After a number of event cancellations, complete and controversial changes to the way they produce television, and a WrestleMania event with no fans, it was only a matter of time before WWE would be forced to make some major, serious cuts. Not even tens of millions of dollars and being deemed an “essential business” could prevent them.

On Wednesday afternoon, Vince McMahon held a conference call with WWE employees that announced furloughs and cutbacks for WWE staff, the company, and its independent contractors (i.e., you know, the wrestlers), said to be, “hard decisions that reflect the current reality.”

Per the call (with a h/t to Mike Johnson over at PWI), McMahon stated that WWE would cut back on pay for board members and executives and cut the overall number of employees, including many of the Superstars themselves. Some will be let go outright and some will go on furlough, and they’ll find out which one they are via text. WWE will also be delaying the move of their headquarters to a new building in Stamford as a cost cutting measure.

WWE released the following statement to investors:

“Given the uncertainty of the situation, the Company also identified headcount reductions and made the decision to furlough a portion of its workforce effective immediately. The decision to furlough versus permanently reduce headcount reflects the fact that the Company currently believes the furlough will be temporary in nature.”

The statement also notes that WWE, “has substantial financial resources, both available cash and debt capacity, which currently total approximately $0.5 billion, to manage the challenges ahead,” which makes the warning of major cuts across the board feel odd. Not to mention the talent who have literally put their health and lives on the line to keep WWE programming on TV amid a global pandemic, only to find out by text a week later that you’ve been furloughed.

While no releases have been announced yet, we’ll make sure to let you know who makes the cut, and who doesn’t. The Revival was cut last week ahead of the announcement. No matter what, this is set to be a major change in the landscape of professional wrestling and WWE’s order of operations going forward, and we wish everyone affected by the announcement the best.

We’re all suffering from a considerable amount of cabin fever right now. It’s spring. We should be outside, hitting up early music festivals, bar hopping, and spending time with our friends. You know, all the things we can’t do right now. Instead, we’re stuck inside, endlessly binge-watching whatever Netflix or Hulu throws at us, cycling through intermittent panic spirals, random bouts of creativity, and the inexplicable desire to bake focaccia.

Though it’s a tricky time to promote travel — both because the lockdown is continuing and because a huge swath of the nation is financially depleted — it does feel like a nice dose of escapism is in order right about now. So we tapped professional travel photographer Myles McGuinness for a little visual inspiration. Myles was all too happy to help and shared a gallery of images with us from a place he loves dearly: Tahiti (with a few from neighboring Mo’orea and Bora Bora thrown in for good measure).

Myles has seen his photos published and exhibited in National Geographic, The Smithsonian, and the California Surf Museum, among others. He’s made a name for himself by capturing the extreme and stunning beauty of natural environments in a way that seems at once personal and epic in scale. When laying out the images below, he provided captions to help immerse us in each photo plus sage travel advice for the second you’re ready to plan a trip of your own.

Let’s dive into this visual travel guide of Tahiti, curated by Myles McGuinness, and start dreaming of that day when we can hit the road again.

Where can we find the best hiking in Tahiti?

We drove up Mount Marau, which is that peak you see in the lead-off photo, the one with the purple sky and the couple walking out through the ferns. We did that at sunrise and you can hike that or you can drive up to the top. It’s kind of a sketchy drive. The road was one of the scariest I’ve ever been on — it’s a one-way road and the client’s like, “Hey, we got to get out of here before it gets dark.” And I’m like, “Why?” She’s like, “Oh, you remember that road we came up? Well, we’ve got to get back down that in the dark.”

And I’m like, “Oh my gosh.” Of course, two cars meet on the corner where there is a bend in the road and it’s only one car wide and I’m like, “I’m hopping out of the car while you guys shimmy back and forth on this one.”

But it’s a great place to see the sunset or sunrise.

We did the off-road adventures with the ATV’s on Mo’orea and that’s pretty easy to find. There’s a bunch of people that do that. On the main island of Tahiti, they have adventures that go into Papenoo Valley — which is kind of a must-see. That’s where the waterfalls are.

What are some of the must-see sites in the Papenoo Valley?

The main fall with the couple above, and the one with the guy with his arms outstretched — that’s literally right off the road leading into the valley. Supposedly there are eels in that lake, but I didn’t see any.

What’s the best way to stumble upon a secret watering hole or waterfall?

Ask a local. That seems obvious, but that was key for sure. I mean, you can see countless waterfalls in the distance from some of the main roads. But some of the better ones in Papenoo Valley you’ll need someone to take you there.

