at a different tent using a slightly different method, one that disappointed fans. Funnily enough, the camera operators seemed unsure whether the animated character was the star of the show or not, spending the first song trying to focus on everything but the screen displaying her cartoon dances. Meanwhile, fans catching Lana’s holographic projection of herself — when she was right there, ready and able to do the performing on her own — deluged Twitter with jokes about the seeming discrepancy, tweeting some variation of “how come lana del rey gets to be a hologram but hatsune miku doesnt?”

The short answer is probably that a holographic projection can run up to millions of dollars (for instance, the Tupac hologram from 2012 that kicked off the trend was around $10 million), and while Hatsune Miku is a big enough deal in Japan, she just isn’t well enough known here in the States to justify the cost. By way of comparison, the Mojave tent has a fraction of the capacity of the main stage and wasn’t even full. Miku’s a novelty here in the US, and just not enough of a draw to warrant spending an A24 movie budget for an hour-long set. Yet.

Willow has always refused to make herself small, so why start now? On Friday, April 12, Willow dropped “Big Feelings” (stylized as “b i g f e e l i n g s”) and confirmed that her next album, Empathogen, which was previously billed as “a new musical compilation,” will be released on May 3.

“Big Feelings” arrived with a visualizer that finds Willow cackling and uninhibited while singing, “I have such big feelings / Can’t shut ’em down or let ’em out / I know I’m not fine / But yes, I say I’m fine.”

Questlove commemorated the release by posting a tribute to Willow on Instagram. To say his caption is lengthy would be selling it short. In part, the Grammy- and Oscar-winning icon wrote, “Shout out to @willowsmith for allowing herself to evolve into this artist. Doing all the things artists over the years have told me they wanted to do but were too afraid to because we been told odd time signatures don’t work or @gentlegiantband level prog rock song structure (blink and you missed it codas & bridges coming outta nowhere) might be too much for the ‘average listener’ to consume or to lyrically go to this vulnerable place that we might think will get us ridiculed.”

Willow reposted to her Instagram, and Questlove commented that he “rocked that jawn 30 mins in a row this morn,” so everybody should be excited for the full Empathogen project to drop.

Watch Willow’s “Big Feelings” visualizer above, and check out Willow’s Empathogen tracklist below.

1. “Home” Feat. Jon Batiste
2. “Ancient Girl”
3. “Symptom Of Life”
4. “The Fear Is Not Real”
5. “False Self”
6. “Pain For Fun” Feat. St. Vincent
7. “No Words 1 & 2”
8. “Down”
9. “Run!”
10. “Between I And She”
11. “‘I Know That Face.’”
12. “b i g f e e l i n g s”

Empathogen is out 5/3 via WILLOW/Three Six Zero/Gamma. Find more information here.

Shakira released Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran in late March, but she hasn’t taken her foot off the gas. She put on a pop-up concert at TSX in New York City’s Times Square and visited Hot Ones. She took it up another notch on Friday night, April 12.

The crowd for Bizarrap’s Coachella 2024 set heard the she-wolf howl and knew. Shakira appeared on stage with “LA LOBA SE VIENE,” which translates to “the wolf is coming,” on the screen behind her. Shortly thereafter, Shakira used the same screen to announce her Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran World Tour.

Specific dates are presumably forthcoming, but Shakira confirmed on stage, “Finally, we are going on tour starting here. Starting here this November. This year in this city! I can’t wait.”

Of course, Shakira couldn’t crash Bizarrap’s set without performing “BZRP Music Sessions, Vol. 53,” their January 2023 Billboard Hot 100 top-10 hit.

Shakira told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe that she’s “probably” done writing songs about Gerard Piqué, her ex-partner of 11ish years with whom she shares two children, after her Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran track “Última.” That does not mean Shakira is done with performing existing songs directed toward Piqué, a la “BZRP Music Sessions, Vol. 53,” especially now that she’s going on tour.