Category: News

Three Sisters soup is one of my absolute favorite dishes to make. It’s pretty easy to prep for lunch or dinner, creamy without any dairy, vegan, and carries a matrix of textures and flavors that give it real depth. It’s also a dish that every American should have in their repertoire — seeing as that it’s an American dish that pre-dates Columbus and colonization.

In my personal opinion, dishes based around the Three Sisters should be available on every corner in this county at every dining level. The agricultural practice of growing winter squash, common beans, and corn (maize) together goes back at least six millennia in North America. But this tradition was stamped out by European monoculture techniques, which is proving to be more and more of an ecological disaster compared to long-held Indigenous agriculture practices. Colonization also led to the loss of an entire continent’s worth of cuisine, culinary regions, and all the restaurants (from fast food to fine dining) that would have eventually come with it.

Despite that adversity, Indigenous American foods are still here and ready to return to our tables. If you haven’t made any, let this dish be your first foray. It’s the perfect balance of spicy, sweet, and savory with a texture balance of crunchy, soft, and silken. Let’s get cooking!

Three Sisters Pumpkin Soup With Sumac Corn and Black Beans

Ingredients:

• 4 cups butternut squash
• 4 cups vegetable broth
• 1 yellow onion
• 2 fresh ears of sweetcorn
• 8-oz. can of black beans
• 1 tsp. wild sumac
• 1 tsp. allspice
• Fresh sage
• Chili oil
• Ancho chili flakes
• Salt
• Sunflower oil

Hey! Did you know Chicago is a Miami-Illinois word meaning “wild onion?” I would usually use those in this recipe. Unfortunately, my greengrocer was out of ramps (wild onion or wild garlic depending on where you are in the world) when I went shopping. So I substituted a standard yellow onion. Other than that, this recipe is fairly easy to source. You should be able to get these ingredients at any farmer’s market or decent grocery store. Or you might be growing them in your own backyard if you’re savvy like that.

Other than the yellow onion substitute (originating from Central and East Asia), these are all agricultural products you would have found being cultivated and traded across North America for thousands of years before Europeans showed up.

What You’ll Need:

• Large pot
• Medium saute pan
• Cutting board
• Kitchen knife
• Large spoon
• Ladle
• Bowls
• Spoons
• Immersion hand blender (or regular blender, food processor, etc.)

Method:

• Break the corn cobs in half and run the knife under the kernels to remove them from the cob. SAVE THE COBS.
• Roughly dice the onion.
• Roughly cube/dice the butternut squash (alternatively use frozen pumpkin).
• Drain the beans and thoroughly rinse.
• Thinly slice ten fresh sage leaves and prepare a few small leaves for garnish.
• Put the large pot on medium-high heat and add a thin layer of sunflower oil.
• Add the corn cobs, onion, and a pinch of salt.
• Add about a 1/2 cup of water and cook while softening the onion and drawing the starchy “corn milk” from the cobs.
• Add the squash and vegetable broth then season with allspice and a sprig of fresh sage.
• Bring to a low simmer and cook until the squash is completely falling apart (about 20 minutes).
• Remove the cobs and sage from the soup.
• Use an immersion hand blender to puree the soup into a creamy base.
• Remove from heat and place a lid on the pot.
• In a medium saute pan on medium heat, add a thin layer of sunflower oil to the pan.
• Add the corn kernels and toss with a pinch of salt and wild sumac.
• Once the corn kernels deepen in color, add in the beans and thinly sliced sage and toss again until well mixed.
• As soon as the corn starts to just brown, turn off the heat.
• Ladle the soup into a waiting bowl.
• Scoop about 1/2 cup of the corn/bean mix into the center of the bowl.
• Drizzle the chili oil around the corn/bean mix and sprinkle with plenty of Ancho chili flakes.
• Place a small sage leaf atop of the corn/bean mix and serve.