What spots would you recommend for taking in a great sunrise or sunset if you’re not down for a hike?

Anywhere on the west coast facing the setting sun. I really enjoyed Teahupo’o, which is the end of the road where the waves are, but it’s a great relaxing tranquil spot and you’re away from all the noise of the city.

What is one thing everyone should do when visiting Tahiti?

I’ve been there three times now and I really want to swim with the whales — they come through later in the summer, I think. I’m always there in the middle of the summer, so I’ve missed that. The sharks here were from Bora Bora, but you can also see these guys on Mo’orea too.

Do Tahiti’s water bungalows live up to the hype?

I mean, you’ve got to do that. They invented the water bungalow and now everyone kind of copies the Tahitians. What allows them is there’s an outer reef that protects the island, the atoll, so that surf doesn’t really come in and affect everything. It’s kind of like a lagoon between the beach and the ocean. So the bungalows are nice and calm. There’s not generally surf and crashing waves or anything like that. It’s a pretty tranquil place.

What’s your favorite thing about visiting Tahiti?

Ah, all of it. I mean, it’s like going back in time. I’ve been to Hawaii before, but it’s Hawaii 50 years ago and it’s still quiet and real and the Polynesian culture is still strong and intact and hasn’t been kind of diluted down, and they really do embrace it. It’s not a just put on for the tourists. There is this really cool, authentic culture still intact. The people there are just amazing.

It’s no secret that WWE has ties to Republican politics. Quite the opposite in fact, since the current President of the United States is in the WWE Hall of Fame. Not only are Vince McMahon and Donald Trump old friends, but Vince’s wife Linda McMahon is a former member of the Trump Administration and currently runs a SuperPAC in support of the President and his reelection bid this year. So it’s no great surprise when a Republican like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis declares WWE an essential business, allowing them to keep broadcasting live shows from that state despite the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown.

However, it’s starting to sound like there may be a more direct connection than that. Orlando-based journalist Stephanie Coueignoux pointed out on Twitter that Linda McMahon’s aforementioned SuperPAC, promised to spend 18.5 million dollars in Florida, which ought to give the economy there a significant boost. They announced the spending plan as part of a larger effort in multiple battleground states, but the amount going to Florida is more than twice as much as they’re spending in any other state.

That announcement came on April 9th, which is the same day that Governor DeSantis amended his stay-at-home order to establish that “pro sports” including WWE are essential businesses and can remain open. The very next day, WWE declared their intention to return to live TV. There is no direct evidence of a specific quid pro quo here, nor does Coueignoux claim that there is, but it’s certainly interesting timing.

Last week, social media began to fill up with something familiar yet totally warped, like looking down at a fish swimming underwater on a sunny day. It was the annual Coachella wave, which would normally be flooded with people packing up their cars, stopping at In-N-Out or in Cabazon for a date shake, boomerangs of windmills, and blurry images of Billie Eilish or Marshmello billboards shot at 80 mph. Every April, music fans turn their attention to one spot on the globe regardless of whether they can attend or not, a moment some people love to revel in as much as others adore to scoff at.

But this year, thanks to an unprecedented global pandemic, Twitter and Instagram instead swelled with memories of Coachella past, with longing disappointment of the friends that won’t be seen and the memories that won’t be created, and, probably the biggest, with collective mourning about the music that will not be witnessed. Sure, Coachella was one of the first major music festivals to completely reschedule their event in light of COVID-19, but its absence was still felt deeply over the last week, as people shared stories and photos from Coachella’s last 20 years. Coachella will surely return and life’s current pause is obviously temporary. But still, the polo field-sized hole that its postponement has left in the music world is difficult to fill.

But, Coachella tried to do just that with the release of its documentary on Friday, Coachella: 20 Years In The Desert. Offered up at the exact time that the gates would open for the festival, viewers were given a never-before-seen view at how the festival originated, evolved, and became the cultural behemoth it is today. As Goldenvoice has been filming their event for 20 years (as well as other GV events from the decades that preceded it), the footage is expectedly incredible, featuring moments like the Pixies reunion, Beychella, Jay-Z breaking through as the first hip-hop headliner, and Kanye West’s numerous unforgettable appearances, all with unparalleled access and context. It’s a great story, of how a punk promotor became the ultimate music curator, and it gives insight into why Coachella remains on the cutting edge in the music world (spoiler: it’s because the festival is always looking towards the future while maintaining reverence to its identity and past, while never getting caught trying to recreate or relive previous successes). But the lasting impression remains strongly rooted in the music.

