Later this month, Jay-Z’s 40/40 Club will celebrate its 18th anniversary. The venue is one the Roc Nation founder opened back in 2003 with Roc Nation Sports chief Juan Perez and Roc Nation CEO Desiree Perez. In addition to being attached to the rapper, the 40/40 Club gained additional popularity thanks to multiple references in rap songs from the likes of Jay and more.
The venue flaunts itself as a space that combined “the lavish warmth of a New York City penthouse with the vivacity and glamour of court-side seats at a championship game,” as a press release reads.
Image From Complex
In a little over a week, the 40/40 Club will commemorate its 18th anniversary with a celebratory event at the venue. The club reopened back in August after it was shut down in early 2013. Guests who received an invite to the celebration, which takes place on August 28 at 8 p.m., were gifted a special black and white hourglass that represents the time that went by between the club’s closing and reopening. Some of the names of the guest list include Diddy, Lil Uzi Vert, Bobby Shmurda, Rapsody, Remy Ma and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft.
The news comes after Jay-Z hired Tory Datcher, the former senior vice president and chief customer officer of Clorox, as the CEO of his Monogram cannabis company. This made Datcher the first Black CEO to lead a major public cannabis company in the United States.
Lil Uzi Vert is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
A brave woman in Sheffield, England stood up for herself on the floor of a dance club and not only was her reaction satisfying for many, it brought an ugly double-standard to light.
Harriet Bowley, 21, was at an unnamed dance club when a man grabbed her somewhere around the waist. Bowley responded by turning around and smacking the man who seemed “genuinely furious and shocked” that she would retaliate.
I smacked a lad last night who sexually assaulted me in the club, and he looked genuinely furious and shocked? Norm… https://t.co/fwT7PUQ54D
It’s incredible the man was shocked that a woman would respond violently to being groped. Didn’t he understand that sexually assaulting her was an act of violence, too? Although she probably wasn’t physically hurt by his actions, the mental and emotional trauma of having a man touch you without consent is far more traumatizing than her response.
It’s also strange that he was “furious” that she retaliated. What did he expect?
It seems the man thought he was having some innocent fun and was awakened from his sexist fantasy by a slap in the face.
Bowley completely understands the double-standard. “So it’s absolutely fine for you, as a stranger, to touch me up without consent but not ok for me to touch you in self defence?” she asked.
So it’s absolutely fine for you, as a stranger, to touch me up without consent but not ok for me to touch you in self defence? Okkkk… — 🌹harriet (@harribowley) August 7, 2021
Of course, there were some men who blamed Bowley for being groped because of what she was wearing. But Bowley points out that she wasn’t wearing anything revealing. Even if she was, that doesn’t give anyone permission to sexually assault her. Just because someone is showing some skin doesn’t mean it’s an invitation to be assaulted.
Also the best part about this is I was literally wearing a massive jumper round my waist so wasn’t wearing anything ‘revealing’ at all. Before any idiots start to try justify groping strangers in clubs — 🌹harriet (@harribowley) August 8, 2021
Bowley ended her first tweet with a call to action: “Normalise girls standing up for themselves when they get groped.”
A large number of women responded to her tweet by saying they have no problem standing up for themselves after being groped at nightclubs. They shared vivid accounts of times they were groped and retaliated.
I dislocated a guy’s thumb because he kept touching my legs every time I walked past and just wouldn’t stop…. he stopped after that though 😂 — Beth Wilson (@doodlebeth) August 9, 2021
Had that happen to me a long time ago, a lad grabbed my chest and I turned round and smacked him in the face. Bouncer came over, I told him what happened and the lad got thrown out. — SOPHIE LUFC 💙💛 (@LilyZach22) August 9, 2021
My sister is a police officer. Someone grabbed her bum in a club and she had his arm up behind his back in one move. Never seen anyone look so surprised. — hoodedpigwoman (@hoodedpigwoman) August 9, 2021
I taught my daughter anyone touches her slyly in crowded spaces to grab their wrist raise there hand in the arm and shout WHOES FILTHY HAND IS THIS! I also taught my son who to be a gentleman — Alba in Kernow 〓〓 (@DawnMcCollTR11) August 9, 2021
Honestly never understood this for years I’ve always stood up for myself in clubs and bars men are generally shocked when I don’t take any shit I’ve have told bouncers when men have been disgusting before and they have been kicked out and banned. This needs to stop! — Georgia (@GeorgiaLiving90) August 9, 2021
We should always defend ourselves immediately and not keep putting up with it for years. Fight back and then report while he is still on the floor clutching his aching balls. — Paula $ (@PaulaDollar1) August 9, 2021
I must note that this post isn’t celebrating violence in any way. The story simply illustrates how some men feel so entitled to women’s bodies that they are genuinely shocked that one would have an aggressive reaction to being touched without consent.