Bottom Line:

It’s sort of amazing how creamy and velvety the pumpkin soup base comes out when you boil out those corn cobs in the soup. The “corn milk” emulsifies with the broth and pumpkin to create this velvet texture that’s soul-nourishing. The addition of allspice brings a familiar spicy edge with a mild woodiness.

The real x-factor is the sumac-flavored corn and beans though. The corn is still crunchy while carrying a sweetness, tart, and savory edge. The beans add in a soft counterpoint. The sage helps deepen the savory herbal notes.

The chili oil and flakes tie it all together with a mild warm spice with an almost bitter yet dry and smoky Ancho chili vibe that becomes just the right accent to the silky soup. It’s hard not to go back for seconds with this gem.

All told, this took about 45 minutes from start to finish with maybe 15 minutes of actively cooking. Plus there were plenty of leftovers for lunches throughout the week. Those are wins all around.

As sports betting is becoming legalized in more and more states — and, thereby, becoming easier to do on the internet or via your phone — leagues are finding ways to embrace gambling. One way the NBA is doing this is through its NBA Bet initiative, and on Thursday, it was revealed that a half-hour long television show on the league’s television network that will “dedicated to betting-focused information and analysis” will play a role in this.

The NBA announced that NBABet presented by BetMGM will make its debut on Friday evening at 6:30 p.m. EST and run through the first two rounds of the postseason. Once the second round kicks off, the league will add a new element to how it covers the intersection of gambling and basketball.

In the second round of the playoffs, NBA.com and the NBA App will feature a new NBABet section, which will include editorial content for fans from content partners such as Action Network, Bleacher Report, and Yahoo Sports, among others. The weekly show will also be available to NBA TV subscribers.

It’s unclear who will host the show, or if it will exist in some capacity once the conference semifinals reach their conclusion. But it’s evident that the NBA — which has dipped its toe into the wagering waters in recent years — is making it a point to position itself to benefit as gambling becomes more widespread.

Kentaro Miura, creator of the ground-breaking manga Berserk, has passed away at the age of 54. According to the editorial department of Young Animal magazine, the publication that currently prints Berserk, Miura passed away on May 6, 2021 due to acute aortic dissection. Dark Horse Comics, Miura’s publisher in the West, also released a statement.

“Miura-sensei was a master artist and storyteller and we had the great privilege of publishing several of his finest works, including his masterpiece, Berserk. He will be greatly missed.”

Of all of Miura’s works, he is most famously known for Berserk, a serialized comic first published back in 1989. While the series is known for its intense brutality, equally as important to note are its messages of hope and ceaseless resilience, which are conveyed across all 40 of its volumes. In addition to being noteworthy in-and-of itself, Berserk also helped popularize Japanese dark fantasy, and inspired countless works such as Black Clover, Dark Souls, Dragon’s Dogma, Final Fantasy, Demon Slayer, and Castlevania.

As of May 2021, Berserk has over 50 million copies in circulation, making it one of the best-selling manga series of all time. Due to this intense popularity, it has been adapted for animation multiple times. In 1997, a Berserk anime was produced, which was then followed by a film series in 2012 and another in 2016. In addition, multiple video games based on Berserk have also been released.

Unfortunately, Berserk, which is widely considered Miura’s magnum opus, was an ongoing series, and with news of his passing it is suspected the story will go unfinished. However, fans can perhaps rest a bit easier knowing Miura believed he would inevitably end the series on a hopeful note.

https://twitter.com/ianmacewan/status/1395268829895299078

Around this time in 2019, Logic pulled off something no rapper before him had ever done: He became the first rapper to ever land a novel (Supermarket) on top of a New York Times Best Sellers list. Now he’s adding to his bibliography with another new book, but this time, it’s a memoir.

The book is titled This Bright Future and it’s set for release on September 7. He wrote of the book on social media, “This is the story of everything I’ve gone through and it’s been a beautiful and difficult journey to relive. There’s honestly so much that I’ve never been able to express in my music and the interviews that followed. I’m so happy and proud to finally give my fans and the rest of the world my entire story. The way I never could with my music!”

