Sports leagues across the world are still trying to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic. Some, like Germany’s Bundesliga and Korea’s KBO, have managed to return, while others are mapping out roads back, many of which involve playing games in empty stadiums for the foreseeable future. That’s particularly true in the United States, where professional sports continue to be on pause.

One sports league has decided that playing in front of fanless arenas is not a tenable path forward, and as such, it will not operate during 2020. The BIG3, Ice Cube’s halfcourt 3-on-3 basketball league composed of former NBA players, announced that it will not be able to take the floor this season, but thanks to its TV deal with CBS going through 2021, there will be a season next year.

“Ultimately, we need the fan experience and the games themselves to be great,” the league said in the release. “While other leagues have more immediate financial considerations, as a rising league, we need to put the fan experience above all and ensure each season is better than the one before. While we investigated many alternative scenarios, such as playing at a single location like a Los Angeles studio sound stage, the extension of the California stay at home order, California’s constant confusion and changing of the rules when combined with the multiple other issues listed above led to us to determining these scenarios were not feasible.”

“We tried everything in our power to give our fans a nice 2020 season but with a long list of obstacles, we decided to shift our focus to having a great 2021 season with our fans in the stands. Our goal from day one has always been to provide a remarkable experience full of top-level competition and entertainment,” Ice Cube said. “With the creation of BIG3: Not in My House and more time to prepare for the season, we will definitely come back with the fire.”

It’s surely a tough pill for the league to swallow, as it is still working to get off the ground in the U.S., but this is a sensible decision, especially because the league is confident this is just a one-year bump in the road. As Ice Cube mentioned, the league still plans on having some kind of activities this year via its Big Brother-style television show.

The shape of our future travels is gradually growing clearer. BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land will be big. So will the newly opened national parks (with strict social distancing). Road trips. Microadventures. Freaking picnics.

In short, Americans are going to spend more time exploring the 50 states that make-up our country and they’re going to do so in the great outdoors. Which brings us to Alaska. The Last Frontier. 365 million acres of elbow room. When the time is right — and local populations will dictate that more than anything else — exploring state number 49 offers the chance for adventure writ large and a meaningful connection to the wild.

To add a dose of grandeur and a little wanderlust to another week in quarantine, we reached out to Nikon photographer Taylor Gray. He gladly shared some of his favorite photos with us from a recent trip through three particularly picturesque parts of the Alaskan Frontier. We also hit him up for some camping and hiking suggestions — to ensure that your own adventure looks just as amazing as his — plus some info on where to hop on a longboard and soak in the beauty of it all.

Now, let’s jump into this visual tour of the Alaskan Frontier. All italicized captions are Taylor’s!

Crescent Lake

Doug Brewer, expert bush pilot and owner of Alaska West Air, flying through rainy weather as we made our way to Crescent Lake in Lake Clark National Park and Preserve. This particular lake is known for the population of brown bears often seen frequenting its sandy shores.

Doug straightening out his DHC-3T Turbine Otter after parking it on the shoreline. The lake’s beautiful turquoise water can be seen in the background.

Where can we experience some great camping in Alaska?

Hatcher Pass or a backpacking trip to Exit Glacier. There is nobody else out there, it’s about a 5-mile hike roundtrip. You can find a camping spot out there easily.

I remember waking up, it was very windy, so I didn’t get a ton of sleep because the tent was shaking the entire time. I woke up at like 2 am and II looked out, and on Exit Glacier, it was just bathed in moonlight. It was pretty much daylight because it was so reflective, and it was really really beautiful. The next morning, to see the first light on the glacier, and this huge ice field, it’s really amazing. It’s a great scenic height, tons of great wildlife. If you go camping bring some bear spray.

In fact, if you’re camping anywhere in Alaska make sure to have some bear spray and know how to use it. There are a lot of bears! You might run into one on the trail at any moment.

A mother brown bear pokes her head above the water as she fishes for a tasty salmon dinner along the lake’s shallows.

