For reasons known mostly to D.C., of course, ex-Secretary of State Kissinger (under Nixon and Ford) was coddled with the utmost respect despite his legacy of greenlighting attacks and invasions that led to the massacre of hundreds of thousands of civilians in Cambodia and Bangladesh. During Bourdain’s travels, he witnessed the lasting effects of these horrors, and in his early aughts book, A Cook’s Tour, he let his thoughts on Kissinger fly:
“Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you will never again be able to open a newspaper and read about that treacherous, prevaricating, murderous scumbag sitting down for a nice chat with Charlie Rose or attending some black-tie affair for a new glossy magazine without choking. Witness what Henry did in Cambodia — the fruits of his genius for statesmanship — and you will never understand why he’s not sitting in the dock at The Hague next to [Serbian President Slobodan] Milošević.”
He wasn’t done yet. In this clip from CNN’s Parts Unknown, Bourdain discussed how he’d love to give Kissinger a good sucker punch:
Fuck Kissinger he was a war criminal and a despicable excuse for a human. Listen to Bourdain.pic.twitter.com/ZCOc9yx0I0
Additionally, The New Yorker notes how Bourdain bristled at the idea of being referred to as “a statesman” for his informative travels.
“I’m not going to the White House Correspondents’ dinner. I don’t need to be laughing it up with Henry Kissinger,” he insisted while adding, “In my view he should not be able to eat at a restaurant in New York.”
Going back to the first quote mentioned above, Bourdain reflected upon his words in early 2018 (a few months prior to his own death) while writing, “Frequently, I’ve come to regret things I’ve said. This, from 2001, is not one of those times.”
Frequently, I’ve come to regret things I’ve said. This, from 2001, is not one of those times: pic.twitter.com/1NiHlupJkL
These remarks have been resurrected in the wake of Kissinger’s passing. Some are even calling them a “eulogy” that was ahead of its time:
Anthony Bourdain had the best eulogy for Henry Kissinger written many years ago. Hope that motherfucker is enjoying his first day in hell. pic.twitter.com/6HIJLKgxdT
Anthony Bourdain was a brilliant man who left us way too soon. He traveled the world and got to really experience each country. He saw first hand what Henry Kissinger did. pic.twitter.com/FfrVvhctsR
Here’s what to know about when they will take the stage.
When Is Phish Performing At The Sphere?
Today, Phish announced that they will be doing four shows from April 18 to 21. These are currently the only dates the band is scheduled to play at the venue.
According to a release, the jam band’s run will feature “completely unique setlists and visuals” and “mark the beginning of a new relationship between Phish and Sphere.”
“From the moment we first heard about Sphere and its potential, we’ve been dreaming up ways to bring our show to this breathtaking canvas,” Trey Anastasio says. “We’re thrilled to present this completely unique experience to Phish fans.”
Fans interested in getting tickets can request now until noon on Monday, December 11. From there, a general sale will take place for any remaining tickets on Friday, December 15 at 1 p.m. ET. More information can be found here.
Until then, U2 will be playing the Sphere until February.
Others who can’t make it to the Sphere next year can catch Phish at their New Year’s Eve run at Madison Square Garden in NYC, their 2024 concert vacation in Mexico, or the return of their camping festival next August in Dover, Delaware.
One of director Greta Gerwig’s requirements for Barbie was for “the pinks to be very bright, and everything to be almost too much.” Production designer Sarah Greenwood took the job seriously, telling Architectural Digest that “the world ran out of pink.” She was being hyperbolic, but only slightly.
“There wasn’t enough pink paint [to begin with],” Greenwood clarified about her “off the cuff” comment in an interview with Yahoo! Entertainment. “Yes, we found this color after lots of investigation into the perfect pink. So we go to Rosco, this amazing film company that makes this beautiful pigment… but of course, nobody was using pink until we came along. And so therefore, there wasn’t enough pink paint. We said, ‘Oh, we want 200 liters of your pure pigment.’”
The mission to find more pink paint involved movie studio executives calling paint company executives. “And then everybody pulled together and we found pink paint in every sort of backyard workshop,” Greenwood added. “We did get there in the end. But no, we didn’t cause the world to run out of pink paint.”