The official site for the book offers a lengthier description:

“This Bright Future is a raw and unfiltered journey into the life and mind of Bobby Hall, who emerged from the wreckage of a horrifically abusive childhood to become an era-defining artist of our tumultuous age.

A self-described orphan with parents, Bobby Hall began life as Sir Robert Bryson Hall II, the only child of an alcoholic, mentally ill mother on welfare and an absent, crack-addicted father. After enduring seventeen years of abuse and neglect, Bobby ran away from home and — with nothing more than a discarded laptop and a ninth-grade education — he found his voice in the world of hip-hop and a new home in a place he never expected: the untamed and uncharted wilderness of the social media age.

In the message boards and livestreams of this brave new world, Bobby became Logic, transforming a childhood of violence, anger, and trauma into music that spread a resilient message of peace, love, and positivity. His songs would touch the lives of millions, taking him to dizzying heights of success, where the wounds of his childhood and the perils of Internet fame would nearly be his undoing.

A landmark achievement in an already remarkable career, This Bright Future looks back on Bobby’s extraordinary life with lacerating humor and fearless honesty. Heart-wrenching yet ultimately uplifting, this book completes the incredible true story and transformation of a human being who, against all odds, refused to be broken.”

Pre-order This Bright Future and learn more about the book here.

It’s only been a few weeks since Lana Del Rey released her long-awaited effort Chemtrails Over The Country Club and she’s already readying her next release, complete with some questionable cover art. After teasing a snippet of her next project, titled Blue Banisters, Del Rey has now surprise-released three tracks from the project.

Del Rey returned Thursday to share the tender singles “Wildflower Wildfire,” “Blue Banister,” and “Text Book.” According to Pitchfork, “Wildflower Wildfire” was co-written and produced by notable Kanye West collaborator Mike Dean. Each of the new songs are aligned with Del Rey’s signature music style: slow-paced, sultry, and sparse when it comes to the instrumentation.

Along with gaining attention for the unannounced releases, fans were quick to critique the singer’s choice of artwork. Del Rey’s other albums lean on professionally taken imagery, but the graphic for each new single is a different edit of the same selfie Del Rey previously unveiled as the Blue Banisters cover art. The photo looks as though it was taken from inside her car and is highly stylized with saturated colors, odd textures, and curly fonts.

Blue Banisters is currently slated for an early July release. Along with previewing the sound through a handful of singles, Del Rey previously stated that the effort will “challenge” the idea that her “career was built on cultural appropriation and glamorizing domestic abuse.”

Listen to “Wildflower Wildfire,” “Blue Banister,” and “Text Book” above.

Blue Banisters is out 7/4 via Polydor.

Meghan McCain and Joy Behar are really going at it this week. During a contentious discussion about the recent CDC masking guidelines, which have stirred confusion and concern to the point where Dr. Anthony Fauci had to step in and clarify safety protocols, Behar unloaded on conservatives who are refusing to get the COVID vaccine for political reasons. Via Raw Story:

“It’s not that complicated, people. It’s not nuclear physics. All you have to do is get the damn vaccine. When you go inside, wear a mask, even if you have the vaccine,” Behar said. “There might be variants around. Get the damn vaccine. Get the booster when that time is coming. What is the complicated problem here with people? I don’t understand. Is this just to own the libs? Maybe they’re not seeing enough on television the way people suffer when they get the disease.”

Obviously, Behar’s remarks didn’t sit well with the conservative McCain, who blamed the CDC’s messaging for people not getting the vaccine. “This is coming from a place of fear. I don’t think it’s a place of politics,” McCain said. However, Behar wasn’t letting conservatives off the hook, and the situation escalated into a full-on shouting match at the 8:11 mark below:

After McCain called Behar’s claims about owning the libs “factually inaccurate,” Behar fired back that these people are getting their information from Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson, which only further sent McCain over the edge as she interrupted Behar and yelled, “They are not! They are not!”

