GoneTrending

Since his passing Saturday, a lot of people have paid tribute to Matthew Perry. The cause of death has yet to be made public, but the Friends actor spent a good chunk of his life wrestling with addiction issues, which he was very open with, including in his memoir last year. People have been celebrating his work as well as praising him for helping people with similar struggles. One of them is one of his oldest pals, Hank Azaria.

Per Entertainment Weekly, the beloved actor and Simpsons voice artist posted a video Sunday, in which he looked back on their long friendship.

“Matthew was the first friend I made in Los Angeles when I moved there. I was 21, he was 16,” Azaria explained. “Matthew and I became really good friends and we were really more like brothers for a long time. We drank a lot together, we laughed a lot together, we were there for each other in the early days of our career.”

Azaria said he “really loved” Perry, though he confessed that a “lot of us who were close to him felt like we lost him to drugs and alcohol a long time ago because — as he documented in his autobiography — there was so much suffering.”

He admitted he had trouble getting through that memoir, last year’s Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing. “I had to pick up and put down that biography, like, 11 times,” he said. “It was so painful for me to read.”

Azaria then talked about his own addiction issues, and how Perry helped him. “I’m a sober guy for 17 years, and I wanna say that, the night I went into AA [Alcoholics Anonymous], Matthew brought me in,” Azaria explained. “The whole first year I was sober, we went to meetings together. He was so caring and giving. He totally helped me get sober. And I really wish he could’ve found it in himself to stay with the silver life more consistently.”

But Azaria also wanted to focus on the good times. “Most nights you spent with Matthew you were crying laughing by the end,” Azaria said. “As an actor, he was so brilliant. I just wish we could have gotten what the rest of his career would’ve been.”

Azaria didn’t get to work alongside Perry that often, at least not on the big or small screen. But he did have a recurring role on Friends, playing David, the nerdy love interest of Lisa Kudrow’s Phoebe, who appeared across five episodes.

(Via EW)

After months of waiting, Doja Cat’s The Scarlet Tour will launch Tuesday, October 31. The “Paint The Town Red” rapper’s performances at the 2023 VMAs gave fans a taste of what they should expect when she stops at a nearby city. Ahead of the launch date, Doja has teamed up with Amazon Music for an exclusive merch drop made for the tour.

The company revealed the partnership earlier Monday. The line features several clothing items, including a hooded sweatshirt, t-shirt, crop top, sweatpants, socks, hats, and more in varying colors. With the expectation of the hoodie, none of the pieces in the Amazon Music drop will be made available on-site during Doja’s tour stops. The company revealed that a separate collection will be accessible in person at each venue.

Doja’s finalized Scarlet album cover is one of the central visual elements. But in typical Doja nature, she wanted to spice things up by adding a layer of humor, with one of the pieces of merch features imagery poking fun at online claims that she’s a member of the Illuminati.

The Doja Cat and Amazon Music merch for The Scarlet Tour is available for purchase now. Prices range from $25 to $120. Find more information here. Preview the line below.

Over the past few weeks, album sales, or the lack thereof, have been hotly debated online amongst music fans. Today’s music climate revolves around streaming metrics. While artists such as Drake, Taylor Swift, and Bad Bunny pull in record-breaking numbers on each platform, they’re not being compensated in kind. For mid- and smaller acts, that pot shrinks significantly.

To aid recording artists in understanding their earnings, on Monday, October 30, Billboard added a royalty calculator for Spotify and Apple Music. Here’s how to calculate the royalties for streaming payouts.

The tool, developed by the legal and consulting firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, offers multiple calculations based on data gathered from direct source payers. Although the formulas are based on United States models, international artists are encouraged to use the software as a reference.

After considering four key points (total payout for the number of streams, sound recording payout, mechanical royalties, and performance royalties), the estimated total is provided in an itemized breakdown.