A song is never too old for TikTok. At the beginning of this year, Miguel’s 2011 single “Sure Thing” reemerged on the Billboard charts (and radio stations) due to a resurgence on TikTok. Around the same time, The Weeknd’s “Die For You” similarly benefitted. Add Australian indie rock band Ocean Alley to the never-ending list of TikTok darlings, and their 2018 breakthrough single “Confidence” is enjoying a delayed second wind.
“Clips of live performances of ‘Confidence’ have gained ample traction on the band’s official TikTok page for years, but a slightly pitched-up and sped-up version of the song used in the band’s Nov. 2 TikTok commemorating two sold-out Brisbane shows has catapulted ‘Confidence’ into the hearts and minds of millions of new listeners. According to Luminate, ‘Confidence’ has collected over 1.9 million US on-demand streams during the period of Nov. 10-16; that’s an eye-popping 182% increase from 700,000 streams during Nov. 3-9. In turn, that Nov. 3-9 figure is a 433.7% increase from just over 131,000 streams during the period of Oct. 27 to Nov. 2.”
Additionally, “Confidence” has debuted this week at No. 21 on Billboard‘s Hot Rock Songs chart and No. 27 on the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart. It also topped Spotify’s Viral 50 — USA chart.
According to Ocean Alley’s artist page on Lonely Lands Agency’s website, Ocean Alley are “Australia’s beloved psychedelic-surf-rockers.” This October, bass player Nic Blom told Australia’s Tracks Magazinethat “pretty much everyone [in the band] surfs besides our drummer,” Tim O’Brien. Lead guitarist Angus Goodwin added, “We all grew up on the northern beaches of Sydney.”
Who Is In Ocean Alley?
Alongside Blom, Goodwin, and O’Brien, Ocean Alley is rounded out by lead vocalist Baden Donegal, keyboardist and vocalist Lach Galbraith, and guitarist Mitch Galbraith.
When Did Ocean Alley’s “Confidence” Come Out?
“Confidence” was the standout single from Ocean Alley’s 2018 album, Chiaroscuro. According to the band’s official website, “Confidence” finished 2018 at No. 1 on Triple J’s Hottest 100 in Australia. The song is platinum-certified by The Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), while Chiaroscuro is gold-certified in Australia and New Zealand — or, at least, that is the highest certification it had reached when Ocean Alley’s website was last updated.
As Billboard laid out above, “Confidence” entered the international zeitgeist when Ocean Alley used a sped-up version to soundtrack a TikTok on November 2. In the comments section, someone named Chase Moulder said, “Y’all gotta release this sped up version.” Two weeks later, the full sped-up song hit YouTube.
“Confidence” has also been given new life in Australia, as it popped from No. 95 to No. 40 on the ARIA Singles Chart as of November 28 (as per Australia’s The Music Network).
What Is Ocean Alley Doing Now?
Five years is a long time, and Ocean Alley have not been one-hit wonders. Since their 2018 sophomore effort, Ocean Alley have dropped Lonely Diamond in June 2020 and Low Altitude Living in October 2022.
“Low altitude, being by the beach is where we all have the most peace,” Donegal said of Ocean Alley’s most recent LP, as per the band’s official website. “So naming the album Low Altitude Living made a lot of sense. The title of the album doesn’t necessarily represent any one song in particular, or tie them all together. But it does tie our band to the music. I feel like it’s more of a title that describes why we sound like Ocean Alley.”
Ocean Alley is also a very active touring act. On November 22, the band captioned an Instagram carousel, “Australia!!! We just wanted to thank every single one of you who came to a show on our recent tour. These were the biggest shows we’ve ever played anywhere in the world and you were all bloody incredible. We capped it off with 2 crazy nights at Riverstage in Brisbane!! What a way to properly celebrate our 4th album Low Altitude Living and 10 years of our debut EP Yellow Mellow.”
Their official website lists all of their upcoming dates, including six festivals across Australia and New Zealand before the end of the year.
