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This article originally appeared on 06.23.22

Fear of flying—aerophobia, in technical terms—is an extremely common phobia, affecting around 25 million adults in the U.S. alone. Some people grit their teeth and white-knuckle their way through their fear, while others find themselves unable to get on an airplane at all because of it.

Such a fear is understandable, really. Hurtling through the sky at 500 miles per hour, tens of thousands of feet above the Earth’s surface, isn’t exactly the way humans were designed to get from place to place. (We may have evolved with the brain power and ingenuity to make it happen, but that doesn’t mean we automatically go along for the ride without our sense of self-preservation kicking in.)

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One of the triggers for people with aerophobia is turbulence—the occasional shaking and pitching of an aircraft when it hits certain conditions in the atmosphere. Even people who are comfortable flying can find turbulence disconcerting sometimes, especially when it creates a sudden dropping sensation. Turbulence is normal, but it doesn’t feel normal when you’re sitting in a chair 30,000 feet from solid ground. It feels chaotic and out of control.

Anna Paul, a popular TikTok star from Australia, has shared a helpful visual for people freaked out by turbulence in a video that has more than 19 million views.

Paul explains that a pilot shared the analogy of a plane flying through the air being like an object suspended in jello. There’s pressure on all sides, so even if the jello is shaken—and the object shaken along with it—the pressure suspends the object.

In other words, a plane is not going to suddenly drop down out of the sky due to turbulence, in the same way that an object won’t drop out of the middle of a bowl of jello.

Watch:

@anna..paull

Fear of flying tip ✈️❤️

The jello analogy is also used by aerophobia experts. Therapist Les Posen specializes in flying phobias, and he shows his clients a model airplane suspended in raspberry jello to illustrate the fact that turbulence won’t cause a plane to drop out of the sky. He even goes a step farther by having clients smell the jello, and then advises them to eat some raspberry candy or juice on the plane to remind themselves of the analogy, using their senses to calm their nerves.

At the end of her video, Paul said there’s never been a plane crash from turbulence, but that’s not quite true. In 1966, a flight (BOAC 911) coming out of Tokyo broke apart in midair due to unexpected severe turbulence. However, that was a very long time ago. Monitoring of meteorological conditions has greatly advanced since then, as have the designs of modern aircraft and the skill of pilots, so experts will tell you that turbulence is not something to worry about.

If imagining air pressure as jello doesn’t really work for you, it may be helpful to have a visual of what turbulence actually is. For that, Captain Stuart Walker, who has been flying for 30 years, explains the four main types of turbulence, what causes them and what pilots do to avoid them or reduce their impact. He also explains what passengers can do to minimize their chances of feeling turbulence on a flight, such as sitting over the wings or toward the front of the plane and flying earlier in the day when temperatures are not as likely to cause air disturbances.

Whether you prefer hospital-food-based analogies or no-nonsense, scientific explanations, the bottom line is that turbulence feels far scarier than it actually is. A shaking plane is not going to drop from the sky, modern aircraft can withstand a great deal of movement midair and pilots are highly trained to handle turbulence.

And remember: Commercial airline travel really is the safest way to get to where you’re going, statistically speaking. So next time you fly, kick back, relax and imagine you’re suspended in jello, knowing you’re in capable hands when the turbulence starts.

Polo G might have just started a new trend when it comes to styling jewelry. The Chicago rapper took to social media recently to share that he turned his chain into an “ice box.” Polo, whose real name is Taurus Tremani Bartlett, is no stranger to loving the finer things in life. At this point, who doesn’t expect every rapper to sport an icy chain?

The diamond-encrusted chain dripped on his next with what appeared to be a holder for a mobile device. It’s unclear how much the “Martin and Gina” rapper paid for the piece, but you can imagine it probably wasn’t cheap.

When it comes to music, the rapper has kept himself busy. Recently, Polo dropped his latest song, “My All,” which was released this past December. His latest song follows his previously-released tracks from 2022, like “Bag Talk” and “Distraction.” Presumably, these tracks will show up on the rapper’s forthcoming album.