The mother brown bear paces the shoreline, keeping a keen eye out for salmon as well as other competing bears in the area.

Where are the best hiking spots?

I’d say Hatcher Pass is one of my favorite areas, it’s easy to access. A lot of backcountry camping. The first night that I got into Alaska after driving up from California, I met up with a buddy of mine and he took us to Hatcher Pass, and we camped up there and watched the moon rise over the mountains and it was really incredible.

It’s really close to Anchorage, so it’s pretty accessible for people who can’t travel too far into the state.

After a long day of photographing brown bears, it’s time to go home. Doug coming in for a soft landing on the calm waters of Crescent Lake.

Denali National Park

My buddy Daniel skating the long, empty roads outside of Denali National Park. Because Alaska is so far north, it stays light outside for a much longer time during the summer months. This shot was taken at around 11:30 pm.

If there is one thing you have to do when visiting Alaska, what is it?

Depending on the year, if it’s the end of summer, early summer and it still gets dark out, try to see the Northern Lights. In Fairbanks, you have a third of the year you’re able to see the Northern Lights up there. I stayed up until early September and got to see it a couple of times.

If you’re in the summer months, go to Russian River Falls and watch the salmon. There are millions of salmon that run upstream and you can see them jumping out of the water. You can go right to the edge of the river and if you were to reach your hand in and scoop out a handful of water, you’ll come out with 10 fish. You get to watch them jump incredible heights to make their way upstream, there is nowhere else where you can really see that large amount jumping upstream.

Take a flight, doesn’t matter where you do it — Denali is my favorite. Get in a small plane, I promise you it will be worth it to see Alaska from the air, it’s just an experience like no other.

Early September brings stunning fall colors to Denali National Park, and I couldn’t resist quickly grabbing a shot of myself skating down the park’s photogenic roads.

What makes the Denali National Park such a great skate spot and do you have any favorite areas to ride?

The Denali roads, for the most part, are pretty well maintained, The road system goes way back into the park, like 80 some miles, but you have to take a tour bus there so I didn’t take my skateboard. But just along the park entrance roads, there are a lot of great mountains and a lot of great scenes. It’s a very scenic skate, and the roads are pretty smooth as well.

I don’t really know the specifics of the roads as much, but I do know there are a lot of great hills. The image with the fall colors, that road is actually the beginning of that 80-mile road that leads all the way back into the park, and you can drive up that far to that point and just pull off to the side of the road and just skate down.

Passing rain squalls and early morning light creates unique conditions deep inside the heart of Denali National Park. The scale and grandeur of this place is hard to wrap your head around and even harder to convey in a photograph.

While visiting Denali, I had the chance to meet up with a few friends and take a scenic flight over the park and its incredible landscapes. One of my friends told me, “You haven’t really seen Alaska’s landscapes until you view them from the air…” and they were absolutely right. Soaring above the colorful valleys and expansive mountain ranges was one of my all-time favorite experiences to date.

Denali and its surrounding mountains grow closer and closer as we fly further into the park. Because of its large size, Denali creates its own weather systems and is often covered in clouds. In fact, only 1-in-3 park visitors ever get to see the top of this impressive mountain because of this, so we got extremely lucky with the weather for this flight.

What’s one of the best areas of Alaska to view aerially?

Alaska is a place where you really can’t believe how large the mountains are, how wide the landscapes are, until you’re really there. I had this feeling of smallness the entire time I was there no matter where I went. It’s overwhelmingly large. You can get in a plane, get anywhere in the air and be content with viewing the landscapes below.

I’d say my favorite spot by far was flying over Denali National Park out of the town of Talkeetna. It’s a really incredible experience, I flew with the company Talkeetna Air, and the pilots are really great, really safe, they can take you super close to the sides of the mountains. It really feels like you can reach out and touch the ridges as you’re flying by.

I think its like, 1 in 100 Alaskans have their pilot’s licenses. 90% of the state can only be accessed by air, so flying is a huge part of the culture. It helps that everything is so scenic.

