We’ve all been there. Standing in line to be seated at a fairly busy restaurant while your stomach growls in protest. But when two women left a concert August 22 in search of food, they had no idea they’d find themselves taking orders and cooking food. Sylvia Arrendondo and her mother Idalia Merkel went to a local Denny’s in Texas and were seated by another customer before realizing the restaurant was extremely short-staffed. Instead of taking their business elsewhere, they decided to roll up their sleeves and get to work.
Arrendondo wrote about the unique experience on her Facebook page where she explained that only two people were working. One was serving tables and the other was the cook. As for the man that was acting as host, seating new guests, he had no idea what he was doing because he didn’t work there. He told Arrendondo and Merkel that his wife used to work at Denny’s so she started helping to serve tables and he decided to help get people seated.
The service industry has been hit hard by the pandemic and the subsequent “great resignation.” Complaints about low wages, poor management and rude customers that abuse staff members are just a few of the reasons cited by people who have left the industry. It may be surprising for some to learn that the federal minimum wage for tipped employees like servers and bussers is just $2.13 an hour. The rest of the wage is supposed to be made up of tips, which, depending on where you work, may be split at the end of the night between other workers. This act of splitting tips is called “tip pooling” and is calculated by number of hours worked.
Splitting tips after a long day of work dealing with customers who may not have been so kind would understandably make some people upset. But it didn’t take a deep dive on the treatment of restaurant employees for Arrendondo and the other customers who helped out. They saw two seemingly college-aged kids doing their best to keep the place running and they didn’t hesitate to jump in to help, completely unpaid.
When asked why she didn’t just leave, Arrendondo said, “We just looked at each other and it wasn’t even a question. We both knew what we had to do.”
“This was probably the most beautiful act of American unity that I have personally encountered,” Arrendondo told Upworthy. She added that the sole paid server would occasionally start to cry before being comforted by the cook, only to return the favor when he would get overwhelmed.
Talk about community.
These two kids had exhausted all of their resources, including calling their manager multiple times. And instead of customers getting angry, demanding better service or walking away, Arredondo and Merkel stepped up. The kindness of this group of strangers will surely stick with these employees and the people who were involved.
“The strength, courage and integrity by these two workers was beyond admirable. My mom and I have never been so proud and happy to help,” Arrendondo told Upworthy. “After all, we have all been there.”
Eventually after some convincing, the two employees shut the restaurant down and Arrendondo and Merkel went home much more tired than anticipated. Still hungry, but full of gratitude and pride.
So many people dream of the day they get engaged and all of the fun things that come after that moment. It can feel like a whirlwind of activities: phone calls, picking the date, bridal showers, dress shopping and engagement pictures just to mention a few. With so many things going on that involve multiple people and locations, something is bound to go wrong every once in a while.
Malia Makaila was in the midst of that rose tinted haze while taking engagement pictures on the street with her fiancé. From the looks of everything, things were going well, the mood was light and everything seems perfect. Well…that is until the soon-to-be groom noticed a strange woman staring at the giddy couple.
Malia is completely oblivious to the stranger as she focuses on primping a bit before the next series of photos is taken. Eventually she couldn’t stop herself from interrupting the photoshoot.
The unknown woman sort of runs over into the frame of the photo and reaches out towards Malia’s head, “sorry you just have one hair.” The rest of what she says is inaudible before she reveals that she’s a hairdresser after tucking the stray hair into place and walking out of frame. Malia appears delighted that the woman not only noticed the hair but fixed it. Chances are when the pictures came back the engaged woman would’ve been slightly miffed that her hair decided to make its own rules that day. Others were also impressed by the hairdresser’s actions.
“Sooo at first I didn’t even notice it. But after screenshots and close examination it looks as if there was in fact “one piece” like curled backward like over her shoulder. Shout out to the hairdresser, she real for that,” one person says.
“I wish someone had stepped in to fix my wedding photo hair…you are gorgeous and the rescuer of stray hair is priceless,” another writes.