While there has been no word on a title or official release date, fans should expect to hear something soon, hopefully.

“I know I’m registering with people and helping them get through their sh*t,” Polo told Complex last summer. “It’s a good feeling because I get those messages, like, ‘Oh, you got me through a rough time.’ I really know how that be.”

Blondshell‘s debut was on our list of most anticipated indie albums of this year. After an array of breathtakingly cathartic singles — “Sepsis,” “Olympus,” “Veronica Mars,” “Kiss City,” and “Cartoon Earthquake” — Sabrina Teitelbaum has finally announced the self-titled Blondshell LP, containing all previously released tracks (aside from “Cartoon Earthquake,” a Spotify single).

Along with the announcement of her album, she unveiled another single, “Joiner,” which can’t decide between destruction and resolution: “I think I wanna save you / I think I wanna join in,” she sings against vibrant guitars.

“I was listening to a lot of Britpop when I wrote this song,” the 25-year-old said about the song in a statement. “A lot of those bands (The Verve, Pulp, Suede, Blur, etc.) channeled dark subject matter, drugs, and all this dirty stuff, but with a fun acoustic guitar under it. I was listening to The Replacements, too. That’s what this song was inspired by sonically. I wanted it to feel like you’re watching HBO, where even though it’s heavy, it’s still a good time.”

Listen to “Joiner” above.

Check out the album artwork and tracklist below.

1. “Veronica Mars”
2. “Kiss City”
3. “Olympus”
4. “Salad”
5. “Sepsis”
6. “Sober Together”
7. “Joiner”
8. “Tarmac”
9. “Dangerous”

Blondshell is out on 4/7 via Partisan Records. Pre-order it here.

Ella Mai announced that she would be going on tour in 2023. The London singer’s North American tour will make pitstops in cities like New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, and more. The tour is on the heels of her second album, Heart On My Sleeve, which was released this past May. The DJ Mustard-produced project featured artists like Latto, Roddy Ricch, and Lucky Daye.

The “Boo’d Up” singer recently collaborated with iconic producer, singer, and songwriter Babyface for his Girls Night Out album, which features other female artists like Baby Tate, Doechii, CoCo Jones, and more.

Mai’s 34-city tour will kick off in March at the Toyota Oakdale Theatre in Wallingford, Connecticut. The Grammy winner has not announced if anyone will join her for the tour, but fingers are crossed.

Tickets for the Heart On My Sleeve Tour will be available for pre-sale starting Wednesday, January 25, at 10 a.m., with general tickets going on sale Friday, January 27.

Check out the tour dates below.

03/23/2023 – Wallingford, CT @ Dome at Toyota Oakdale Theatre
04/02/2023 – Providence, RI @ The Strand Theatre
04/03/2023 – Philadelphia, PA @ Franklin Music Hall
04/04/2023 – New York, NY @ Terminal 5
04/06/2023– Boston, MA @ House of Blues
04/08/2023 – Washington, DC @ Echostage
04/10/2023 – Atlanta, GA @ Coca-Cola Roxy
04/12/2023 – Miami, FL @ Revolution Live
04/13/2023 – Orlando, FL @ House of Blues
04/18/2023 – Raleigh, NC @ The Ritz
04/19/2023 – Baltimore, MD @ Rams Head Live!
04/21/2023 – Richmond, VA @ The National
04/22/2023 – Norfolk, VA @The NorVa
04/24/2023 – Nashville, TN @ Marathon Music Works
04/25/2023 -Charlotte, NC @ The Fillmore
04/27/2023– New Orleans, LA@ The Joy Theater
04/30/2023 -Dallas, TX @ House of Blues
05/01/2023 – Houston, TX @ Warehouse Live
05/04/2023 – Tempe, AZ @ Marquee Theatre
05/05/2023 – San Diego, CA @ SOMA
05/07 /2023– Los Angeles, CA @ The Novo
05/13/2023 – Seattle, WA @ The Showbox
05/14/2023 – Portland, OR @ Crystal Ballroom
05/15/2023 – Vancouver, BC @ Harbour Event & Convention
05/17/2023 – Salt Lake City, UT @ The Depot
05/18/2023 – Las Vegas, NV @ House of Blues
05/20/2023 – Denver, CO @ Ogden Theatre
05/22/2023 – Minneapolis, MN @The Fillmore
05/24/2023 – Chicago, IL @House of Blues
05/25/2023 – Indianapolis, IN @Egyptian Room at Old National Centre
05/27/2023 – Cincinnati, OH @ Bogart’s
05/28 /2023– Columbus, OH @Newport Music Hall
05/30/2023 – Detroit, MI @ Saint Andrew’s Hall
06/01/2023 – Toronto, ON @ HISTORY