Slow-moving glaciers wind in and out of the snowcapped mountain ranges that surround Denali as the late afternoon light basks the landscape in a soft glow.

A final view of Denali through the plane window as we head back to Talkeetna, the town we first took off from.

A photo of our pilot, Michael Gold, as he weaves our plane in and out of the mountain ranges. Seeing Denali and its surrounding mountains from the air is an experience like no other. It was mesmerizing looking out of the windows and see nothing but mountains both above and below me — and snow-covered ridges so close, it felt like I could reach out and touch them. I highly recommend checking out Talkeetna Air Taxi if you are ever to make it up this way.

Harding Icefield

A lot of the locations I wanted to visit during my trip throughout Alaska were very spread out, which meant a lot of long hours in the car. I put around 10,000 miles on my car’s odometer during the 5-week trip, so I found it important to get out and stretch the legs every once and while. And that’s exactly what my friend Daniel and I did here, as we headed towards Harding Icefield.

The 8.2-mile round-trip hike to Harding Icefield follows Exit Glacier, pictured here, as it slowly carves its way through the valley. Harding Icefield is absolutely massive. It is over 700 square miles across and spawns over 40 different glaciers in the area. Again, the scale of this place is not easy to convey in a photograph.

Conditions weren’t particularly favorable during this hike as we were constantly being soaked by a steady drizzle. That being said, the area was still incredibly beautiful. An alpine glacier can be seen here above several waterfalls that cascade down the steep slopes into the valley floor below.

As we neared the trail’s end, it was impossible not to stop and admire the view every once and a while.

My friend Brandon gazes out at the huge crevasses in the ice field’s surface as low clouds drift across the alien landscape. Although the weather wasn’t very cooperative, this hike was definitely one of my favorite memories from the trip.

Where is the first place you want to go once quarantine ends?

I really want to go back to Yosemite National Park. I grew up in California, Yosemite is always just a stone’s throw away and a place I always go back to draw inspiration from. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of its views. There is the valley floor, where about 90% of visitors visit, but if you get up in the high country for some backpacking it’s really an unbelievable place.

To find out more about Taylor’s approach to photography and his travels, be sure to catch him on Instagram Live on Tuesday, May 19th, where the photographer will be hosting an Instagram Live Talk as part of Nikon’s Creators Hour, on the NikonUSA Instagram.

With the future of live music unclear, many are brainstorming creative ways to put on concerts while protecting the safety of fans, performers, and staff. One LA design company cooked up a futuristic bodysuit that would protect concertgoers against the virus, while a Florida DJ decided to host a drive-in music festival. But an Arkansas venue decided to take a different approach while hosting a Travis McCready concert this week, offering a possible blueprint for the future of many live shows.

TempleLive, a concert venue in Fort Smith, Arkansas, planned extensive measures in order to maintain proper social distancing practices during a concert Monday with Travis McCready, guitarist and vocalist of Bishop Gunn. According to TempleLive’s plan, the venue sought sanitation from a third party company, masks were required of all staff and patrons, and temperatures of attendees were taken upon entry. The venue restricted bathrooms to 10 people at a time and concession stands could only sell pre-packaged goods.

The performance was originally scheduled for May 15, but Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson postponed the event due to safety concerns from the state’s Department Of Health. The show was previously slated to host 229 people, which directly went against the state’s directives to cap audiences at 50.

While large venues like TempleLive are able to re-instate live shows sooner than anticipated, the pandemic still leaves smaller independent venues across the country at risk of closure. Many beloved independent venues aren’t able to maintain the same social distancing practices due to their size and number of staff members. Organizations like the National Independent Venue Association are doing what they can to support locally-owned venues by raising funds and tapping music lovers everywhere to pressure their legislators to provide relief.