These men were hiding behind the guise that groping is innocent fun and isn’t serious enough to warrant a violent reaction.
This post calls attention to a serious problem that needs to be stopped immediately. Men need to learn that just because they’re in a dance club where people are having drinks and dancing close together, that it doesn’t give them permission to try to inappropriately touch someone.
Groping is sexual assault, case closed. There should be no excuse for it and it should be taken just as seriously as any other form of violence.
As kids begin returning to school after a year that was disrupted by the pandemic, masks have become a hot-button issue. While a majority of parents (63%) believe their child’s school should require unvaccinated students and staff to wear masks, millions of kids will be attending schools where they are optional.
There is no mask mandate in most U.S. states, so districts are free to do what they choose to protect children.
Currently, vaccines aren’t available for children 11 and under and only 30% of kids 12 through 17 are fully vaccinated.
Due to the spread of the Delta variant, the CDC is recommending universal indoor masking for all students ages two and up regardless of vaccination status.
“I do think that mask mandates or universal masking in the school setting should be enforced … there are still a lot of very susceptible individuals that will be attending school in person,” Dr. Tina Tan, professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University, said according to CNBC.
However, even though the country’s top doctors and scientists say that kids should wear masks in school to protect themselves and to prevent them from spreading the virus to others, millions will go maskless in schools this year.
Today Parents contributor, jthreeNMe from Tampa, Florida, wrote a powerful open letter to the parents who send their kids to school without masks. The message is even more important in her area because Tampa has recently hit its highest 7-day case average of the entire pandemic.
Hillsborough County’s COVID-19 data appears to show a “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” according to Mike Wiese, an e… https://t.co/eEQubR7h4U
Please rethink your decision. And, if you do, and you come to the same non-masking conclusion, I just ask this of you… Please encourage your child not to mock mine for wearing one.
Your kid is following your guidance, which is to trust that corona isn’t going to be the thing to take them (or anyone close to them) out. And mine is following mine, which is to be wary that it just might and to be understandably cautious … just in case.
The mother points out that asking your kids to be accountable to themselves and others is one of the most important learning experiences that children have in school. Sending them maskless upends one of the major goals of their educational experience.
Another school year tainted by corona gives each of us, parents and students and even administrators and teachers alike, another shot at proving just how capable we are of putting our dissimilarities aside and our strength at the forefront, zooming in and focusing on what it is we do have in common in order to grow — not just in relation to education but us as ‘whole people’ humans living as close to harmony as possible with one another.
One of the most important things a parent can do is teach their child that they are not the center of the universe and that they have a responsibility to others. If not, the child will grow up entitled and when they come to the harsh realization that the world doesn’t revolve around them, they’re in for some major pain.
If there’s anything to be gained from this difficult time as a parent is that it’s an opportunity to teach your child real responsibility at a time when it matters the most. Kids can tell when their parents are being part of the problem and they want to do what’s right and to be “good.” Give these kids the opportunity to stop the spread of the virus and let them know they’re doing what’s right for themselves and their community.
Sometimes you see something so mind-boggling you have to take a minute to digest what just happened in your brain. Be prepared to take that moment while watching these videos.
Real estate investor and TikTok user Tom Cruz shared two videos explaining the spreadsheets he and his friends use to plan vacations and it’s…well…something. Watch the first one:
What in the wealth is this https://t.co/NTPTKT5CZG
So “Broke Bobby” makes $125,000 a year. There’s that.