“We should all be girls-girls,” someone else declares.
“What are the odds of a hair dresser walking in to your photoshoot and stopping by to fix your hair. She was sent from heaven,” one commenter suggests.
The photos will likely turn out beautiful and thanks to that sweet hairdresser, there will be no need to edit a curly piece of hair doing its own thing. Here’s to an amazing future for the beautiful couple.
It seems like so many iterations of unfettered joy from our childhood haven’t made it to the modern age, and playgrounds are no exception.
Gone are the days of metal slides that scorched the derriere in the summertime, seesaws that doubled as human catapults and the notorious merry-go-rounds that separated the weak from the strong. Good old fashioned character building—safety be damned!
As it turns out, a few of these old relics are still standing. And footage of kids playing at one of these bygone parks is filling adults—particularly Gen Xers—with sweet nostalgia.
Dubbing it the “Last Gen X Playground” by Ronda Schofield filmed a video of the local haunt in all its rusted glory.
As the iconic 80s song “Maniac” plays in the background, we first see some kiddos swinging on a very odd contraption that sports a generic clown face.
Then the camera pans out to reveal a metal slide weighted down by a concrete cinder block (classic), dilapidated rocking horse swings, and a spinning seesaw that’s certainly seen better days.
But you know what? The kids today seem to like it just fine.
While plenty of these staples have been replaced by safer alternatives, viewers on TikTok couldn’t help but reminisce about their childhood favorites.
“The lunch ladies at my elementary school would give us waxed paper so we would slide faster down the slide,” one person recalled.
The horse swings were my favorite,” add another. “Impossible when you get bigger, no knee room!”
One even quipped “Metal slides on a hot summer day… getting blinded and burnt at the same time.” Ah yes, a simpler time.
As people shared their recess war stories, it became all the more clear why many of these fixtures are no longer around.
“Broke my leg on the spinning thing and got stitches in my chin from the teeter totter,” one person joked.
Still, folks definitely felt their childhood come alive again after Schofield’s clip. Many felt it should be restored and kept a historic landmark of sorts.
The pre-internet days might have been a little rough around the edges, but there was an undeniable rugged charm about it all. In many ways, it was easier for kids to just be kids, allowing for social interaction, reckless abandon and learning that a few knee scrapes doesn’t signal the end of the world.
Those days might be behind us—and probably for the better, ultimately—but it’s still nice to hop back in from time to time.
Now, where’s the vintage mall with cheesy glamor shots, vinyl shops, video game arcades and RadioShacks?
The music of Queen has a profound visceral effect on everyone. Few pieces of art can cause complete strangers to put aside their differences and come together in song, but by golly, “Bohemian Rhapsody” is one of them. It would be cheesy if it weren’t so absolutely beautiful.
This pertains even to non-English-speaking countries, it appears. Recently, thousands of Harry Styles concertgoers in Warsaw, Poland, began cheering as those iconic beginning piano notes penetrated the air.
It wasn’t long before the entire stadium was singing along to that beloved tune and acing every single lyric. As one person commented on YouTube, even though most people in Warsaw don’t speak English, “they sing Queen.”
The passionate impromptu performance serves as a reminder of how special both Queen and the late Freddie Mercury remain today.
“No other band will ever come close to Queen. They were lightning in a bottle and Freddie was a whale in a teardrop. Once people keep singing his words, FM will live on forever,” another YouTube viewer wrote.
Indeed, seeing an entire stadium come alive with “Bohemian Rhapsody,” you can’t help but feel Mercury’s soul return to the mortal plane, as if we’ve all been transported back to that historic Live Aid concert in 1985 when he had the entirety of Wembley Stadium wrapped around his finger for 21 glorious minutes.
Watch below, and try not to sing along. Scratch that—sing your heart out.
Leave it to Pharrell to find the cure to the musical biopic overload Hollywood is currently suffering from. Today, the pioneering producer shared the first trailer for Piece By Piece, his biographical movie that is one part traditional biopic, one part documentary, and one part animated Lego adventure.