Not in the mood for any of this, Whoopi cut to commercial, as she does.

My day job is writing and editing music posts for Uproxx (and busting out a gaming post here and there). Sometimes, the job involves me going to concerts and music festivals to take photos… although not much over the past year, as you’d imagine. So, you could say that makes me a professional photographer. Now that New Pokémon Snap is out, I thought it could be fun and useful to look at the game from a photography perspective and see what sort of visuals we can squeeze out of the Nintendo Switch. So, let’s go over some tips about how to become the next Todd and produce the best Pokémon photos possible.

It’s important to note that this rundown won’t be about getting the highest score in-game, but how to take the most visually appealing photos, as those two goals don’t always go hand-in-hand. Typically, photos with the Pokémon large and in the center of the frame are most desirable for racking up points, but that doesn’t always produce the nicest image from a visual standpoint.

My first tip is to know what kind of photos you want to take. You only have so much control over your shot because in the game, you move on a predetermined path and the Pokémon can only perform so many actions. Despite that, you can still achieve a variety of shots.

Look to different types of real-world photography for inspiration — nature, portrait, pet, landscape, etc. — and find ways to apply the styles of those genres to Pokémon Snap. You could even look at the illustrations on your favorite Pokémon cards and see what those images do well. Many basic guidelines about real-world photography — the rule of thirds, using different perspectives, etc. — should be useful here, too, so going down a YouTube or Google wormhole about photography tips could serve you well.

My next piece of advice is to not worry too much about getting the perfect shot while out in the level. The reason for that is New Pokémon Snap‘s re-snap mode makes it super easy to refine your image after the fact and even re-frame it entirely. This is where the game has the advantage over real photography: If the zoom of a photo is off or your subject isn’t quite where you want it, you can use this mode to essentially freeze time, reposition yourself, and change your camera settings so they’re exactly how you’d like them. Now, timing should be the only thing stopping your from getting the perfect shot, as opposed to the dozens of other factors that impact real-life photographers.

The third and final tip is perhaps the most important for producing a high-quality final product: Enhance the image outside of the game. Post-processing is a significant part of real-world photography as well. Take your image into a program like Photoshop or Lightroom and tinker with the brightness, sharpness, saturation, shadows, and so on. If you have a specific look in mind, it can be helpful to open an existing photo that looks similar to what you’re going for and try to match its style while editing.

I notice that oftentimes, the outlines of Pokémon and other objects have a lot of pixelation and ugly jagged edges, especially when the Pokémon or object isn’t up close to you. So, feel free to experiment with blur and drawing over problem areas to help correct them. For example, here’s a side-by-side of an image I made using those two techniques, with the before on the left and the after on the right. Notice how the blur has taken care of pixelation both surrounding Magikarp and on its body, and how I’ve drawn new outlines for Magikarp (using the color grabber tool so the new lines blend in) that look a lot smoother.

If Photoshop seems intimidating (or you don’t feel like paying Adobe a monthly fee to use it), you can still get significant image improvement using basic tools. The built-in Preview app on Mac computers, for example, has an Adjust Color window that lets you alter things like exposure, contrast, and sharpness, and just those simple tweaks can work wonders. The Adobe Lightroom mobile app is also useful and is actually pretty robust (and it’s free). Whatever editing option you go with will at least be better than the in-game filters.

This is a great start, but perhaps you’ve noticed your image is still pretty low-resolution, at least in terms of photography: Switch screenshots max out at 720p (1280 by 720 pixels). For reference, compare that to my Samsung Galaxy S20 phone, which takes photos that are 9248 by 6936 pixels.