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Indie music has grown to include so much. It’s not just music that is released on independent labels, but speaks to an aesthetic that deviates from the norm and follows its own weirdo heart. It can come in the form of rock music, pop, or folk. In a sense, it says as much about the people that are drawn to it as it does about the people that make it.

Every week, Uproxx is rounding up the best new indie music from the past seven days. This week we got the the anticipated new opus from Perfume Genius, a new track from The Beths, and the return of a Justin Vernon side-project.

While we’re at it, sign up for our newsletter to get the best new indie music delivered directly to your inbox, every Monday.

Perfume Genius — Set My Heart On Fire Immediately

The fifth full-length album from Mike Hadreas feels like the culmination point of a decade of fine-tuning and perfecting his craft. According to Caitlin White for Uproxx, “While his first two albums, 2010’s Learning and 2012’s Put Your Back N2 It established Perfume Genius as an indie force and a critical darling, the arc of 2014’s Too Bright, his 2017 release, and now, this year’s record, clearly portray an artist at the top of his game, pushing toward a clarity of purpose and voice, building toward a pinnacle of sound and movement.” Set My Heart On Fire Immediately experiments with shoegaze, grunge, experimental art pop, jazz, and so much more. It’s quite unlike anything else, and is surely one of the most entrancing releases of the year.

Moses Sumney — Græ

At long last, Moses Sumney’s ambitious Græ project is available to listen in its full form. While we’ve been digging into the first half for the better part of the last three months, we can finally envelop ourselves in its full glory. It’s been three years since the last Moses Sumney LP, and Græ was certainly worth the wait, 20 tracks welcoming the listener into the world of Moses Sumney.

Nick Hakim — Will This Make Me Good

On his sophomore album, Nick Hakim dials into a more psychedelic, R&B-inspired sound, delivering a record that you can tell he truly sunk himself into, examining every detail, and making sure they were perfect. To that end, Will This Make Me Good is a record that feels extremely diverse and endlessly enticing.

Retirement Party — Runaway Dog

Retirement Party are at the top of their game throughout Runaway Dog. Avery Springer’s natural ability to weave narrative arcs into her songwriting, anchored by propulsive drums and bass, make the Chicago trio’s sophomore LP a can’t-miss. With tracks about letting yourself get hit by a car for potential financial compensation to wanting to roll with the “wild boys,” Runaway Dog is a perfect listen for the uncertainties of today.

Gayngs — “Appeayl 2 U”

It’s been a whole decade since Justin Vernon joined Gayngs, the supergroup founded by Poliça’s Ryan Olson, for the band’s first and only album Relayted. Now, out of nowhere, the band has returned with a new track called “Appeayl 2 U.” Clocking in at around five-and-a-half minutes, the track is interestingly completely silent for the final 90 seconds. “The relaxing and relatively freeform track incorporates influences from soft rock and electronic music (much more so the former than the latter),” writes Derrick Rossignol for Uproxx.

The Beths — “I’m Not Getting Excited”

While we’re starting to get excited for the upcoming new album from The Beths, they’ve reminded us to temper our expectations with the new single “I’m Not Getting Excited.” In typical Beths fashion, the track is an “energetic indie-rocker,” writes Derrick Rossignol for Uproxx, and one that reinforces our high hopes for the band’s upcoming album Jump Rope Gazers.

Keaton Henson — “Career Day”

For his first new music since 2016’s Kindly Now, Keaton Henson’s “Career Day” features nothing but a somber vocal over intricate guitar plucking. According to a statement, the track is about “the many different versions of ourselves that we have to carry on a daily basis, and the overwhelming sense that you are of a million professions, but to one extent or another, failing slightly at them all.” While there is no news of a new Keaton Henson album, “Career Day” is a promising taste of what is to come.

Elvis Perkins — “Anonymous”

While Elvis Perkins has spent the last few years working tirelessly on various film and television scores, he has turned his attention back to his solo music for the release of the epic, swooning “Anonymous.” It’s been some time since Perkins has released anything under his own name, and “Anonymous” is song that has been bouncing around his head for a while now. “It seems we know each other quite well and hardly at all,” he says in a statement. “I couldn’t say where all of its melodies came from.”