Wait, what?
Yep, you read that right. Look, there’s just no way the man who fronted The Neptunes and N.E.R.D., who made “Happy” and “Get Lucky,” and who can’t be stopped from wearing those big-ass hats would ever just hire some good-looking actor to recreate his come-up. Instead, Piece By Piece is a colorful, animated feature directed by Morgan Neville in which Pharrell is rendered as a minifigure whose imagination blurs the lines of reality — along with a cast that includes some of the biggest names in music, from Justin Timberlake and Snoop Dogg to Jay-Z and Kendrick Lamar. I’m buying a ticket just to see Lego Jay-Z give his signature chuckle. (Lego, if you’re reading this… You know what to do. We NEED IT.)
The release of the trailer reverses a string of … well, awkward headlines for the musical genius. Up ’til now, he’s seen a string of legal actions filed against him by collaborators including his Neptunes partner Chad Hugo and singer Pink to block him from copyrighting certain brand names and capitalizing from his work with them.
On the bright side, his work at Louis Vuitton — particularly a recent collab with Tyler The Creator — has been well received and he’s got a fun single with Miley Cyrus called “Doctor (Work It Out).” You can watch the Piece by Piece trailer above.
The Bikeriders almost got pulled from zooming into theaters this summer, but fortunately, the cinematic stars aligned — courtesy of Focus Features and Universal Pictures — to propel the star-studded biker drama into theaters on June 21.
The project should be a blast, too. Tom Hardy will be doing a Brando voice in a Jeff Nichols-directed movie that looks like Martin Scorsese had a lovechild with Kurt Sutter’sSons of Anarchy. In other words, you will soon be able to see Hardy and Austin Butler roaring across highways and cornfields and through cities on bikes and tossing punches. Norman Reed’s will also be there, looking rougher than The Walking Dead‘s Daryl Dixon after not bathing for years. Good times.
If you are looking forward to this film, we encourage you to head to theaters to see the adaptation of photojournalist Danny Lyon’s iconic black-and-white photo book, as compiled after he embedded with a real-life 1960s biker club. Yet if you are in a streaming frame of mind, that will eventually happen, too.
When Will ‘The Bikeriders’ Be On Streaming?
This movie will surely hit the VOD circuit near the conclusion of its theatrical run, but streaming is on the horizon, too. Since it’s a Universal Pictures-distributed movie, that means that the movie will stream first on Peacock. A precise date hasn’t been announced, but if it follows the Oppenheimer pattern (about six months), that would put the movie on Peacock in the late fall. In other words, if you are jonesing for some biker action — also co-starring Boyd Holbrook, Michael Shannon, Damon Herriman, Karl Glusman, Beau Knapp, Mike Fast, Toby Wallace, and Happy Anderson — ride into theaters on June 21.
The Boston Celtics held an event for fans at TD Garden on Oct. 4, 2018. At the time, Boston was the most exciting young team in the Eastern Conference, coming off a conference finals appearance that helped cement them as the next team in line if LeBron James ever decided to do something crazy, like join the Los Angeles Lakers in free agency.
While Kyrie Irving couldn’t play during that run — which ended with a Game 7 loss at home to James and the Cleveland Cavaliers — due to a knee injury, the All-Star guard was one of the stars on that Celtics team — the guy Danny Ainge acquired in a trade with the Cavs the previous year to get them another championship. And in a moment in front of Boston’s fans, Irving decided to express his intention to re-sign with the team instead of entering free agency the next summer.
And then, Irving never signed a deal, and things deteriorated over what became his final year with the Celtics. You can pick from any number of moments where the vibes were just completely off, from the time Irving admitted that he called James and apologized for not realizing how hard being a leader is, to any of the comments to the media where Irving was just a little too blunt about, well, everything.