Each week our staff of film and TV experts surveys the entertainment landscape to select the ten best new/newish shows available for you to stream at home. We put a lot of thought into our selections, and our debates on what to include and what not to include can sometimes get a little heated and feelings may get hurt, but so be it, this is an important service for you, our readers. With that said, here are our selections for this week.
What we have on our hands here is a Bachelor spinoff about an older gentleman looking for love from a group of similarly aged ladies. Which is… honestly kind of adorable. Good for them. And good for us, too, especially if one of the episodes features a date where they eat dinner at a diner at 4:45 and then go watch an episode of Columbo in matching recliners. This was written as a joke but honestly sounds kind of wonderful. That’s true love right there, people.
Kristen Stewart’s gay ghost-hunting show has everything: slayances, spook-kikis, haunted strip clubs, and comedian Roz Hernandez snacking on donuts while she yells at homophobic poltergeists. The group – a hodgepodge of paranormal experts that includes a psychic, a witch, and a tarot card reader – road trips across the country in this docuseries produced by the Queer Eye creators, chatting it up with demonic entities and benevolent spooks to get to the root of some very real, very human problems. If there’s a better way to spend your weekend than watching a group of well-dressed Queer spiritualists commune with the dead while cracking jokes and busting stereotypes, we don’t want to know about it.
— This movie stars Sandra Oh and Awkwafina and Will Ferrell, which is a good start
— This is the official summary: “Anne and her estranged train-wreck of a sister, Jenny, must work together to help cover their mother’s gambling debts. When Anne’s beloved dog is kidnapped, they set out on a wild cross-country trek to get the cash.”
Rap Sh!t has returned for a second season which means there is a new batch of episodes that follow the consistently entertaining lives of Shawna and Mia as they rise up the ranks in Miami’s rap scene. Season one of the Issa Rae-led series was all about establishing their rap careers, and now in season two, the duo looks to take things beyond South Beach. With new heights come new struggles as Shawna and Mia will have their integrity tested over and over again in exchange for quick success. Through it all, you can expect to laugh and cheer on the duo all while enjoying the show’s stellar soundtrack which features appearances from real-life hip-hop stars and up-and-coming acts who fit the show’s aesthetic.
— A biopic of Civil Rights leader Bayard Rustin, who helped MLK organize the 1963 March on Washington but whose efforts were minimized at the time and therefore largely forgotten since because he was openly gay at a time when that was not convenient for public figures
— From Higher Ground, the production company helmed by Barack and Michelle Obama
— Loaded with talent like Colman Domingo and Chris Rock and Jeffrey Wright and Audra McDonald
Despite Squid Game being a smash, global, runaway hit, something about a reality show did not sound so wise. Still, Netflix decided that they were up to The Challenge, and sure enough, some unfortunate allegations have surfaced. Still, it will be worth checking in to see how this show moves from dystopian-tale-that-portrays-a-horrific-reality-show to an actual reality show. People won’t be able to resist.
Nearly every actor from the original, cult-favorite Scott Pilgrim film is back for this anime-inspired Netflix series that also functions as a clever remix. Is it as good as the actual run of sequels we should have been given over the last 15 years? Noting could be, but it comes close, leaning on its all-world voice cast and the very specific charm that drove the film and Bryan Lee O’Malley’s original graphic novels.
14. Please Don’t Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain (Peacock)
PEACOCK
The blurring of the barrier between comedy and drama has been good for all of us, but occasionally we just need someone to throw a bunch of weird, wild, crap at the screen without there needing to be a message or a point. Please Don’t Destroy: The Treasure Of Foggy Mountain (a film about some 20somethings getting lost in the woods while hunting for treasure), feels like exactly that kind of film, leaning toward comedy chaos with the Please Don’t Destroy comedy trio (of SNL digital short fame), Bowen Yang, Meg Statler, and late night comedy GOAT Conan O’Brien.
Taylor Sheridan currently has 6666 in the works on the Yellowstone side, but first, he’s taking viewers back to the real Old West. David Oyelowo portrays the legendary Black U.S. Deputy Marshal. This series will harken back to the Post-Reconstruction era, in which Bass Reeves became a notorious frontier hero by capturing thousands of the most frightening criminals in the land. Oyelowo will be accompanied by Dennis Quaid, Garrett Hedlund, and Donald Sutherland.