For example, the results of a Spotify search calculate several rates based on the servers’ paid tier, ad-supported tier, and other tiers. This is also the case with Apple Music. An example on the site compared the earnings from one million streams on both platforms. The song on Spotify brings in $3,700 for sound recording owners, $591 for mechanical royalties, $506 for performance royalties, and $2,279 remains with Spotify. On Apple Music, the payout is estimated at $7,085 for sound recording owners, $899 for mechanical royalties, $819 for performance royalties, and $2,551 given to Apple.

Billboard’s Spotify & Apple Music royalties calculator is available online. Find more information here.

Martin Scorsese pictures aren’t always money-gobblers. Sometimes they are. The Wolf of Wall Street, to name one, did more than swimmingly. But usually they attract their biggest audiences over the years, after their theatrical runs, because people genuinely adore them and want to watch them ad infinitum. The legendary filmmaker has a new one out and it’s doing pretty well for a 3 ½ hour epic about a grim subject and with no intermission. But he’s still a scourge of some comic book movie die hards, which may be why one Marvel director decided to treat him to some teasing.

Per Variety, Joe Russo — one half of the Russo brothers, who made some of the MCU’s biggest titles — recently dropped a video on Instagram. It begins with him copying one of Scorsese’s recent popular TikToks, in which he “directs” his pet schnauzer, instructing him to “show me sadness.”

Russo then pops up, holding his own schnauzer. He notes that Scorsese’s is named, appropriately enough, Oscar. (Though he’s somehow only won one, for directing The Departed.) He then jokes that his dog is named “Box Office.”

It seems like Russo’s just joshing. He even tagged Scorsese, which presumably he have done had he really wanted to rub it in his face that his movies have never made Avengers: Endgame money.

Still, Russo’s video did not sit well with some of Scorsese’s fanbase.

Scorsese may be the director of some of the most enduring motion pictures of the last six decades, but to some he’s the guy who called comic book movies “not cinema.” After that enraged that fanbase, he doubled down, arguing, in part, that they’ve caused what was once a diverse medium to become narrow in focus — in short, making it harder for people, like him, who don’t make comic book movies to make movies.

The Russos are among the many comic book movie directors who seemed hurt that one of the greats wasn’t happy about the kinds of films they make.

“But, at the end of the day, what do we know?” Joe joked in 2019. “We’re just two guys from Cleveland, Ohio, and ‘cinema’ is a New York word. In Cleveland, we call them movies.”

Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon is now in theaters.

(Via Variety)

In 2021, Kendrick Lamar shocked hip-hop heads when he revealed that his Grammy Award-nominated album, Mr. Morale And The Big Steppers, would be his final on Top Dawg Entertainment. Since then, the“The Heart Part 5” rapper has poured his creative efforts into his company PgLang.

Kendrick and his business partner, Dave Free, have been busy, cranking out music videos with Baby Keem, film projects, artist signings, and brand partnerships (i.e., Calvin Klein). On Monday, October 30, they announced their latest venture: the Light Phone, their collaboration with Lang.

pgLang, in partnership with tech company Light, will release 250 Light Phone II phones that aim to reduce users’ screen time, described as: “A premium minimal phone designed to be used as little as possible.”

According to Light’s website, the device will not feature social media applications, email, or an internet browser. But it will contain essential phone functions such as phone calls, text messaging, and hotspot capabilities. The devices will be exclusively available for purchase on November 2 via the pgLang official website.

In a statement, the three spoke about the inspiration behind the product. “As humans, we’ve become habitually overwhelmed, unconsciously opening and re-opening smartphone apps,” the note read. “Part of the ethos at pgLang is to embrace the present with less distractions. Built with the essential utility of our modern smartphones without the distractions, the Light Phone II is ‘just a phone.’”

Watch the official commercial above.

A lot of non-American actors who work in Hollywood try to talk American. Not Arnold Schwarzenegger. The presidential hopeful‘s Austrian accent has remained about as thick as it always was. You could even argue that’s one reason he became such a gigantic movie star. That’s what Schwarzenegger himself believes, though in a recent talk show appearance he confesses he tried to get rid of it.

“I had an English coach and an acting coach and a speech coach and an accent-removal coach, who has passed away since then, but I should have otherwise gotten my money back,” Schwarzenegger said on The Graham Norton Show while discussing his younger movie days.