“It was just a chapter in my life that I got to enjoy for the most part,” Irving told the media this week, per Tim MacMahon of ESPN. “We had a great opportunity to do some special things, but it was cut short, just based off personal reasons on my end. One thing I look back on my time in Boston — I’ve said this over the past few years, but somehow it gets tossed under the rug — but the greatest thing I learned from Boston was just being able to manage not only my emotions or just what’s going on on a day-to-day basis of being a leader of a team or being one of the leaders, and having young guys around you that have their own goals, but you have to learn how to put the big picture first.”
When free agency rolled around at the end of June in 2019, he decided to team up with Kevin Durant as a member of the Brooklyn Nets. It sent a shockwave throughout the league, largely because while the rumblings of Durant and Irving teaming up in the Big Apple weren’t new, the expectation was that they’d head to Madison Square Garden and join the New York Knicks, instead.
It was quite the blow for the Knicks, which had just seen one of its hopeful building blocks leave town. Six months earlier, New York made the decision to trade Kristaps Porzingis to the Dallas Mavericks and end his tenure in New York after three and a half years — reports indicated that a meeting between Porzingis and the Knicks led the team to believe he wanted a trade, as he had concerns about the direction of the franchise. What started as a promising marriage between a team desperate to get over the hump and a lottery pick whose skillset got him nicknamed “The Unicorn” devolved, and the Mavs were there to take advantage.
Before he ever got to play a game in a Dallas uniform, the team gave Porzingis a lucrative 5-year contract extension, as they finally got the running mate that would help Luka Doncic go from a budding superstar to an MVP with an All-Star sidekick. Or so they thought.
The entire Dallas experiment fell apart — what once looked like a hand-in-glove fit between a genius offensive engine and the perfect modern day big man eventually turned into Porzingis getting excoriated by his coach for how bad he was at posting up and, eventually, getting benched in the playoffs. Porzingis had his own hand in how things failed in Dallas, as there were rumblings of his frustration with his role, and he spoke about his experience in Dallas this year on the “The Old Man and the Three” podcast.
.@kporzee shares the reasons why it didn’t work out in Dallas.
“It’s a big mix of things,” Porzingis said. “Maturity, for sure. Again, I’m talking about what I could have done better. And then, I wasn’t that much into analytics and numbers. If somebody, I think, at that stage of my career presented it to me the right way and said, ‘This is what we need to do, this is what we need from you, you’re gonna be way more effective doing this.’ Like, kinda explaining to me better. I think that would have made the difference, a little bit.”
While Doncic stressed this week that he has a good relationship with Porzingis now, Porzingis told Redick that their relationship wasn’t the best early on — “I think we both tried to make it work,” he said. “I think communication — maturity, communication on both of our parts — should have been better.”
Fast-forward to today and Irving and Porzingis are two indispensable pieces of teams that are four wins away from winning a championship. And the thing standing in their respective ways are the teams that brought them on board with title aspirations, only for both to fail spectacularly. Those experiences, along with continued struggles in their pit stops in between Boston and Dallas, have given both players the necessary perspective to adapt their games to the needs of their team and become exactly what the Celtics and Mavs have needed to reach the NBA Finals.
Irving, of course, joined Durant in Brooklyn after leaving Boston. James Harden then came to town, forming a superteam by any definition of the word. When they all played together, they were magnificent … only they very rarely got that chance, with Irving at the center of their instability. Whether it was due to his refusal to get vaccinated against COVID-19, the way he conducted himself in the aftermath of sharing a link to an antisemitic film on his Twitter account, or injuries, Irving was just not available enough, and usually for reasons that were wholly preventable on his part. He requested a trade in 2023, which led to Dallas getting him at the deadline for what is, in retrospect, pennies on the dollar.
Porzingis, meanwhile, essentially got salary dumped by the Mavs, as he got sent to Washington with a protected second-round pick for Spencer Dinwiddie and Davis Bertans. He was a nice player for a year and a half on a team that slogged its way to 35 wins in back-to-back seasons before the Celtics — in a series of events I still cannot wrap my head around — managed to acquire him in a three-team trade where they also received multiple first-round picks. One of those picks, a top-4 protected 2024 selection from the Golden State Warriors, was put in the package that was sent to Portland in exchange for Jrue Holiday.