How about the fact that his guy has more than zero friends who budget $80,000 for a 3-day getaway? Y’all. I wouldn’t know how to spend $80,000 in three days if you paid me to. Especially if we’re talking about a trip with friends where we’re all splitting the cost. Like what does this even look like? Are they flying in private jets that burn dollar bills as fuel? Are they bathing in hot tubs full of cocaine? I genuinely don’t get it.
But that’s not even the full spreadsheet. It might make sense if this guy was just rich, had always been rich, only knew rich people, and therefore having multiple millionnaire friends was his normal. Surely that’s some people’s reality who were born into the 1%.
That’s not the case here, though, because Cruz also has a Welfare 10 list. He says this group of friends who make less than $100K a year call themselves that, and perhaps that’s true. (If I were a part of this group, I might call myself a welfare case too because everything’s relative and some of these dudes spend more in an hour of vacation than I spend on my mortgage each month.)
@Radio_Reem Those that make less are called the “Welfare 10” 😭😭😩 https://t.co/7smW2Gz5pI
To be crystal clear here, the top 5 friends on the Forbes list are willing to spend more than double what the guy at the bottom of the Welfare 10 list makes per year on a 3-day guy’s trip. I don’t know what to do with this information.
It’s like we can see our society’s wealth gap all laid out nice and neatly in a spreadsheet, only these people aren’t even the uber-wealthy and uber-poor. This is just the range of this one guy’s friends.
I have nothing against people who build success and wealth for themselves, and even $5 million per year is hardly obscenely wealthy by billionaire standards. But Cruz says he’s known most of his “welfare” friends since college, which presumably means most of those guys have college degrees and are making pittance in comparison with the Forbes list. One could claim the guy making $5 million a year just works harder, but does he really work 100 times harder than the guy making $50,000? Doubt it.
Money makes money, and after a certain threshold of wealth or income, it’s actually quite easy to get and stay rich without actually “earning” more money, assuming you’re reasonably wise and responsible. So maybe the guys who are willing to shell out $125,000 for a week-long trip should offer to pay the travel expenses of the friends they “hang out with regardless of income” who don’t even make that in a year, since that’s probably just the interest they’re making on their wealth anyway.
But what do I know? This is like an entirely different world to me and probably 99+% of Americans, as evidenced by some of the responses.
@araless Broke Bobby every time it’s time for a trip https://t.co/VTUf3xW1DW
Naturally, there will be a range of incomes in any group of people, but 1) most of us don’t actually know how much our friends make, and 2) even fewer of us make spreadsheets with that information in order to rank our friends and figure out who can go on which vacations.
People are just endlessly fascinating. That’s all I’ve got.
As we watch reports of thousands of Afghans fleeing Afghanistan in the wake of a Taliban takeover, the question of where they will go looms large. The world was already in the midst of a refugee crisis, with 82.4 million people forcibly displaced at the end of 2020—double the number there were just ten years earlier. Of those, more than 20 million are official refugees registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Between ongoing civil wars, increasing disasters driven by climate change, religious persecution, and more, humanity has more people in need of a safe country to call home than at any other time in history.
The dramatic and visible nature of the dangers facing Afghans targeted by the Taliban has prompted an outcry of support for refugees, which is heartening to see. The U.S. has a long and proud history of welcoming refugees, right up until the Trump administration drastically slashed the refugee ceiling—the maximum number of refugees we resettle—to historic lows.
But successfully welcoming refugees requires not only systematic logistics but social and political will, which can be hampered by misinformation and fearmongering. It’s vital to have the facts straight before listening to people saying it’s too expensive or too risky to bring refugees into the country.
FACT: Refugees and migrants/asylum-seekers at the southern U.S. border are not the same thing.
I often see people say “We already have too many refugees coming across the border already,” but the vast majority of people trying to cross into the U.S. from Mexico are not official refugees. They are migrants or asylum-seekers, which means their claims for needing refuge have yet to be vetted and processed. “Refugee” is a specific designation under international law, and refugees are processed through a different protocol than migrants and asylum-seekers at the border.