For weeks some unlucky reporters have been placed on the George Santos beat. They follow the fibbing new GOP representative around, trying to get him to address the many, many, many strange and/or alarming allegations made against him. He tends to ignore them. But it’s clear they’re getting to him, just as all the comics who’ve been impersonating him clearly ruffled his feathers. Over the weekend, Santos said he had a vaguely ominous-sounding “surprise” for them. What was it? Turns out it was just donuts.

On Tuesday, Santos showed up at his Capitol hill office bearing some treats. “I got you guys some donuts. Donuts and coffee. For all the hard work you guys do,” Santos told reporters gathered outside his place of work. “Thank you so much for being here and doing your job.”

He also vowed that he would be busy legislating and that he had some “cool stuff coming out of this office soon.”

It was a nice gesture, if one drowning in withering sarcasm. Santos might not want to say much about the claims made against him, even the ones he’s admitted are true, or if deceiving voters to get elected should disqualify him from office, as it would for any other job. But he will try to be funny, even if those attempts don’t go as swimmingly as he would wish. Meanwhile, Dunkin’ Donuts got the most unwelcome GOP product placement since Sidney Powell testified while chugging Diet Dr. Pepper.

(Via The Daily Mail)

It’s official, Chloe Bailey has announced she will be releasing her debut album. Bailey, one half of the musical duo Chloe x Halle, with her sister Halle, is finally ready to step out on her own. The Parkwood singer’s upcoming project will be available soon. The “Mercy” singer dropped a teaser trailer on social media on Tuesday ahead of the forthcoming project’s release. The project, titled, In Pieces, will be released in March 2023.

The album was originally self-titled, but it seems the 24-year-old singer went in a different direction. In an interview with Uproxx, Chloe pointed out that her new music will be different from her past work with Chloe x Halle and that she, as a solo artist is entirely different.

“I think just the body of work,” she said. “I’m a brand new artist, and I haven’t had a body of work out [yet], so it’ll be the first thing people hear from me, really. So I think that’ll be surprising in itself.”

Vibe reports that, during a Q & A with fans online, the “Treat Me” singer shared that her music, like her influences, is a myriad of different genres. She noted this project would have influences from artists like Ye, Imogen Heap, Donna Summer, and more.

While creating the album, Chloe said that she learned to love herself on a deeper level and wants her fans to do the same. However, she noted the most important thing she learned is to”trust her gut,” and that timing is eveI’veing.

“The biggest lesson I’ve learned has been to trust my gut and to trust the timing, ” she told Complex.

Earlier this month, NBC News revealed that Justin Roiland, best known as the co-creator of Rick and Morty, had been charged with domestic violence, in conjunction with an incident that happened in 2020. Roiland pleaded not guilty at the time, and for the last two-and-a-half years he’s undergone more than a dozen hearings. This had all been kept quiet until NBC broke the news, but Adult Swim, which has long aired his popular animated show, is only now coming around to severing ties with him.