Fortunately, there are ways to increase the size of the image and get it looking pretty good. When doing this, I usually start with a website like Bigjpg or Waifu2x. Those sites and others like them use AI technology to increase the size of an image and produce a result that looks sharper and less noisy than just increasing the size in a regular image editor. Once you’ve enlarged the image, it’s a good idea to take it into an image editor again and make further adjustments. It’s at this point when I tend to focus on things like saturation and brightness.

After all that, here is my final before-and-after:

On the left is the unaltered Switch screenshot and on the right is my edited and enlarged image. On the right, most notably, Magikarp looks smoother and the colors are more vibrant. For this specific image, after taking the aforementioned editing steps, I brought it back into Photoshop (or in my case, Affinity Photo), increased the saturation, increased the brightness and contrast, used Selective Color to make the trees in the background look less washed out, and finally, intensified the shadows and highlights to give the image more depth.

When all is said and done, you should be left with an image that is larger than what’s in your Switch’s screenshot gallery and considerably better-looking. While I hope my tips are useful, they’re also not the only way to go about this. For example, Reddit user joshmassie87 seems to go deeper into color correction with their Pokémon Snap edits than I do, which has yielded some dramatic and stunning results.

All the images in this post were produced using the methods described above, so if you like what you see (or if you don’t and want to prove that you’re better than me), fire up your Switch and get shooting… and then enhancing and editing.

Much has been made about the friendship between Olivia Rodrigo and Taylor Swift since Rodrigo broke into the music mainstream with “Drivers License” earlier this year. That conversation was whipped into a frenzy today, when the production and songwriting credits for Rodrigo’s album Sour (which is set for release tomorrow, May 21) were unveiled.

Swift is credited (along with Jack Antonoff) on the song “1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back,” which had fans thinking that Rodrigo, Swift, and Antonoff either worked on a song together or that Rodrigo sampled one of the tracks the latter two wrote together. However, neither of those speculations are accurate: Uproxx has confirmed that while Swift and Antonoff have writing credits on the song, they did not collaborate on the track with Rodrigo. Additionally, the song is an interpolation of “New Year’s Day” (which Swift and Antonoff co-wrote) and does not contain any samples of it.

That’s not the only track on the album where Swift’s influence made an impact: Rodrigo previously told Rolling Stone that the bridge of “Deja Vu” was inspired by that of Swift’s “Cruel Summer.”

While Swift isn’t on Rodrigo’s new album, Rodrigo is hoping to get on an upcoming Swift project, as she recently said she’d love to be involved with a new rerecording of Speak Now: “My favorite Taylor Swift album is Speak Now. I would love to be on a Speak Now song. I’m just so excited to listen to them, though. I love listening to the vault recordings and stuff like that. I’m gonna own my masters, but I’ll listen to songs I’m not putting out and be like, ‘Maybe I’ll do a vault thing when I’m Taylor’s Swift’s age.’”

Sour is out 5/21 via Geffen Records. Pre-order it here.

What happens when one GOAT meets another GOAT? If Larry David is involved, nothing.

A few years ago, the Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm creator and then-New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady rode the same elevator at the Kentucky Derby. Fox Sports host Charissa Thompson was on that same elevator, and during a recent episode of the Calm Down With Erin and Charissa podcast, she recounted David’s throughly unimpressed reaction to meeting the three-time MVP.

“We turn around, so we’re facing the doors, like up against the doors, and I hear this sultry Tabasco vanilla whiskey voice go, ‘Hello, Larry.’ And I turn around and the sexpot that was Tom Brady in sunglasses and a Nick Fouquet hat. I was like, ‘Holy sh*t, I’ve never thought this guy was hotter.’ And Larry goes, ‘Eh, Tom, hi’ and looks back at the elevator doors and says nothing else,” Thompson recounted to co-host Erin Andrews. She thinks that’s why “everybody loves Larry,” because “Larry can’t be bothered, whether it’s Tom Brady, Jeff Bezos, or anyone else in between. He’s like, neh.”