This has been an oft-repeated criticism of Coachella in recent years, though I’ve been hearing the same knock for almost a decade, that Coachella is no longer “about the music,” but has become just a place to be seen, snap selfies, and generally disregard the music that should be the lifeblood of the event. And that’s not to say that there isn’t an element of truth behind such a critique, but that speaks more toward a general cultural shift that includes new technology and evolving societal norms. The idea that “Coachella has changed” isn’t inherently wrong, but the idea this is implicitly a bad thing might be. As the documentary explains, Coachella’s early festivals and musical focuses reflected the times and always looked forward to what was next, be it the rave and underground culture of the ’90s and aughts and into the worlds of hip-hop, pop, and international music of recent years. If Coachella was simply booking the same music for the same people for the last couple of decades, not only would it have not survived, but it would have wound up pleasing few along the way.

And where the criticism of Coachella’s changing musical focus falters is in the idea that by booking Ariana Grande or Calvin Harris to close out their event, they have somehow made their event not “about the music.” It’s a weird sort of rockist mentality, that the music that a prior generation of Coachella attendee is somehow purer or more authentic than the current one. Or, that the fans of Radiohead are somehow more invested in the music they adore than the fans of Beyonce. It’s an unfortunate side effect of aging that people tend to look at music and fans that way, that what’s next is always somehow worse than that which came before. But the beautiful thing is in how little the younger generations care about that. Coachella was never meant to be everything to everyone, but, as Beck puts in during an interview in the doc, more a sort of state of the union of what is happening in the music world. Coachella is meant to appeal to the music fans of right now, and those fans are always changing.

Coachella: 20 Years In The Desert presents the festival’s history as a through-line, where the logic of creating a festival to highlight The Rapture and Bjork is the same that in recent years has seen standout moments from Blackpink and Pharrell Williams. Once dominant genres like techno and punk haven’t been eradicated from the festival, but have been given their own standalone tents, where they can still highlight the best of worlds that have less appeal to the youthful Coachella attendees. Travis Scott is presented as the natural offspring of punk ideals, a Bigbang reunion as the 2020 version of getting Bauhaus or Jane’s Addiction to reform. The characters may change over time, but the ideals remain the same.

Make no mistake, Coachella is an experience that extends beyond music. Its food scene is unrivaled. It is stunning to look at with art installations extending to every horizon. And, yes, there is a culture of beauty and celebrity that is intrinsic to its Southern California home. And all of these are pretty much glossed over in the doc, save for a shot of Danny DeVito hugging Amy Winehouse to display how Coachella eventually grew into attracting stars to both their stages and their audience. It’s not that Coachella doesn’t recognize these pieces as crucial to the overall ethos of their event. It’s that they know that they all exist in service to the music and that the music is the tie that binds everything together.

One of my favorite moments of the film is a section that tracks Tyler The Creator from youthful Coachella attendee to main stage performer. His ascent is symbolic in a way, how the people that come out to the desert for a weekend can somehow rise not only to take the stage at the event but to create their own impact on the festival’s story. Whether it is Steve Aoki recalling how influential a Daft Punk Coachella performance was on his life or seeing the next generation of promoters in Rene Contreras taking a similar step from the punk scene of Pomona to the Coachella grounds that founder Paul Tollett did, the festival remains not just a reflection of the contemporary music scene, but a breathing entity that can push music scenes into new directions. It’s a true symbiotic relationship that few, if any, other festivals can match. As much as Coachella has grown into something its founders could never have dreamed of, there is no doubt that music remains the star around which all other things orbit. It’s enough to make October, or whenever Coachella returns, feel like it will be worth the wait. It might even better because of it.

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Doja Cat is well-known for giving her quirky sense of humor free reign on her social media channels, leading to both conflict and comedy. While a recent tweet put her squarely in the sights of Nicki Minaj’s Barbz, over on TikTok, Doja’s shenanigans are much more appreciated. Late on Monday, quarantine boredom prompted her to try to spark a new social media challenge and with Doja being Doja, it’s naturally completely off-the-wall and a wild departure from the usual attempts.

Rather than cooking up a new dance routine for a song from Hot Pink — like the fan-created dance for “Say So” that Doja put into the official music video — Doja instead came up with an arm-flailing performance to Xzibit’s 2002 Man Vs. Machine cut, “Choke Me, Spank Me (Pull My Hair)” while employing a face-distorting filter. She dubbed the “challenge” the #ChokeMeChallenge. She then re-posted the video to Instagram with the caption: “I’m sorry I know I been wilin but I wanted to make a challenge cuz I’m bored as f*ck f*ck u.”