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

The Last Dance reinforced a number of aspects of the mythology around Michael Jordan, but in the second-to-last episode of the series, one of the more well-known bits of Jordan lore was corrected. Everyone knows the story of Jordan’s legendary flu game, in which he fell ill in Utah during the 1997 NBA Finals and ended up scoring 38 points in a crucial Bulls win.

According to Jordan and some folks close to him, though, he did not suffer from the flu. Instead, he was given a pizza under some shady circumstances, ate the whole thing, and got sick. The strong implication was that Jordan got food poisoning — five people apparently delivered the pie, which led to longtime trainer Tim Grover saying he had a bad feeling about the whole thing — but according to a man who claims to have made and delivered the pizza to Jordan, that was not the case.

Craig Fite hopped on 1280 The Zone’s The Big Show on Monday and told his side of the story. He claims that everyone knew where the Bulls were staying in Salt Lake City, and since he was the only Bulls fan in his store (to the point that Fite even named his son after Jordan), he got the heads up that the pie might have been one of the players, at which point he volunteered to make and deliver the pie.

“I remember saying this, ‘I will make the pizza because I don’t want any of you doing anything to it,’” Fite recalled. “And then I told the driver, ‘You’re gonna take me there.’”

Jordan apparently ordered a large, thin-crust pie with extra pepperoni, and Fite made sure everything turned out well because it was going to a player, although he did not know at the time who it was for. He also made it clear that it was a “crap story” that five folks delivered it, stressing that it was only him and a driver, and remembered that getting onto the floor with the Bulls felt like they got “punched in the face with cigar smoke.”

“We go over and I knock on the door, and then this great guy who’s been saying all this crap lately — I’m sure that he’s a good guy,” Fite said, apparently referencing Grover. “But anyway, he answers the door, barely opens up the door, and I said ‘hey,’ identified the company I was with, here’s the pizza delivery.”

Fite also claims that he asked if he could say hello to Jordan, because “it’s my one shot,” so Grover cracked the door a bit more.

“Mike’s in the room, sitting at the chair, he’s playing cards or whatever, and raises his hand, he said, ‘Thanks, man!’” Fite said. For some further points of clarification, Fite claimed this happened sometime around 10 p.m. and that, after consulting with others who got pies that day, no one else got sick from eating something prepared at his store that day. He also is confident that any sort of rumor that Jordan flew to Las Vegas and partied a little too hard is also not true, as he saw him in the room.

Obviously stories get exaggerated over the years as time goes by, but Fite is convinced that he had nothing to do with Jordan falling ill. At least the Bulls were able to win, regardless of whatever ailment Jordan was dealing with.

(Via Bleacher Report)

Our own Scott Heisel’s interview with Martha Hart offered a fresh perspective on her issues with WWE and their treatment of her late husband, Owen Hart, but it’s far from the only interview she’s given in the lead-up to this week’s season finale of Dark Side of the Ring, which tells Owen’s story. As she’s spoken with various outlets around the internet, a fuller picture has emerged of Martha’s own relationship to the world of wrestling of which Owen was such an important part.

For example, Hart’s interview with The Wrap focused more on the fragmentation of her relationship with Owen’s brother, WWE Hall-of-Famer Bret Hart. In that piece, Martha offers her perspective on the rift between them:

Unfortunately, I have no relationship with Bret. Bret was supportive throughout the lawsuit, but there were a few things that were a problem with Bret. First of all, when we were going through the lawsuit, he really was hoping that I would be able to help him get his wrestling footage. Because at the time, he had no relationship with WWE and he was hoping somehow — if we ever had a settlement — that we could work it in.

When that didn’t happen, he was very upset that he didn’t get his footage. It prompted him to befriend Vince again so he could have access to his footage. That was the first fracture in our relationship.