The refugee ceiling is for legally recognized refugees. In the past decade, according to State Department data, 28 percent of refugees have come from Africa, 63 percent from Asia, 5 percent from Europe, and 4 percent from Latin America and the Caribbean.
FACT: Refugees are the most vetted people to ever step foot in the U.S.
A common myth is that refugees pose a security risk to the country, but that’s not backed up by either logic or evidence. The vetting process for refugees (which you can see in detail here) is the most stringent of any group to enter the United States. It can take up to two years for a refugee to get cleared to resettle here. If someone with ill intent wanted to enter the country, going through the refugee resettlement program would absolutely be the hardest and longest way to do it.
Additionally, refugees (and all immigrants, actually) are not the ones committing terrorist attacks in the U.S. A 2017 Cato Institute study found that the chance of an American being murdered in a terrorist attack by a refugee is about 1 in 3.86 billion per year. Immigrants of all kinds are also less likely to commit crimes than native-born citizens.
FACT: Resettling refugees is good for our economy.
Another common myth is that refugees are a drain on our resources. While there is an initial cost of bringing people in and helping them get on their feet, analysts have found that refugees actually have a net positive impact on the economy. One reason is that refugees are more likely to start businesses than native-born citizens or even other immigrants. And in an analysis of Census data, Economics professor Ramya Vijaya found that refugee women were more likely to be working or actively looking for work than native-born women.
Obviously, we have to have the budget for the initial investment, but that’s essentially what resettling a refugee is—an investment. We don’t seem to have a problem finding money for guns and bombs, so finding money to help the people who end up paying the price for our wars seems like it shouldn’t be too hard, especially when we know we’re going to get that money back in the long run.
FACT: Refugees in general have the character qualities we want to see in our country.
I know some Afghan refugees who have been stuck in Jakarta for years, waiting for a chance at resettlement. (Indonesia allows them to stay but they can’t work or get a bank account and are basically just living in limbo relying on the charity of others.) And honestly, they are some of the kindest, most hard-working, earnest, smart, and resourceful people I’ve ever encountered. I have often lamented that I couldn’t bring them here myself (or trade them for some of my fellow Americans who could use a change of perspective).
Every human being is unique, of course. But the nature of being a refugee means having to overcome incredible difficulties. It means having to problem-solve and find a way, even when a situation seems impossible. It requires courage, resilience, and fortitude. These are all qualities of character we value as a society.
And what better way to build goodwill and loyalty around the world than to offer people fleeing danger safe refuge and opportunity? Refugees who get resettled are grateful when they are welcomed into a community and usually want to repay the generosity offered to them.
Seriously, refugee resettlement is pretty much all upside for the U.S., unless you’re afraid of diversity or have some irrational fear of foreigners.
OnlyFans is known primarily as a place where sex workers can earn money for their services and performances, but on Thursday the company abruptly announced that it would ban the very content the platform became popular providing.
The platform has been in the news over the last year as its user base has grown away from the thing that originally made it the Patreon of sex work, more or less. While that ubiquity has made the term “OnlyFans” synonymous with direct-to-subscriber adult content. But in recent years it’s shied away from that label. Actress Bella Thorne, for example, made a big splash on OnlyFans with content in 2020, sparking a flood of non sex-workers (mainly celebrities) using the platform to further monetize their content.
But many feared that movement could drive those already using it — in many cases as their primary form of income — off the platform. Sex workers were outraged and now, less than a year later, their worst fears seem to have been realized. OnlyFans currently bills itself as a “subscription social platform revolutionizing creator and fan relationships” and touts many of those non-adult creators on its social media, but missing from it was an announcement that it would be banning sexually explicit videos on the platform According to Bloomberg, the platform’s terms of service will change in the next month to limit the kind of sexual material those using the platform can publish.
Starting in October, the company will prohibit creators from posting material with sexually explicit conduct on its website, which many sex workers use to sell fans explicit content. They’ll still be allowed to put up nude photos and videos, provided they’re consistent with OnlyFans’ policy, the company said Thursday.
The popularity of the social-media service exploded during the pandemic as sex workers, musicians and online influencers used it to charge fans for exclusive access to photos, videos and other material. OnlyFans has attracted more than 130 million users.