“The bottom line is, I worked on it,” he added. “I remember he’d say, ‘You know you always say s-ree. It’s three, with a T-H.’ So he had me say, ‘Three thousand three hundred and thirty-three and one-third,’ with the T-H and not with the S.”

When Norton complimented him on finally being able to say “three,” Schwarzenegger joked, “After 5,000 years, right?”

But again, Schwarzenegger thinks his thick Austrian accent is what made American audiences love him.

“The funny thing was all the stuff that they said, the Hollywood producers and the directors and all the geniuses, they were saying this was an obstacle for me to become a leading man, became an asset,” he explained. He argued that it worked for his big screen breakout Conan the Barbarian. And it worked on his big follow-up.

“Then when I did Terminator, Jim Cameron said, ‘What made Terminator work and why it became successful is because Schwarzenegger talks like a machine,’” Schwarzenegger recalled.

In some of Schwarzenegger’s earlier films his speaking parts were either minimized or elided entirely. He has no lines as a hulking heavy in Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye. And in his movie debut, 1970’s Hercules in New York — in which he’s credited as Arnold Strong — his lines were dubbed, though the original audio track was later made available on a DVD release.

You can watch Schwarzenegger discuss his famous accent in the video above.

(Via Entertainment Weekly)

Ever stop to think how bizarre it is that the United States is one of the only countries to not use the metric system? Or how it uses the word “football” to describe a sport that, unlike fútbol, barely uses the feet at all?

What must our forefathers have been thinking as they were creating this brave new world?

Wonder no further. All this and more is explored in a recent Saturday Night Live sketch that folks are hailing as an “instant classic.”

---

The hilarious clip takes place during the American Revolution, where George Washington rallies his troops with an impassioned speech about his future hopes for their fledgling country…all the while poking fun at America’s nonsensical measurements and language rules.

Like seriously, liters and milliliters for soda, wine and alcohol but gallons, pints, and quarters for milk and paint? And no “u” after “o” in words like “armor” and “color” but “glamour” is okay?

The inherent humor in the scene is only amplified by comedian and host Nate Bargatze’s understated, deadpan delivery of Washington. Bargatze had quite a few hits during his hosting stint—including an opening monologue that acted as a mini comedy set—but this performance takes the cake.

Watch:

All in all, people have been applauding the sketch, noting that it harkened back to what “SNL” does best, having fun with the simple things.

Here’s what folks are saying:

“This skit is an instant classic. I think people will be referencing it as one of the all time best SNL skits for years.”

“Dear SNL, whoever wrote this sketch, PLEASE let them write many many MANY more!”

“Instantly one of my favorite SNL sketches of all time!!!”

“I’m not lying when I say I have watched this sketch about 10 times and laughed just as hard every time.”

“This may be my favorite sketch ever. This is absolutely brilliant.”

There’s more where that came from. Catch even more of Bargatze’s “SNL” episode here.

Sometimes we get caught up in the moment and overlook details that are right in front of our faces. It’s usually little things, like forgetting a bag or not remembering what your spouse was wearing. But sometimes, we overlook some pretty significant things and it’s something that can really only be explained by excitement.

A moment like that was caught on video and shared with LADbible on social media.

One woman having a baby shower was doing her duties greeting guests who arrived, particularly excited about a pair of friends that showed up. Hugs, smiles and greetings flowed while one person stood awkwardly to the side hoping the pregnant woman would stop to notice her. The woman sort of smiled as she watched the mom-to-be gush over her friends as she hugged their necks. It didn’t take long before the pregnant woman looked in the direction of the person waiting to be greeted.

But it didn’t register who was waiting patiently for a hug, until again, she looked in the direction of the woman waiting. Nope. Still didn’t click.

---

One of the friends she was hugging looked baffled and amused that this very pregnant woman didn’t notice her mother standing there. The girl’s mom snuck into town to surprise her daughter for her baby shower but it took her daughter quite a while to figure out what was happening. Even after her friend spun her around to look in the direction of her mother, the woman only says, “there’s lots of cameras.”