She also adds that he objected to her refusal to allow WWE to posthumously induct Owen into their Hall of Fame. She says he became “really nasty” in response.

Bret Hart made a short statement to The Wrap, offering a little bit of his own perspective:

While I am not interested in engaging in any more media mudslinging between Martha and myself especially in light of a global pandemic, I will say that our fallout is multifaceted. To say that it only involved being able to access and use my WWE footage and photos for future projects would merely be an oversimplification and inaccurate. I will not comment any further on the matter.

It’s a shame that rifts like these form in families over the years, and even more so when they get aired publicly. It would be nice to think that this renewed discussion might eventually lead to some degree of reconciliation.

DJ Khaled‘s 2019 album Father Of Asahd was just certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association Of America and to celebrate, Khaled teased a nugget of information about the upcoming follow-up to Father Of Asahd, revealing that the first single is already completed and features none other than his longtime hit-making accomplice, Drake.

In a triumphant post on his Instagram, Khaled boasted that the RIAA told him that he is the “only hip-hop artist to have three back-to-back platinum albums in the last 4 years.” He showed off all three plaques — one each for Major Key, Grateful, and Father Of Asahd — side-by-side, while thanking his listeners, declaring the feat was owed to “fan love — you did that.” Meanwhile, the caption of the post concludes with the tantalizing tidbit, revealing the upcoming collaboration with Drake in typical Khaled fashion. “First single BEEN done!” it proclaims. ” x MORE CHUNE PON THEY HEAD TOP.”

Khaled and Drake have had a prolific collaborative history, with 2011’s “I’m On One” giving Khaled his first top-ten Hot 100 hit, “No New Friends” reaching the Top 40 in 2013, “For Free” reaching platinum status in 2016, and “To The Max” going gold in 2017. The as-yet-untitled new collaboration will be their first since 2017, as Drake does not appear on Father Of Asahd.

Check out Khaled’s celebratory video post above.

This week iconic pop stars and rising singers alike put forth energetic tunes and crooning ballads to create the best new pop music. The Jonas Brothers returned with a Karol G collaboration, Katy Perry debuted her anticipated track “Daisies,” and Charli XCX unveiled the album she made entirely in quarantine.

Each week, Uproxx rounds up the best new pop music. Listen up.

Jonas Brothers & Karol G — “X”

With a big-name collaboration between pop icons like the Jonas Brothers and Karol G, it’s sure to make our best new pop music list. The single arrived as a bundle alongside their other track “Five More Minutes.” But the buoyant riff and rhythmic percussion on “X” heralds a catchy number. The track is upbeat and flirty with Karol G delivering a provocative verse in her native Spanish language.

Katy Perry — “Daisies”

Following an exciting pregnancy announcement in her “Never Worn White” video, Perry unveils her second single of the year with “Daisies.” Explaining the meaning behind the track in an Instagram post, Perry said her interpretation of the song has shifted: “I wrote this song a couple months ago as a call to remain true to the course you’ve set for yourself, regardless of what others may think. Recently, it has taken a new meaning for me, in light of what the whole world is experiencing. Each of us is one in more than seven billion, with our own story of strength and resilience to tell.”

Charli XCX — “Visions”

After two months of chronicling each step in the process of her record, Charli XCX’s quarantine album How I’m Feeling Now debuted this week. Written and recorded in less than two months, Charli’s record features a number of captivating tunes. And her glitchy and flirtatious album closer “Visions” is a stand-out track. Starting slow, the song deconstructs to a cacophony of synths, or as one YouTube commenter aptly put it, the track sounds “like a rave at the end of the world.”

Lennon Stella & Charlie Puth — “Summer Feelings”

A groovy bassline opens Lennon Stella and Charlie Puth’s funky collaboration “Summer Feelings.” Written as part of the soundtrack to the upcoming Scooby-Doo reboot Scoob!, the track reflects the fun and carefree feeling of warm summer days and exciting flings.