As per The Hollywood Reporter, on Tuesday Adult Swim announced that they had severed ties with Roiland. That doesn’t mean Rick and Morty is ending. It means Dan Harmon, the show’s co-creator, is now the sole showrunner. It also means the principal duo, both of whom have always been voiced by Roiland, will have to be recast.

Back in 2018, Adult Swim forked over a fortune for a whopping 70 more episodes of Rick and Morty. As of now, the show, which is famously slow to complete episodes, isn’t even at the halfway mark of completing that contract.

The charges against Roiland include one felony count of domestic battery with corporal injury and one felony count of false imprisonment by menace, violence, fraud and/or deceit. The identity of Roiland’s alleged victim has not been made public, though it’s believed it was a girlfriend of his at the time. Roiland was charged in May 2020, arrested, and released that August on a $50,000 bond. He was arraigned in October of that year, during which he pled not guilty. His trial date has yet to be set.

Since then, all while undergoing one hearing after another, Roiland’s career has continued to flourish. His new Hulu show Koala Man bowed this month, while last year he released the video game High on Life. His show Solar Opposites premiered the same month he was charged.

(Via THR)

With the passing years and the fact people just don’t really watch television reruns anymore outside of The Office, Friends, and Seinfeld, it’s easy to forget just how good Michael J. Fox was on Family Ties. His line reading was just perfect. Here’s this guy, Alex P. Keaton, who keeps a framed photo of Richard Nixon in his bedroom, and we couldn’t help but love him. I knew Davis Guggenheim’s Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie (which premiered this week at Sundance) would deal with the status of Fox’s current health (we’ll get to that in a bit) but what I really wanted was for this movie to dive into the era when Michael J. Fox was a sensation. The film starts with Fox being asked if he wanted this documentary to be about a famous movie star who has a disabling illness. Fox responds, “That’s boring.” So, yes, I got my wish.

It’s weird to think of Michael J. Fox ever struggling. But he talks about when he first moved to L.A. from Canada he would get roles because he looked significantly younger than he was, but productions didn’t have to worry about actually dealing with an actual kid. He was getting small parts, but after selling off his furniture, he was basically down to spare change and thought he’d have to walk himself to the airport, then take a job back home picking up nails on construction sites. (I will say I was disappointed that at no time during this part of the movie is the cult favorite Midnight Madness mentioned.) As Fox put it, he still had a chip and a seat. Explaining as long as you still have a chair and one chip at a poker table, you’re not out of the game. And his last hope was Family Ties and NBC head Brandon Tartikoff wasn’t a fan of Fox and that’s kind of a problem. Fox was allowed to shoot the pilot. If it didn’t go well, that was that. Anyway, yes, it went well.

We see a lot of clips from Fox’s movies in this, but maybe not the way you might expect. Guggenheim uses an interesting device of letting scenes in Fox’s movies serve as reenactments of things that were happening to him in real life. For instance, when Fox was struggling and couldn’t get a job, we see Fox begging for a job in The Secret of My Success. When we see Roger Ebert mention that Fox should play an ornery character, we see Fox being a prick in The Hard Way.

The early ’90s seem really tough for Fox. He gets his Parkinson’s diagnosis, then uses pills and booze and work to try to escape his realities. To the point, he refers to his wife Tracy Pollan as “a single mother” because Fox was filming movies basically nonstop. And the quality of those movies were starting to have diminishing returns. (Though, from this era, I will argue Doc Hollywood and The Hard Way are both really good.)

Current Michael J. Fox seems in good spirits. Though he does fall a lot, something Fox says is just part of the deal. His family tells him to be more careful, but “careful” isn’t really the problem here. There’s literally a scene where he’s walking down the street, a fan says hello, and Fox falls down. He gets right back up, but he’s not as lucky when, off camera, he fell and broke his cheekbone on a table. He explains he had to get pins put in his cheek to restructure it. Yet, there he is, still in good spirits.