When one of her friends physically point her to look in the direction of her mother, she looks shocked. Her mom lives out of state and isn’t expected at the baby shower so the shock is real. The surprise quickly turned into hugs and giggles of joy and you can see the whole thing below.

Celeste Yvonne, a certified recovery coach and a founding host of the Sober Mom Squad, had a Halloween realization and wanted to know if she was the only person who felt the same.

“This morning, I’m listening to parents at the school drop-off area talk about how they will be bringing a keg onto their golf carts when they do the trick-or-treating rounds with their kids this year,” Yvonne says in a viral TikTok video.

“I’m not shaming them, but my question is: when did trick-or-treating become a beer crawl or pub crawl for adults?” she asked. “This is a newer phenomenon, isn’t it? Or have parents always done this, and they’re just being more public about it now?”

---

“I mean, even now, you can go up to a house doorway, and they will have candy for the kids or adult drinks for the adults. I never saw that growing up trick-or-treating,” Yvonne added. “Is this a newer phenomenon as a result of mommy wine culture or just the normalization of alcohol in general?”

@theultimatemomchallenge

#mommywineculture #halloween

The answer could be that drinking is a lot more visible during the holiday because the number of adults who celebrate is on the rise. At the same time, there has been a rise in alcohol consumption among older adults, where we now drink about the same amount as we did in the pre-Civil War era.

Interestingly, at the same time, there has been a decline in drinking among younger people.

In the comments, many noted that we didn’t see parents drinking during trick-or-treating in the past because kids used to go out with their older friends or siblings. “In the ‘80s, our parents let us go on our own. They stayed home and did what they wanted or at least in my town,” Leigh Winchester Fle wrote. “Gen Xer here, my boomer parents just sent us out and stayed behind and boozed. Now I think our generation tags along and take roadies,” Uncle Rico added.

Rick Astley fans, rejoice. The singer has just released a new recording of his biggest hit “Never Gonna Give You Up” on Oct 24.

Only this version might be…a little different than what you’re used to hearing. Unless of course you’ve been hearing it wrong this entire time.

That’s because this version incorporates all the commonly misheard lyrics associated with the 80s bop. Cause why not?

---

In the new version of the track, you might notice “we’re no strangers to love” being replaced by “we’re no strangers to lunch,” as well as Astley, for some reason, singing “your aunt’s naked” and belting about running around with dessert spoons.

Listen:

That’s right, “don’t tell me not to plant a seed,” indeed! Free gardening for all!

Of course, this is more than just a fun cover. Astley partnered up with Specsavers to raise awareness of hearing loss—something the 80s icon struggles with himself and currently wears hearing aids to help with the condition.

In an interview with Alison Hammond and Dermot O’Leary on “This Morning,” Astley shared that he first started noticing issues while performing live shows again.

“I went to have my ears checked. I have noticed over the last few years, and we have in-ears when we play live and I’ve been turning them down over the past few years because I’ve noticed that it’s been too loud when I come off stage. I can hear it ringing,” he said.

Specsavers conducted a survey on 2,000 adults, and found that a little over 16% blamed their hearing for getting lyrics wrong. Meanwhile 28% admitted having difficulty hearing the TV or radio properly. And a whooping 51% find conversations with background noise difficult. (Daily Mail)

And yet, over half of the participants had never had their hearing tested. The reasoning for this could be twofold.

One, people might assume that only those like Astley, who’ve spent a majority of their life surrounded by loud noise, could be susceptible to hearing loss (in actuality, about one-third of older adults have hearing loss, and the chance of developing hearing loss increases with age). So they might not think that a misheard lyric here or there could be a sign of a larger issue.

And two, some people might not want to admit that they are having hearing loss, embarrassed at the notion of having to wear hearing aids and being perceived as old or disabled.

And that’s why Specsavers sought the help of a pop icon in their campaign—to break any stigma surrounding hearing aids and inspire others to get their hearing tested.

“I’d encourage anyone to get their hearing tested if they notice any changes,” says Astley, “so they don’t lose the sounds or music they love.”