Chloe x Halle — “Do It”

R&B sisters Chloe x Halle have already had a busy year. Not only was Halle cast as Ariel in the upcoming live-action The Little Mermaid film, but the duo is gearing up to release an album on Beyonce’s label. Speaking to Zane Lowe ahead of their album, Chloe revealed why the duo chose to title their record Ungodly Hour: “We called it Ungodly Hour because it’s okay to not be perfect all the time. It’s okay to have those moments of self-reflection when you just don’t feel okay.”

Loren Gray — “Cake”

Loren Gray got her start on TikTok, but a record deal with Virgin cements the singer as more than just a viral sensation. This week, she unveiled her latest single “Cake,” which boasts Gray’s high-reaching vocals over a hard-hitting beat. Loren started to record the single earlier this year. But once California’s stay-at-home order took effect, the singer crafted her very own home studio in order to finish the track and release it on time.

ALMA — “My Girl”

Finnish pop-punk singer and producer ALMA has unveiled her debut album Have U Seen Her? Known for her work with Tove Lo and Charli XCX, Alma expands on her impressive catalog, showing off her knack for irresistible melodies on “My Girl.” In a statement, Alma detailed her album’s theme: “So that’s what Have U Seen Her? is about – finding your place and your people in the world, feeling valued. It’s for everyone who felt unimportant or couldn’t find their voice. You matter.”

Austn — “Take It All Back”

17-year-old rising singer Austn has already positioned himself as a major contender in pop. This week, he debuted the nostalgic track “Take It All Back.” The single arrives as his second track of the new year, following the major success garnered with his previous single “Phases.”

Prep — “Pictures Of You”

London four-piece group Prep returns with another groove to ail isolation blues. In a statement, Prep described their influences behind the track: “[The song is about] the person you keep thinking about but can’t be with, and the frustrations of trying to connect with them from a distance.”

Alextbh — “Between”

Malaysian artist Alextbh returns with piercing melodies and down-tempo grooves on “Between.” In a statement, Alextbh said he penned the track as a reflection on his sexuality: “I wanted to see how comfortable I could be with my sexuality in my songwriting. It feels empowering to write something explicit in a physical context and I guess it’s something I should explore more often. Queer bodies are human bodies and there’s nothing wrong with trying to frame that intimate moment and showcase it.”

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

“I’m living day to day. I’m not doing this whole, ‘Shakespeare wrote King Lear’ [thing],” Patton Oswalt tells me, content to present as someone striving to maintain sanity and empathy over some imagined need to be productive or attain some kind of meme-prescribed greatness while the world is on hold. It’s a response to a question about if he feels that pressure to create or write. And it’s a good one. “I don’t really have anything right now. It’s like reality has shifted. I’m not just going to jump in and write just to write.”

The purpose of our call is to talk about Oswalt’s new Netflix stand-up special, I Love Everything (which you can stream now). And we will get to that, but I want to veer a little. Oswalt never seems to put out an air of cool detachment. He feels things and expresses them on stage and on social media with authenticity, be they joy, frustration, or bewilderment. And so it’s natural to want to gain a glimpse into how he’s spending his time right now as a dad, bad cook (he’s drinking a lot of smoothies), human person, and, of course, one of pop culture’s most knowledgeable cinephiles.

“I appreciate Netflix’s little special about COVID-19, but I’ve got to admit, the stuff that’s giving me the most joy are just big, dumb action movies and stupid-ass comedies. I just need the relief again,” Oswalt says before we briefly discuss the fight choreography and action of Extraction. “The whole car sequence, when he’s driving in and then has to go back, the way they shot that was like, ‘Wow.’ Planning that shot must have been like planning a heist, the level of detail to that was insane.” Soaking in the minutiae of these things can be a salvation. It’s what normal feels like.

When he’s not watching Hugh Jackman in Bad Education, Errol Flynn movies, or catching up with What We Do In Shadows or Better Call Saul, Oswalt is watching new classics like Groundhog Day, Raising Arizona, and The Truman Show with his 11-year-old-daughter, Alice. “She’s really obsessed with the American version of The Office. She’s watching a lot of that,” he tells me.