The LA-based rapper and singer also recently used social media to make some semi-controversial statements about the ongoing coronavirus crisis, stating that she was unafraid of the virus. It’s just fortunate for her that she’s proven immune to social media’s habit of “canceling” controversial acts, but in the meantime, maybe she should stick to being a comedian.

Watch Doja Cat’s goofy “Choke Me Challenge” video above.

When Hayley Williams first excited her Paramore fans and announced her pivot to a solo career, there was no way she could have predicted that she would be promoting the album during a global pandemic. Even still, the singer has been releasing a handful of singles off her upcoming debut LP Petals For Amor. Like many other musicians during this time, Williams is staying engaged with fans through social media and livestreams. In a recent live session, the singer shared a cover of Tegan And Sara.

At home in quarantine, Williams decided to play a few acoustic tracks to her fans on social media. The singer dipped into the discography of her fellow musicians Tegan And Sara to play a track off their 2007 record The Con. With just an acoustic guitar, Williams shared a faithful cover of the Tegan And Sara track “Call It Off.”

Sharing the cover to Instagram, Williams wrote: “amateur hour / self-serenade. my strings are old, i have no pants on, i felt like playing this sad song.”

Tegan And Sara were pleased with Williams’ rendition. The duo shared the cover on Twitter, urging fans to go watch it. “Especially if you haven’t had your daily ‘lay in the fetal position and cry moment,’” they wrote.

Watch Williams cover Tegan And Sara’s “Call It Off” above.

Petals For Armor is out 5/8 via Atlantic. Pre-order it here.

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

Brittany Howard has time and time again proven herself to be a powerhouse performer, whether she’s on a big stage or in a cramped office space. She brings her all in the studio, too, and now she has done so again with her new Spotify Singles release. For the two-track effort, she recorded a new version of “Stay High,” a standout from her 2019 solo album Jaime, as well as a cover of Funkadelic’s “You And Your Folks, Me and My Folks.”

Howard takes the song from the classic 1971 psychedelic album Maggot Brain and totally owns it, bringing her signature charisma to the track. Classic funk is right in Howard’s wheelhouse, and she and her band completely did the song justice here. She’s not a stranger to psychedelia, as she previously showed on her Jaime single “13th Century Metal.”

Howard subtly teased the inclusion of the Funkadelic ahead of the Spotify Singles release, sharing a photo of her in the studio and writing on Twitter, “Me and my folks recorded a @Spotify single session earlier this year in LA that’s out tomorrow! Stay tuned!”

Stream Howard’s cover of “You And Your Folks, Me And My Folks” and her new rendition of “Stay High” below. Also revisit our review of Jaime here.

Trying to map out a return for sports leagues in the United States is tricky. There’s no guarantee that it’ll be safe for games to occur as long as social distancing is strongly recommended — something that makes participating in some kind of sporting event quite hard — and figuring out the issue of whether or not fans can attend looms over everything, among a handful of other questions that would need to be answered.

In the eyes of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of the White House’s coronavirus task force, there is a way that sports can resume sometime in the not too distant future. There are a few catches, though: Fauci, in a Snapchat interview with Peter Hamby of Good Morning America, believes games would need to occur without fans and with players staying in some sort of isolated area, like a hotel, where they could constantly get tested.

“There’s a way of doing that,” Fauci said. “Nobody comes to the stadium. Put them in big hotels, wherever you want to play, keep them very well surveilled, but have them tested every week and make sure they don’t wind up infecting each other or their family and just let them play the season out. People say, ‘Well, you can’t play without spectators,’ well, I think you’ll probably get enough buy-in from people who are dying to see a baseball game.”

This sort of plan has been kicked around by MLB, which is reportedly considering a bubble league in Arizona, while the NBA has reportedly floated the idea of doing something similar in a place like Las Vegas. These are not foolproof ideas, of course, and there are legitimate concerns about how feasible these things would be — especially when it comes to testing, as leagues would need thousands of tests a week at a time when the United States still is not testing nearly enough people.

Still, Fauci will presumably play a role in leagues deciding to restart, whenever that day may come, and if this is the best path forward, then perhaps we should expect serious conversations about these sorts of things rolling out sometime over the next few months.

(Via ProFootballTalk)

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