Those past failures were crucial in shaping the guys that both of those teams got. Dallas did not trade for the Kyrie Irving who showed up in Boston, the one who wanted to get out of the shadow of being James’ sidekick and show that he could be the man. Instead, they got a guy who saw first-hand what all goes into being one of the leaders of a team. You hear it now in how people around the Mavs talk about Irving taking on the role of being a unifier, and how he’s playing off of Doncic instead of trying to be the man in Dallas.
Boston did not trade for the Kristaps Porzingis who got salary dumped to basketball purgatory and spent 82 games licking his wounds from a mega-trade gone wrong. Whether that meant getting better at posting up opposing defenders (he is now the league’s top post-up player, a far cry from when Rick Carlisle tore into him in front of the media and brought stats to back up his case) or being someone who accepts a smaller role that has a big impact on winning, Porzingis has figured out the “be a star in your role” lesson that many players need to figure out before they can become the best version of themselves.
Neither Irving nor Porzingis were good enough as a high-profile trade acquisition for teams that viewed them as a potential cornerstone for their franchise. And that happens. There have been countless athletes over the years who found themselves in that situation. But the important thing is to understand why you failed and how to learn and grow from that.
Both Porzingis and Irving have done that. Their teammates rave about their leadership and their calming influence, a far cry from their more mercurial younger days. On the court, they embrace and thrive in roles they once shunned. Irving, back where he started as the second star providing a change of pace and extra scoring and creative punch next to a generational superstar. Porzingis, now willing to accept his place on the totem pole behind Boston’s 1A and 1B, providing them with whatever they need on any given night, whether that’s three-point shooting or post scoring, and anchoring the defense at the other end.
As a result, their current teams are four wins away from a ring … with only their exes standing in their ways.
Dads love James Patterson. That’s a scientific fact, and fortunately, Prime Video (Amazon) has teamed up with Patterson to beef up its roster of Dad TV. That already includes shows like Jack Ryan and its alleged spinoff and (for the weirdest dads) Outer Range. For the dads who enjoy watching brick sh*thouses outsmart the bad dudes, there’s also that force of nature called Reacher, and on a slightly less jacked note, get ready for Cross.
Plot
James Patterson’s Alex Cross is about to get a TV show that promises to stand apart from the films starring Morgan Freeman and Tyler Perry. And as Reacher has shown, audiences loves a protagonist who easily outwits bad guys, and Cross does so by climbing inside their noggins. In particular, this forensic psychologist and detective is “uniquely capable of digging into the psyches of killers and their victims, in order to identify—and ultimately capture—the murderers,” according to the show’s description. And you know that this show is serious about hammering that home because in the show’s trailer, a baddie snarls, “You’re not getting a confession. You’re not in my head.” To which Cross replies, “Oh, I’m definitely living rent free.” Boom.
Cross, of course, is a renowned character drawn by Patterson over the course of 30+ novels. Creator Ben Watkins has crafted a first season full of pulse-pounding complexity, and Amazon has so much faith in this project that they recently renewed the Original Series for a second season before the show has premiered. In a press release, Watkins celebrated:
“I am thrilled to be embarking on another chapter of Cross. Moments like this don’t happen by accident. Getting a Season 2 pick-up before our first season even drops is a huge testament and vote of confidence in the amazing work that our crew, cast, directors, writers and production team have delivered thus far. It’s also a direct result of the unwavering support bestowed upon us by Prime Video and our producing partners at Paramount TV Studios, Skydance and James Patterson Entertainment. I am grateful for all of the above and can’t wait to run it back even bigger and better.”
Additionally, Amazon MGM Studios head of TV Vernon Sanders declared that audiences should expect plenty of Aldis Hodge’s take on Cross. “Ben Watkins and his team have created something unique within the crime-thriller genre that long-time fans and newcomers alike will all enjoy,” explained Sanders. “And with over thirty novels written by Patterson featuring Alex Cross as his main protagonist, it was an easy choice to bring Cross back for a second season.”