If Larry was given the opportunity to go back in time and have his favorite team, the New York Jets, select Brady in the 2000 NFL Draft, I don’t think he would. Twenty years of “Brady” instead of 20 years of “Vinny Testaverde, Chad Pennington, Quincy Carter, Brooks Bollinger, Kellen Clemens, Brett Favre, Mark Sanchez, Greg McElroy, Geno Smith, Michael Vick, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Bryce Petty, Josh McCown, Sam Darnold, Luke Falk, Trevor Siemian, and Joe Flacco” would go against his brand.

(Via the Huffington Post)

Mikey Alfred’s debut feature, North Hollywood, is weirdly suited for the streaming era attention span, and not because it seems small. Where so many attempts to make younger, hipper, more contemporary content take the form of scruffy, DIY-looking, “found” footage, North Hollywood, which actually is pretty close to DIY, is the opposite. Instead, Alfred’s film looks grand, with vivid colors, dynamic compositions, and a commitment to “classic Americana.” Trends change, but “make a movie that looks good” is one value that remains fairly consistent.

That North Hollywood‘s characters walk, talk, and act like the Gen Z skate crew that they are, while Alfred shoots them like a hot rod movie from the sixties, is by design. Alfred, in addition to being the 26-year-old founder of the skate-crew-turned clothing and skate brand Illegal Civilization, was also partly mentored in the film business by none other than Robert Evans, the legendary and much caricatured old school producer and studio exec of such films as Chinatown, Marathon Man, and The Godfather. Mikey Alfred’s mother worked as Evans’ assistant for more than 30 years, and in 2017 Evans told the LA Times “Mikey is the first kid I knew who reminded me of me.”

Evans died in 2018, but Alfred continued his film industry education working with Jonah Hill and A24 on Mid90s, which Alfred co-produced and which featured some of Illegal Civilization’s skaters. In many ways, the semi-autobiographical story Alfred tells in North Hollywood, about a wannabe pro skater played by Ryder McLaughlin and his old school dad played by Vince Vaughn, feels like Mid90s version 2.0 — the coming-of-age tale updated for a younger generation, the dialogue refined and the visuals polished. That the style feels so fully-formed feels downright shocking coming from a 26-year-old in his debut feature. Or maybe it doesn’t, considering this is also a guy who has had a camera in his hands almost every day since he was an early teen.

Alfred is a hustler, see, and where previous generations may have prioritized sowing wild oats or finding themselves, Gen Z, bred in a time of scarcity, seems to favor knowing one’s brand early on, and making every move possible to capitalize on it. It follows that North Hollywood‘s protagonist, Michael, played by Ryder McLaughlin, is a bit of a Bohemian slacker type worried about upsetting his traditional father, but also an intensely single-minded one, skipping school and sports not so much because he’s lazy or confused, but because it doesn’t seem to further his ultimate goal. “Do it first and ask ‘why’ later,” seem like the main operating principle, both for Mikey himself and his protagonist Michael.

Just as Michael simply doesn’t have time for things like his water polo coach or guidance counselor, Mikey Alfred doesn’t seem to have much use for gatekeepers. You’d think studios would be fighting one another to release a film from Alfred, who has already worked with everyone from Jonah Hill to Tyler the Creator to Frank Ocean. Yet when it came to North Hollywood, apparently not. But when you’ve already been releasing your own clothes and skate videos since you were in your teens, as Alfred has, not to mention hosting your own tours and events, why bother with them?

Where other people might have nurtured these kinds of slights — think Michael Jordan bringing up the kid who beat him out for the varsity team when he was a freshman during his hall of fame induction speech — Alfred seems to simply shrug at obstacles and go around. And hey, sometimes you find some pretty cool stuff on the scenic route.

I read that you grew up in North Hollywood and that you started a skate company when you were younger. How much of this is directly your story in the movie?