The changes, multiple reports have cited, come as a result of pressure from banks as OnlyFans tries to grow as a more diverse platform. An Axios report from earlier in the week notes the “porn problem” that OnlyFans has as a company trying to adhere to the startup company concept of exponential growth.
In short, OnlyFans has a porn problem, even though it never once mentions porn in its pitch-deck (something that multiple investors called “disingenuous.”).
– Some VC funds are prohibited from investing in adult content, per limited partnership agreements.
– Several investors are concerned about minors creating subscription accounts, although the company says it has controls in place to prevent that.
– Some investors say they could get past the porn, but worry that the company’s reputation would prevent it from attracting brand partners (despite this week announcing a “safe for work” product that features its growing number of clothed creators).
In other words, for the company to grow it needs to leave behind the many users who have made that growth possible in the first place. Which, given the outrage that Thorne’s appearance and the like caused, only begat further outrage on Thursday.
Not only is this complete bullshit for the sex workers who make a living there, but… who are they fooling? How far removed can they be from their actual business to think they’re going to make comparable profits being a worse Patreon? Do they not know about Tumblr? https://t.co/JU7nd3ywVE
When tech platforms like OnlyFans see themselves as arbiters of acceptable cyber speech and activity, they stigmatize sex work, making workers less safe.https://t.co/InP2vIX7Rx
Phrases like “ManyVids” and “Patreon” trended on Twitter in the wake of the announcement, as people commented on where sex workers could potentially turn to continue their work or mentioned other monetization platforms that have made similar decisions over the years. And while OnlyFans tried to hedge the news by noting the changes are minimal, it’s clear people continue to feel slighted by the path the company is taking, for better or worse.
When you first start drinking whisk(e)y (or alcohol in general), you’re much more likely to purchase a bottle in the $15 to $30 range instead of $75 to $100. It makes sense, of course. If you’re a younger person on a limited budget trying something new to you, why would you spend an exorbitant amount of cash?
But as you move along in life and perhaps become more comfortable with your finances, your whiskey palate will often progress as well. This is the time to finally spend a little more to get your hands on a whiskey with a higher price tag (assuming it’s actually good and not just a vessel for hype). Of course, “expensive” means different things to everyone — it could be $75 for some and $750 for others.
Regardless of your ceiling, we’re here to help you pick the right bottles in the “expensive” price range — which we’re defining as $75 on up. To do so, we’ve enlisted the help of some well-known bartenders. From scotch to bourbon to Japanese whisky, their picks will make handing over that extra cash for a nice whiskey not sting quite so much. If you’re not worried about that sting, click on the prices below to give these whiskeys a shot.
Also Read: The Top 5 UPROXX Scotch Whisky Posts of 2021
Glenmorangie Nectar D’or is a 12-year-old whiskey finished in Sauternes dessert wine casks. It’s on the sweet side with floral notes, ginger, nutmeg, toasted almonds, and notes of lemon pie. It finishes with vanilla and honey. At around $80 a bottle, it’s not super expensive, but certainly a special occasion purchase.
This is one of my all-time favorites, absolutely delicious, and ideal to sip with friends anytime.
The best, pricier whisky, in my opinion, is The Macallan Sherry Oak 18, which develops unique characteristics during its aging process. The oak cask that it’s aged in contributes to the nice quality, aroma, and taste of this spirit. It has a very full body of fruitiness with ginger and raisins, which pairs quite nicely with the Caribbean climate we enjoy here in Nevis.
What you consider expensive is relative to what you want to spend, but my favorite, higher-priced whiskey is High West’s Campfire. Tastes like you’re in Colorado every time you have a sip, but it will set you back around $70 a bottle.
Stranahan’s Single Barrel is well worth the price. I was able to secure a bottle thanks to a local friend and it is one of the smoothest spirits I have ever tried.
For my money, Weller Antique 107 is about as good as it gets. It’s full-bodied and packs a ton of flavor that stands up to the higher proof. It’s a little fruity and has a nice vanilla note that finishes with a little spice and cinnamon.
Hakushu 12
Hakushu
Hayden Miller, head bartender at Bodega Taqueria y Tequila in Miami
Hakushu 12 from Suntory is such an exemplary pour of Japanese whisky. The crisp, clean notes that come through are so distinct that you truly do not want to let this bottling pass you by.