What if there was an animated movie for kids where Adam Sandler — now hear me out — voiced a talking lizard? And it was co-directed and co-written by Robert Smigel, the comedy genius behind many of the greatest SNL moments ever? And the rest of the voice cast included Jason Alexander, Cecily Strong, Bill Burr, Heidi Gardner, and Stephanie Hsu? Would you believe such a movie exists? Well, it does. It’s called Leo, and it’s on Netflix. Your kids need to be introduced to Adam Sandler eventually. Maybe start here and not, say, Uncut Gems. Save that until they’re older.
The seventh season of Big Mouth ties Orange is the New Black and Grace and Frankie as Netflix’s longest-running scripted series (it will break the record in its eighth and final season). Not bad for an animated show about horny teenagers and hormone monsters. Guest stars this season include Megan Thee Stallion, Lupita Nyong’o, and Pulitzer Prize winner Lin-Manuel Miranda as a pubic hair. Good show.
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters stars Kurt Russell and Godzilla and… are you already sold? You should be. The first live-action TV show in the MonsterVerse — which also includes Kong: Skull Island and Godzilla vs. Kong — makes you care as much about the humans, including Kurt and his son Wyatt, as Godzilla and his “Titan” friends. In an up-and-down year for genre shows, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters is a highlight.
There are cringe comedies and then there’s Showtime’s The Curse, a limited series about a married pair of alt-HGTV home flippers gentrifying their New Mexico neighborhood via eco-friendly monstrosities and calling it philanthropy. Created by two masters of squirm – Benny Safdie and Nathan Fielder – the show is a voyeuristic exercise that tests fans’ capacity for second-hand embarrassment as its main characters, the affluent Asher (Fielder) and Whitney (a shockingly unlikable Emma Stone) bulldoze the soul of their small, impoverished community with just a few reality TV cameras and a staggering amount of white privilege. It’s the best, most uncomfortable TV show you’ll watch this year.
Mike Flanagan fans, get ready. The Haunting of Hill House and Midnight Mass showrunner is back along with Carla Gugino, who will spook your soul right out of your bod and deliver a “consequential” evening to “a collection of stunted hearts” that is the Usher family. Yikes. Do not expect a literal adaptation of the Edgar Allen Poe short story. The story focuses here on the hell created by ruthless siblings Roderick and Madeline Usher, who built Fortunato Pharmaceuticals into an empire of wealth, privilege, and power. Horrible secrets shall surface when the heirs to the Usher dynasty start dying at the hands of a mysterious woman, portrayed with glee by Gugino.
Somehow, Joel Kinnaman has now been physically transformed to barely look like Joel Kinnaman while still starring in this alternate-history space-race series, and in the year 2003, the Earth’s nations are competing like hell to capture and mine asteroids full of precious minerals. That doesn’t sound ominous at all, and of course, there’s still plenty of beefing between nations after Happy Valley has grown in size on Mars’ surface.
There’s some Glass Onion flavor to this mystery series that follows Darby (Emma Corrin) accepting an invitation to visit a reclusive billionaire with an assortment of other guests. One of the lucky participants will be not-so-lucky and end up dead, and at that point, Darby must use her amateur-sleuth abilities (including hacking and being a typically astute Gen Z-er) to solve the case before anyone else ends up dead. Along with Corrin (The Crown), this show also stars Harris Dickinson of the upcoming The Iron Claw and Clive Owen, who is already so many projects and yet who should be in more.
Selena Gomez is taking her already lovely cooking show and giving it a little festive update by inviting a handful of famous chefs to come over and make holiday recipes with her. It all seems very nice and sweet and might make you want to eat your entire screen, which is not recommended during the holiday season. Or at any other time. But still a good show to watch.