Cast
Aldis Hodge stars as the titular Alex Cross. He will be accompanied by Isaiah Mustafa, Juanita Jennings, Alona Tal, Samantha Walkes, Jennifer Wigmore, Eloise Mumford, Ryan Eggold, Caleb Elijah, Melody Hurd, and Johnny Ray Gill.
The Season 2 cast is already coming together and includes Wes Chatham, Matthew Lillard, and Jeanine Mason.
Release Date
Somehow, Amazon hasn’t unveiled a specific release date for Cross, but expect it to drop this summer.
Trailer
If a detective looked at you like this? Give it up.
“Brat sounds really b*tchy, and it’s very direct; it’s a little confrontational, but I think also it’s confrontational because, sometimes, when you’re at your most vulnerable, you lash out,” Charli XCX said on Therapuss With Jake Shane. “That’s the whole thing about the name, Brat. Yes, it’s b*tchy and [redacted] and confident, but I think also you act like a brat when you’re feeling insecure.”
Sold!
Luckily, we don’t have to wait much longer to fully understand what Charli XCX meant when describing her forthcoming new album, Brat. “Von Dutch,” “360,” “Club Classics,” and “B2b” are already out in the world, but here’s when the rest of the tracklist will join them.
When Will Charli XCX’s New Album Brat Be On Apple Music?
Charli XCX’s Brat album is due out on Friday, June 7. As with most albums, that means Brat should be available to stream on Apple Music, Spotify, or any DSP as soon as the clock strikes 9 p.m. PT on Thursday, June 6, and midnight ET on Friday, June 7.
Charli XCX’s Brat Tracklist
1. “360”
2. “Club Classics”
3. “Sympathy Is A Knife”
4. “I Might Say Something Stupid”
5. “Talk Talk”
6. “Von Dutch”
7. “Everything Is Romantic”
8. “Rewind”
9. “So I”
10. “Girl, So Confusing”
11. “Apple”
12. “B2b”
13. “Mean Girls”
14. “I Think About It All The Time”
15. “365”
Yesterday, Ice Spice announced the release date of her debut album, Y2K, after months of anticipation. At the same time, she also shared the album’s cover artwork, but while she was clearly very proud of it, folks on social media were, unsurprisingly, less than impressed.
One element fans took note of was the placement of the album’s title on the photo, which was shot by David LaChappelle. Some fans even took it upon themselves to redesign the cover themselves, hoping to improve on its perceived flaws.
Today, Ice Spice herself responded to the criticism, posting a Polaroid photo of herself and LaChappelle on X (RIP, Twitter.com) with a thankful caption and a cryptic message. “David LaChapelle is #Y2K!” she wrote. “soooo sweet + legendary he didn’t even charge me cus he f*cks wit a real b*tchthank U for all the incredible art you’ve put out through the years this cover means everything to me & yes Y2K was placed on the trash can on purpose can u guess why?”
David LaChapelle is #Y2K! soooo sweet + legendary he didn’t even charge me cus he fucks wit a real bitchthank U for all the incredible art you’ve put out through the years this cover means everything to me & yes Y2K was placed on the trash can on purpose can u guess why? pic.twitter.com/43GqNFePTw
If the placement of the album title is indeed meant to be a metaphor for moving on from the nostalgia for years past, it certainly hasn’t translated in Ice’s music. A proponent of so-called “sample drill,” both her look and her sound draw heavily from the years immediately after her birth (she was born on New Year’s Day, 2000, if you can believe it). Her most recent single, “Gimmie A Light,” interpolates a sample from Sean Paul’s 2002 hit “Gimmie The Light,” while 2023’s “Barbie World” tapped Aqua’s “Barbie Girl,” a staple of turn-of-the-millennium Europop.
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thank U for all the incredible art you’ve put out through the years this cover means everything to me 
& yes Y2K was placed on the trash can on purpose can u guess why?”