The movie is really a mixture of my own story, my friends that I grew up around and some people who worked on the film. It was just important for me to try to put something honest up there and that felt representative of not just me, but the whole community, you know? Hopefully, everyone can take little pieces their own way.

I also read that your mom was Robert Evans’s assistant growing up.

Yeah.

How longdid you know him? What was that relationship like for you?

My mom was his assistant for 34 years and he passed in 2018, obviously. I’ve known him my entire life, since the day I was born. He really taught me a lot about the art of filmmaking and why movies are an artform … in other ways as well, like how to get people interested and to make it weird. He taught me a lot of stuff.

How much of that was directly about the art of movie-making, and how much of it was about the business?

Mostly about the art of it. The way he approached the business in the time he was in, it’s so different than how I approach it. He’s a guy who’s coming at it as a producer, where I’m trying to be a director. The stuff I got the most value out of with him was really about the art of cinema, telling me what movies to watch and why he loves those. And then his advice as a person too. He always had these little quotes. Like, “Be meteoric, not mediocre.” He always had these little things that can help motivate you.

What were some of the movies that he had you watch?

We would always watch his movies, first of all. Rosemary’s Baby would always be on. Always Chinatown. Then not his movies, man, that list can go forever. All the way back to old silent movies that wouldn’t even have words. He’s the person who put me onto Elia Kazan. He showed me On the Waterfront with Marlon Brando.

If we only know him from The Kid Stays in the Picture and sort of the caricature versions of Robert, what are we missing?

I don’t know, I feel like that nailed it pretty good. I would think the thing you’re missing from that movie is how smart his notes on a movie are, and how much he’ll help a movie. I would show him stuff that I would work on, and the things he would call out, it’d be so simple. It’d be like, “Fuck, you’re right. That would have made it better.” There was one time I showed him and he goes, “You got to redo it.” Like, “Why?” Like, “Look at the guy’s veins. The veins in his neck, they’re not flexing. He doesn’t even look like he’s struggling. You got to redo it.” It’d be so simple, so small, but that will really change it.

Are there any parts of North Hollywood that you think of as coming directly out of his influence, or things that you learned from him?

Maybe the scene with the doctor, when Ryder goes to the doctor. You know Gillian Jacobs, that’s sort of Evan’s vibe of how he would talk, like “I don’t give a fuck if you go to college.” He’d just say, “No matter what you fucking do, you got to work hard.”

According to your bio, you started your skate company when you were 12. What did that look like? Were you making t-shirts? When you start a company when you’re 12, what are the first things that you’re doing?

It’s a company now. Back then, when I was 12, it was just a crew. It’s a skate crew and we all make videos together. At first, that’s all it is. Then when we got to be in high school, ninth and 10th grade, it became t-shirts. Now let’s sell some DVDs instead of just giving them out. Now let’s try to travel and do trips. That’s when it started to become, now it’s a real thing.

Do you think that experience, just shooting all these different videos from the time that you’re young, influenced the look of this movie? I watched it and almost from the beginning, it just didn’t look like other movies that I’d seen.

I appreciate that. For sure, me and the photographer, we looked at a lot of picture books. We had a lot of references from photos. Then we watched a movie, it’s called, The Trip to Italy. I really like that movie and the cinematography in it. That was super inspiring for the look of the film. And then just getting those colors and making sure it felt very vibrant and it felt like summertime. We were getting that feeling of the sun and the water and you’re feeling all that.

That’s an interesting movie to mention. The first things that came to mind with this movie, it feels like you’re going for a vintage Americana vibe with, I don’t know, Beach Boys-esque, Southern California stuff. I assume you’re consciously going for a vintage look with this movie?

Not necessarily vintage. I’m just really into ’50s cars, stuff like that. You feel that in the music, obviously. Then I feel like phones, more often than not, kill the drama in a show. Where now I’m watching people text and things are unraveling over a screen. I always like a movie where everything has to be in person. The characters have to meet up and stuff, that kind of thing. That’s another reason we have that vintage feel, because you’re seeing people use the rotary phones.