The bumbling spies are back, led by a frumpy and farting Gary Oldman. That sentence may not be the best way to sell the show (maybe it is???), but trust us: this show is good. Tense and fun and full of little twists and turns and all over and done with in six 45-minute episodes. Knock the whole season out in a weekend if you want. Once you get started, you might not be able to help yourself anyway
David Fincher — director of movies like Fight Club and The Social Network — is back with another uplifting tale about a well-adjusted dude. From the official description: “Solitary, cold, methodical and unencumbered by scruples or regrets, a killer waits in the shadows, watching for his next target. Yet, the longer he waits, the more he thinks he’s losing his mind, if not his cool.” Jokes aside, Fincher does these kinds of movies as well as anyone and usually makes them compelling, so give it a go if you want to spend a few hours with a murderous sociopath in the safest possible way.
The final season of this royal soap opera is upon us, and this half-season confronts the royal elephant in the room while finally giving Diana her due during an exploration of her final year of life. Sadly, the world already knows how a car chase between the paparazzi and Diana/Dodi Fayed ended, but the show pulls off these four episodes with stunning grace. So much could have gone wrong here with the recounting and dramatization of tragic events that shook the world, but Netflix does the thing here. Not an easy feat for sure.
GOOD: Fargo is back, finally, for a fifth installment that features Juno Temple in Home Alone mode and Jon Hamm in a cowboy hat and a murderous little secret that ties them together. Joe Keery from Stranger Things plays a failson named Gator. There’s a lawyer named Danish Graves who has an eyepatch. There are homemade blowtorches and nipple rings and it’s all just extremely Fargo in all the ways you’ve come to expect.
BAD: Hmm. There’s really not any bad news here. But we already committed to this format so… let’s go with “it shouldn’t have taken until season five for them to cast Jon Hamm in Fargo.”
U2 is set to occupy the iconic new Sphere venue in Las Vegas until February 2024. After that (assuming U2 doesn’t extend their run of U2: UV Achtung Baby Live At Sphere shows beyond its current end date), the venue will need to find somebody else to take the stage. Now, we know who will be the next band (or at least one of the next ones) to hit the Sphere: Phish.
Today (November 30), the legendary, Trey Anastasio-led jam band announced a four-night run of shows at the Sphere, on April 18, 19, 20, and 21, 2024. As Brooklyn Vegan notes, though, a press release indicates this is “the beginning of a new relationship between Phish and Sphere,” so the band could end up playing more than just those four nights.
How to get tickets for Phish’s 2024 concerts at The Sphere in Las Vegas
On Phish’s website, you can request tickets for any of the four shows from now until noon ET on December 11. If any tickets are left after that, those are set to go on sale to the general public on December 15 at 1 p.m. ET.
How much will tickets for Phish’s 2024 concerts at The Sphere in Las Vegas cost?
Ticket prices (including fees) currently range from $108.90 to $181.20, depending on the seating option selected.
Ari Lennox had a bit of chaos during a recent show after a video of her went viral. In it, one of the crowd members threw a bottle at her during her speech on stage. “Say I’m confident, say I’m the one and never the motherf*cking ass two,” Lennox tells the audience to hype them up. She then launches into her song, before the bottle can be seen flying right past her.
While it didn’t appear to hit her, she still wasn’t amused — and quickly snapped out of the song. Pointing in the direction of the bottle’s origin, Lennox pushed back, “B*tch, don’t f*cking play… I’ll f*ck you up a bit. Who the f*ck did it?”
She walks closer on the stage to where the bottle was thrown. “Who the f*ck did it?” she asks again. “I’ll f*ck your ass up ’cause I don’t play that. I’m a real-ass b*tch and I will f*ck your sh*t all the way the f*ck up. Don’t you ever disrespect a beautiful Black woman.”
Although the video ends, Lennox appears to keep going, with a security guard standing by her side. Fans on social media had a ton of reactions to it too.
“They brought the DMV right out of her,” one user captioned.
Former Rep. Liz Cheney has a new book coming out next week. Donald Trump won’t be reading Oath and Honor (unless it has his own name or “swimsuit” in the title, he’s not interested), but maybe he should: he comes up a lot.
In one excerpt, Cheney claims that Kevin McCarthy, who was ousted as Speaker of the House, flew to Mar-a-Lago a few weeks after the January 6th riots to check in on Trump. “What the hell, Kevin?” she questioned him when she found out. He responded, “They’re really worried. Trump’s not eating, so they asked me to come see him.” McCarthy added, “He’s really depressed.”