Springbank 18 and Highland Park 18 are two scotches that are basically perfect, and either one is a pleasure worth paying for. But if I had to pick one, it would be Springbank with its subtle spice and sweet vanilla flavors.
Peerless Straight Rye Whiskey
Peerless
Andy Printy, beverage director at Chao Baan in St. Louis
Peerless Rye Whiskey totes a hefty sticker price for only being a two-year-old whiskey. But it’s some of the most unique juice out there. Lots of spice and citrus and an underlying vegetal tone meet you up front. As it finishes your palate is treated to maple, honeysuckle, and toasty barrel oak.
Glenfiddich 18
Glenfiddich
Efren López Fernandez, bartender at Banyan Tree Mayakoba in Playa del Carmen, Mexico
Glenfiddich 18 is made using the solera-type production method. It’s aged in a mixture of Oloroso sherry butts and ex-bourbon barrels that always have a little whisky left in them when they’re refilled. The result is rich, smooth whisky with hints of caramel, dried cherries, and cinnamon spice.
I look forward to the release of Old Forester Birthday Bourbon each year. I love that it doesn’t make any fancy claims about what it is. It’s simply a blend of age-stated bourbons, produced on a small scale. One thing I truly love about the Old Forester Birthday Bourbon is that it doesn’t try to replicate the same flavor profile each year. They seem to embrace the idea that each year is different from the last, and that is what makes bourbon great.
Not only is it worth the price, but it is fun to hunt for as well.
As a Drizly affiliate, Uproxx may receive a commission pursuant to certain items on this list.
On the latest Pod Yourself A Gun, TV writer, musician and former MAD magazine editor Allie Goertz joins Matt and Vince to talk about The Sopranos most Dudes Rockingest episode yet, season Five episode eight, “Marco Polo.”
Tony the party host is off-color joking and sauseech swinging to celebrate Hugh DeAngelis’s 75th birthday, even if Mary DeAngelis and former assistant to the Ambassador to the Vatican Dr. Russ Fegoli are too sophisticated to appreciate it. As pointed out on the podcast, Tony and the crew are mobsters but they are also boring suburbanites who care about kitchen appliances and making a good impression on their in-laws’ stuffy friends. Ordinary fangul people, Madonn’!
Allie reveals that she was inspired by some of Tony’s therapy scenes to raise some topics in her actual therapy sessions, proving that watching The Sopranos (and listening to the only podcast about it) is a form of self-care. So please, take care of yourself. We’ve been meaning to tell you, we’re worried about you. You do not look well lately. There is no shame in reaching out to a friend (to tell them about the pod).
Support the Pod: become a patron at patreon.com/Frotcast and get more bonus content than you could ever want, AND if you sign up for the Pod Yourself a Shoutout tier, you can bask in the glory of hearing your name on the podcast like this week’s newest member: Maryland.
There are two obvious sides in The White Lotus — the self-awareness-deficient subtle monsters who seem allergic to contentedness despite their stations in life, and the staff of the luxury resort who spend their day’s tongue-in-teeth trying to put up with a shit job and those shit people. And then there’s Rachel Patton (Alexandra Daddario), a newlywed former struggling freelance journalist caught in the middle as she begins to see the ugly side of the manbaby real estate prince whose net worth is about to lift her out of economic precariousness. A side effect of their relationship, but not an inconsequential feature.
It’s easy to feel bad for Rachel. Whether she’s getting judged, crushed, imposed upon, or seeing that stark contrast between Shane’s (Jake Lacy) charms and his possessiveness, we read the heartbreak in her eyes. That’s why the season’s ending (that I’m about to spoil — run, flee, hide if you haven’t seen the finale) is so affecting.
Set after initially leaving him (and after Shane accidentally kills Armond after driving him to fall off the wagon), Rachel surprisingly shows up at the airport, resisting all of her better instincts about their divergent personalities and views of what their marriage and her career should be, and actively choosing the dark side. This kicks up some “don’t go in there!” passion from all of us, some disappointment, and also some questioning of whether we’d make the same choice if it meant losing the creature comforts of life with empty people who happen to possess full bank accounts. Short answer: yeah, probably.