With the little pebbles on the window and whatnot.

Right. Instead of it being on a screen or in a text.

Is there a big distributor behind this? How are you guys putting this out?

This is completely independent from production to distribution. We have some partners that are amazing that have helped us get it onto iTunes and all that kind of stuff. We did an online theatrical window where we had a partner, they helped us get that up. I’ve just been really thankful for all the support from the community and from people just all over the world. It’s been really amazing.

Did you intend for it to be an independent release all along?

No, we made the movie independently because we couldn’t get anybody to make it from the very start, so we just made it ourselves. Then once we had it, we tried to get it out there through all the normal distribution channels, Netflix, whatever. That didn’t work, so then we’re like, “Fuck it, man,” and we just did it ourselves. It’s actually been going really good.

Why do you think that other distributors didn’t want to put it out? It seems like you had a track record and connections and a movie that would be fairly commercial.

We had been told that a lot of people just didn’t believe it would really go outside of the skateboard community, which I can totally understand. All good. I couldn’t tell you why because that’s on them. All I know is it happened and it’s all good. Now we’re doing it ourselves and I’m really happy that we were able to put it out ourselves because that’s repeatable, and we could start to help other people and make their movies too.

I’m assuming that the actors did all of their own skate tricks in the movie?

Yep. There was no stunt doubles.

How did you find so many guys who could both do those tricks and act convincingly enough to carry a movie?

It’s really just believing in the person, each different guy. Man, everyone stepped up. Ryder [McLaughlin], Aramis [Hudson], Nico [Haraga], they all really brought it and had fun too. It was new for everybody and we just treated it as a fun experience.

One of the things that really struck me about the movie was how natural they felt when they were hanging out as friends, which is something that doesn’t usually look natural in movies. Were they friends ahead of time?

They were friends ahead of time. That was really important to me as well, to capture that feeling and make sure it felt natural.

Then tell me about the Catholicism scenes. When you think of Gen Z skateboarders, you don’t necessarily think of altar boys.

I grew up doing altar serving and doing it in a huge space that was really dramatic. I always had that in my head of kinda like, it’d be sick to put that in a movie.

Was that something that your parents wanted you to be involved with?

It was, but then the school I went to, I went to a school called St. Charles, in the valley. I sang in the choir there and the choir director was a guy named Paul Salamunovich. Paul directed a choir that sang at the Vatican. He also did It’s a Small World After All, for Disney. If you look at the original It’s A Small World, it says, “Directed by Paul Salamunovich.” He had been Grammy-nominated. He was an amazing guy and was really a mentor for me, especially Pete and them as well. I don’t know, there was something about him and altar serving and all that stuff where my parents did put me into it, but then I started to like it myself.

Ryder in the movie and then Vince Vaughn as his dad, how much did you and your father’s relationship influence their relationship in the movie?

Me and my dad’s relationship definitely influenced it. It’s not a perfect depiction. I would say me and my dad probably argued more. We definitely got more violent than in the movie, but it’s got pieces of it for sure.

What was his background? I read in another piece that he had a construction company.

My dad, basically he grew up in LA. He lived in between LA and New York in the ’80s. He was friends with Fab 5 Freddy and knew a lot of art people and knew a lot of musicians and stuff. He had gotten in trouble, he got locked up. He did a few years. He came out, he started his construction business and it was on from there. My first day of preschool and shit like that, it was just me and my mom.

Then did you live with him later, towards your teen years?

No. The second he came home, he was home. I would say the Vince character in the movie too, he had some of my mom in it as well. I think it’s both of them.

He’s kind of a hard ass. He goes between hard and loving as a character.

Right, exactly.

Well, I’ve taken a lot of your time and I really appreciate it. I really like the movie. Do you have anything that I didn’t ask you about that you want to add before I let you go?

No, man. I’m stoked. I appreciate the interview. Thank you.