To be fair, Trump — who once claimed that he knew the McDonald’s menu more than the fast food chain’s employees — “not eating” could mean his lunch order was “only” a Big Mac and a Filet-o-Fish, hold the fries (gasp). But either way, Jimmy Kimmel doesn’t for one second trust McCarthy.
“That I don’t believe,” the Jimmy Kimmel Live host said during Wednesday’s episode. “I believe anything other than he’s not eating.” Kimmel pitched another reason why Trump might have been depressed: “January 6 is also the day Eric was born. Could be why he wasn’t eating, OK?”
Shane MacGowan, who became an Irish music icon as singer and songwriter for The Pogues, is dead at 65 years old.
MacGowan’s wife, Victoria Clarke, confirmed his death with a statement shared on social media today (November 30), writing:
“I don’t know how to say this so I am just going to say it. Shane who will always be the light that I hold before me and the measure of my dreams and the love [heart emoji] of my life and the most beautiful soul and beautiful angel and the sun and the moon and the start and end of everything that I hold dear has gone to be with Jesus and Mary and his beautiful mother Therese. I am blessed beyond words to have met him and to have loved him and to have been so endlessly and unconditionally loved by him and to have had so many years of life and love [heart emoji] and joy and fun and laughter and so many adventures. There’s no way to describe the loss that I am feeling and the longing for just one more of his smiles that lit up my world. Thank you thank you thank you thank you for your presence in this world you made it so very bright and you gave so much joy to so many people with your heart and soul and your music. You will live in my heart forever. Rave on in the garden all wet with rain that you loved so much [heart emojis] You meant the world to me.”
The cause of death has not been officially confirmed. As NME notes, though, MacGowan was released from the hospital last week, where had had been since June due to an unspecified health issue. He was also hospitalized in December 2022 and diagnosed with encephalitis. As NME noted at the time, “MacGowan has been in and out of medical care for the past few years, dating back to a 2015 pelvis injury that left him wheelchair-bound and with continued mobility issues as a result.”
MacGowen, whose full name is Shane Patrick Lysaght MacGowan, was born on December 25, 1957 in Kent, England to Irish parents. The Pogues were formed in 1982. The band’s commercial peak was their third album, 1988’s If I Should Fall From Grace With God. The album featured the band’s best-known and most successful single, “Fairytale Of New York,” which remains a popular Christmas song in the UK today and has over 300 million streams on Spotify. (The song recently made headlines due to Jason and Travis Kelce’s reinterpretation of it.)
Last week, it was reported that Daryl Hall is suing Hall & Oates bandmate John Oates, and it was later revealed the reason was that Hall protested to Oates’ attempt to sell his half of the Hall & Oates joint venture, Whole Oats Enterprises LLP. We’re gradually learning more about the case as it progresses, and now a new Associated Press report shows the two trading shots at each other in legal documents.
In a declaration filed yesterday (November 30), Hall accused Oates of committing the “ultimate partnership betrayal” with his plan to sell without Hall’s permission. Hall noted, “I am deeply troubled by the deterioration of my relationship with, and trust in, John Oates.” He also accused Oates of becoming “adversarial and aggressive instead of professional and courteous” toward him in recent years.
Hall aims to halt the transaction, writing, “While falsely contending over the last several months that the Oates Trust wanted to maintain ownership in WOE, John Oates and the Co-Trustees engaged in the ultimate partnership betrayal. They surreptitiously sought to sell half of the WOE assets without obtaining my written approval.”
In his own filing, Oates wrote, “Over the years, Daryl has consistently and publicly been adamant about being perceived as an individual rather than as part of a duo or group. Thus, he has insisted on our being known as ‘Daryl Hall and John Oates,’ rather than the more commonly known ‘Hall & Oates.’ On this point I agree. I now must act with truthfulness and make decisions that are right for myself, my family, and my artistic future.”
A court hearing in the case is scheduled for today.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
(@AmyLynnStL) November 30, 2023
(@rahsh33m) 