During Michael J. Fox’s most prominent run, let’s say 1984 until 1992, I was ages 9 to 17. I’ve never really thought about this before, but he really did hit the sweet spot of my most influential years, popular culture-wise. Watching Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, it’s not like I didn’t realize he was an important cultural figure for me – and a lot of us – but it made me realize just how much. And it really makes you realize how hard he worked for it. He filmed Family Ties and Back to the Future at the same time for three months. He didn’t have to do that. He could have passed on Back to the Future after they came back to him after Eric Stoltz didn’t work out. But he knew what that movie would mean for his career, so who needs sleep for three months?

Michael J. Fox in this doc says none of that was real. At the height of his powers, the foundation was made of paper. It’s fleeting. I get what he’s saying – being an actor in movies for a living isn’t going to last forever; there’s a shelf life that’s shorter than most jobs – but I don’t agree it’s not real. At least not in his case. He’s given me and so many others so much joy over the years, joy that’s not always easy to come by. That certainly is real.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

Arguably one of the biggest nights of the year, Super Bowl LVII, will be hitting television screens on February 12. The annual sporting event, which will take place at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, typically draws millions of viewers yearly. 2023 will be no different. This year, Rihanna will join legendary performers — artists like Beyonce, Prince, and Michael Jackson — when she takes the stage for the Super Bowl halftime show.

The “Lift Me Up” singer made the announcement on social media this past September, sharing a pic of herself holding a football. Recently, the new mother dropped a teaser trailer of her upcoming performance, only amping up the anticipation.

Ri also dropped a limited edition Super Bowl-themed collection with her Savage X Fenty lingerie company earlier this month. The “Game Day” collection will feature 17 sporty styles, including varsity jerseys, hoodies, sweatpants, and more.

But before the billionaire singer takes the stage, several other acts are expected to appear. Country star Chris Stapleton will be opening the show with a rendition of the national anthem. Emmy award-winning Abbot Elementary actress Sherly Lee Ralph is expected to sing the Black national anthem, “Lift Every Voice.”

The lineup doesn’t stop there. Iconic producer, singer, and songwriter Babyface will be singing “America the Beautiful” at the ceremony.

Super Bowl LVII premieres Sunday, February 12, with kickoff at 6:30 p.m. ET

It has now been nearly a year since Russia launched its attack on neighboring Ukraine. While Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin cronies led the Russian president to believe it would only be a matter of weeks until they could overpower their neighbors to the west, nothing has quite worked out the way Russia planned.

In recent weeks, intercepted calls to home to Russia have suggested that many of Russia’s soldier fatalities have been the result of friendly fire and/or drunken commanders. And Putin himself has admitted that Russia’s military leaders are not doing a great job of providing soldiers with their most basic necessities. Just last week, Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky even suggested that Putin might not even be running the show anymore, as some people suspect that he is dead.

Whatever the case, it’s an embarrassing situation for Russia all around, as the country has long touted itself as a global tough guy you wouldn’t want to mess with. And now, as The Daily Beast reports, even the country’s plan to gain the upper hand by bringing in a private corps of 50,000 mercenary fighters has gone totally sideways. Wagner Group, a Russian paramilitary organization, has reportedly brought in approximately 50,000 Russian soldiers to fight in Ukraine — several of them coming from Russia’s prisons. But it’s estimated that only 10,000 of those recruits are still alive and/or fighting.

The Moscow Times reported that Olga Romanova, the head of Russia Behind Bars, said: “According to our data, 42,000 to 43,000 [prisoners] were recruited by the end of December. Now they are, most likely, already over 50,000. Of these, 10,000 are fighting at the front, because all the rest are either killed… or missing, or deserted, or surrendered.”

While the Russian soldiers who claimed the town of Soledar in recent weeks are reportedly mostly Wagner soldiers, that victory was said to have come “at an extraordinary cost,” according to White House officials.

Zelensky, too, confirmed this when he remarked that, “The area near Soledar is covered with corpses of the invaders. This is what madness looks like.”

(Via The Daily Beast)