For Daddario, who we spoke with ahead of the season premiere, The White Lotus represented a chance to comment on “privileged people who don’t really have a sense of the world around them.”
While the assholes among us inflict pain by way of annoyance, anxiety, and sheer exhaustion, Daddario sees the nuance while also remembering the toll, which she experienced firsthand while working as a waitress early in her career.
“No one’s all bad or all good. Well, some people are all bad, yes. Don’t get me wrong. I can name a few. But I do think that there’s this in-between where there’s no self-awareness and you just sort of go through life, and you’re… I waited tables in New York for four years and I still have scars from some of the ways that I was treated by guests and the way that I was treated as a teenager and a young girl in her early twenties. I won’t forget some of the negative things that were said to me or the way I was treated in that environment. Which is a subtle thing, but those small things, like treating people poorly, I’m sure those people are good people, but they don’t have the perspective or understanding to provide empathy.”
It’s not written anywhere that Rachel has to lose her soul and her own ability to feel empathy if she stays with Shane, but it’s implied by the apparent awfulness of all the guests and the notion of distance from her past life that she will. The further you get from being in a place of subservience and in that spot where you don’t have the safety net of money, the easier it is to forget the things you swore you’d never be like. Hypocrisy is an easy line to cross. We all forget where we come from, to an extent. Because we’re often running away from it.
“If the show is about what it means to have money or not have money, and what the power of money is,” Daddario says before pausing to consider Rachel’s thought process. “She’s ultimately like, ‘I should leave him because I can’t communicate with him and I’m not happy.’ And then she ultimately decides, ‘well, it’s easier to stay.’ And I don’t know if that’s from self-doubt. I imagine there’s self-doubt. I imagine that it’s fear.”
That fear is legit. Perhaps it’s defeatist to say, but the romance of being a starving artist, a gallant crusader, or even a disinterested slacker doesn’t quite stand up to the reality that comes with the low paycheck and the terror of being a medical bill or bad break away from begging people to stay on their couch. It’s not so much about stuff or staying in fancy resorts on lux vacations. Not at its most base level and not for Rachel. Instead, it’s about achieving a measure of calm in a shitstorm-prone world. Some slack. A damned break from worry.
Now, people go overboard and become gluttonous and awful. Proving that money is like booze — a little takes the edge off and too much causes you to talk without thinking, act out, and ruin everyone else’s good time. But I digress. The point is, of course, Rachel goes back to Shane because she realizes the harsh reality that it is better to be miserable with money than be miserable because you don’t have any — a very cynical thought to close an article on and to close a season on, but something worth contemplation as we look back on a show that so skillfully satirized privilege, class dynamics, white victimhood, and the gulf between the haves and have-nots, begging us to look in the mirror to see how much bad or regrettable behavior felt familiar.
If there’s one thing MSNBC host Ari Melber is going to do, it’s force an awkward hip-hop quote in reference to complicated current events and political issues. Whether that’s a good thing or not is up to the viewer, but at least he’s trying to keep things relevant. His latest attempt came this afternoon during a segment on COVID-19 vaccine reluctance, into which Melber injected a quote taken from The Notorious B.I.G.’s 1997 Life After Death track “What’s Beef?”:
Beef is when your moms ain’t safe up in the streets
Beef is when I see you
Guaranteed to be in ICU
Melber clarifies that while COVID-19 isn’t exactly the same as having a street feud with the 6’2″, 395-pound, Brooklyn-bred rapper, it could conceivably go about as sideways. His point, of course, is that emergency rooms and intensive care units across the country are being overwhelmed with new cases of the vaccine — and that 99% of those cases are people who have not been vaccinated.
Melber’s quotes have been wide-ranging and deep; in recent months, he’s mined material from the likes of 21 Savage and Nicki Minaj, and while there are definitely plenty of rap fans who could seemingly do without his quotes, the fact that they nearly always go viral ensures that the important information and context he provides receive much-needed exposure.
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Jerrison (@pervocracy) 
(@sarahschauer) 