While low-key film school is going on at Oswalt’s house, he has thoughts on the absence of movie theaters from our lives.

“I want the experience of going to theaters to come back. I don’t know if it’s going to,” he says, mixing the want of those words with a dose of reality. “I don’t want it to come back if it’s going to mean people dying, obviously.” We’re all scouring the landscape for silver linings, and for Oswalt part of that ties to the exploration of underseen or underappreciated art, a reachable benefit from all this time if it appeals to you and, perhaps, a part of whatever the new normal winds up being. “Maybe, maybe, maybe there’s a generation of people coming up that are so much more used to pulling things out of air. [Maybe] it will make them start to go back. And with services like Criterion and Shutter and Canopy… TCM is really amping itself up to Millennial and Gen Z viewing with interviews and extras. Maybe they’ll make a resurgence in classic film. I hope. I’m being optimistic here, but I don’t know.”

Oswalt is trying to guide his audience to the under-discovered art of Bob Rubin comedy, using his platform to host the frenetic bay area comedy legend’s special, Oddities And Rarities, which plays after I Love Everything and an introduction from Oswalt. “Showing people up and coming comedians or comedians that never got the exposure that they deserved… it just makes the creative atmosphere better for everybody, I think,” says Oswalt before talking more fully about Rubin. “He’s such a huge influence on me and on all of us coming up in San Francisco in the ’90s. He’s such a legend. Almost like a Captain Beefheart in terms of his influence on the art form that he pursued.”

While Oswalt is effusive in his praise for Rubin, he’s humble and doesn’t discuss his own work with too much self-importance despite understanding that this special is being released at a time when the work can provide a service as a distraction. I Love Everything is very clearly counter-programming made before it was known that it would be used as such.

“Maybe I’m being egotistical here, but I think people are going to be relieved to see something that isn’t about COVID,” Oswalt tells us when we ask if he’d ever thought of delaying the release to a more convenient time.

Describing the special, Oswalt says that it’s “just me being goofy, again. Just pop culture and weirdness and just being silly.” The word “again” has some added relevance. I Love Everything presents itself as a different flavor from Oswalt’s last special, Annihilation, which was heavier in some places as the comic talked through the horrific experience of tragically and suddenly losing his wife, grieving, and going on from there with his daughter. Packed with an epic, wonderfully illustrative tour of the Denny’s experience, the allowances he’s willing to make for expert contractors, re-married life, missing out on touring the Millenium Falcon, and other blended moments of normality and absurdity, I Love Everything is a light affair that aims to deliver on the promise of weirdness and silliness. As Oswalt adds with regard to this special’s specific focus: “It’s about being happy to be alive and coming out of the darkness.”

As I told Oswalt at the start of our talk, seeing him perform the I Love Everything material live at the Bergen PAC in Englewood, New Jersey in February was one of the last big outings I had before things got a little crazy (specifically in the New York/New Jersey area). The show stands out as the crown jewel of a fun night of laughter and diner food that I had with my cousin and my wife, holding added importance because it took place a couple of days before my wife went in for surgery. In the months since she has experienced a somewhat bumpy road with complications and a scary ER trip in the midst of the COVID lockdown. Everything is going to be fine now, but it’s obviously easy for me to re-experience this material and think about everything that has transpired since the last time I heard it — in my world and the world at large — while growing a little wistful.

You may have had a similar experience, thinking on the last couple of months while listening to jokes about things like going to restaurants, buying a house, school science fairs, and wedding receptions — the stuff that puts the color in life. But don’t. We shouldn’t. Or, at least, we should also remember that these things aren’t exclusive to the past, but something we’re all working our way back to. And in doing that, we allow specials like this to distract, connect, and be for this time without saying a thing about it.

‘I Love Everything’ is available to stream on Netflix now.