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Rob Schneider owes the career he has to Saturday Night Live. He was on the show from 1988 through 1994, first as a writer, eventually as a cast member, breaking through primarily with one character: photocopier-loving office drone The Richmeister. His stint wasn’t always pretty, and in the decades since leaving he’s been openly critical of the show’s semi-recent politics, including Alec Baldwin’s Trump impersonation. But on a recent podcast appearance with, of all people, Glenn Beck, he went even further in criticizing his old home.

“I hate to crap on my own show,” Schneider told the former Fox News bloviator while talking about comedy shows he thinks “indoctrinate people,” presumably with left wing (or at least anti-Trump) ideology. In fact, he pinpointed the exact moment SNL lost it, at least for him: When Hillary Clinton lost in 2016. Even more specifically, it was the maiden sketch of the first episode after Trump’s win.

It featured Kate McKinnon, he recalled, “dressed as Hillary Clinton, and she started playing ‘Hallelujah,’” referring to the Leonard Cohen song. “I literally prayed, ‘please have a joke at the end. Don’t do this. Please don’t go down there.’ And there was no joke at the end, and I went, ‘It’s over. It’s over. It’s not gonna come back.’”

Mind you, there were lots of jokes in the following sketches. Dave Chappelle hosted! But Schneider felt something was gone forever, and not only with SNL. He felt it infected almost all late night comedy shows. “You can take the comedic indoctrination process happening with each of the late night hosts and you can exchange them with each other,” Schneider said. “That’s how you know they’re not interesting anymore.”

In one sense, he’s not wrong. Late night talk show hosts regularly drag Trump and his many cronies. At the same time, what does Schneider expect? Trump was and is such a polarizing figure that it was hard to make light of what he was doing, and he’s been so damaging that it inspired entertainers with big platforms to do something, anything to make things better. And yet his antics are often so absurd — including on the day this piece has been written — that he remains a comedy goldmine. Trump has probably been dragged on SNL more than any other president in the show’s lifetime, combined.

In any case, if Schneider’s sick of ditto-headed comics using their pulpit as a lectern, maybe he should hope Trump winds up in the slammer.

You can watch Schneider’s comments in the video below.

(Via Digg)

There remains some mystery around what life was like in the 1800s, especially for teens. Most people alive today were not around in the Victorian era when the technologies now deemed old-fashioned were a novelty. In this rediscovered 1970s clip from the BBC, two elderly women reminisce about what it was like being teenagers during a time when the horse and buggy was still the fastest way to get around.

While cars were just around the corner from being the common mode of transportation toward the end of the 19th century, it’s pretty wild to imagine what these women experienced. Frances “Effy” Jones explained how, at age 17, she was encouraged by her brother to check out this new machine in a storefront window. Turns out that machine was a typewriter and, after being trained on how to use it, Jones would sit in the store window typing while people outside gathered to watch. Before long, classes began popping up for women to learn how to use a typewriter, starting a new movement for women of that era.

The second woman, Berta Ruck, told the BBC that she would get into a bit of trouble at boarding school for drawing instead of completing school work. This talent took Ruck to art school in London where she rode buses around town, attempting to avoid mud getting on her long skirt. But the woman explained that it never worked and she would spend hours brushing the mud from her skirt before wearing it out again. I’m sure you’re thinking, buses? They weren’t the buses we would see nowadays. These were double-decker horse-pulled carriages.

I know, that’s hard to imagine. That’s why you should check out the video below:

It’s happening: Arctic Monkeys, after much teasing, are finally back with a new song. Called “There’d Better Be A Mirrorball,” it’s a scintillating, seductive ballad, very much in the realm of their last album, 2018’s hypnotizing Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino.

The grainy, lo-fi music video adds a layer of nostalgia to the already sentimental song, and all of the clips of frontman/heartthrob Alex Turner only heighten the sense of sensuality as he paints cinematic scenes with dreamy lines like, “Do you want to walk me to the car? / I’m sure to have a heavy heart.”

“There’d Better Be A Mirrorball” is the opener on their next album, The Car, which was announced just a few days ago and arrives in October. They recently debuted the following track, “I Ain’t Quite Where I Think I Am,” during a performance at Switzerland’s Zurich Openair festival. When speaking about the making of the album, they told Big Issue, “There’s a bunch of Led Zeppelin and Stones records where they were in this house in the country, and then they went and sorted it all out and overdubbed it elsewhere. We went there in the summer, took all the equipment, got the raw material and then took it on elsewhere.”

Watch the video for “There’d Better Be A Mirrorball” above.

The Car is out 10/21 via Domino. Pre-order it here.

John Fetterman has spent so much of his Senate campaign trolling his opponent, Dr. Mehmet Oz, and it’s not hard to see why: Dr. Oz is bad at social media and the sitting lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania is not. (His game is so strong, Hannity has even threatened to sue him.) But Fetterman has more to offer his state’s voters: He has lots of stances and promises that could make his constituents lives easier and better. And of them is not a popular take among those in the GOP.

“It’s long past time that we finally decriminalize marijuana,” Fetterman said on Monday in a statement. “The president needs to use his executive authority to begin descheduling marijuana, I would love to see him do this prior to his visit to Pittsburgh. This is just common sense and Pennslyvanians overwhelmingly support decriminalizing marijuana.”

Fetterman doubled down on his Twitter account — and, of course, took time to slam Oz. “I don’t want to hear any bulls*it coming out of Dr. Oz’s campaign trying to conflate decriminalizing marijuana with seriously harmful crime,” he tweeted. “Are we supposed to believe that neither he nor any members of his staff have ever used marijuana???”

He also defended his stance on crime, about which Oz has claimed he’s soft. “As mayor of Braddock, I made it my mission to combat serious crime,” he wrote. “I know firsthand what real crime looks like. Marjiuana does not fit the bill. It’s time to end the hypocrisy on this issue once and for all.”

While he was still a TV quack, Oz used to sing the glories of marijuana, calling it “one of the most underused tools in America,” and advising that the country “completely change our policy on marijuana.” That all changed when he moved to Pennsylvania in an attempt to run for its vacating Senate seat. Since then, he’s slammed Fetterman for his position on marijuana and for hanging a pot leaf flag outside his office.

Later in the day, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about Fetterman’s comments but said that Biden still only “supports leaving decisions regarding legalization for recreational use up to the states.”

In the meantime, at least Fetterman would never stoop so low as to make light of his recent stroke, as Oz did.

(Via Yahoo! News)

Tons of beloved acts are coming back this year. Aside from the large number of emo reunions that have been happening, Le Tigre gave their first performance in 17 years at This Ain’t No Picnic in California on Saturday, August 27. The festival took place at Pasadena’s Brookside At The Rose Bowl and included artists like LCD Soundsystem, The Strokes, Phoebe Bridgers, and more.

Le Tigre’s set was as invigorating as one would expect from the punk band. It included all of their classic tracks, such as “Phanta” and “TKO.” But of course they closed with their timeless hit “Deceptacon,” which has not lost any of its momentum since being released in 1999 on their album Hot Topic.

In a recent interview with Spin, the band discussed their decision to reunite for this performance. “We were asked to reunite for this festival in 2020, and we felt that it was really important for us to reunite prior to the 2020 election,” JD Samson told the magazine. “We felt the relevance of our music would really stir up something important within our community. And obviously that was canceled because of COVID. We just continued to want to present the material again.”

Watch the first half of their set above and the second half below.

Chris Rock has hosted the Oscars twice, in 2005 and 2016, but neither stint, no matter how funny, was as memorable as his appearance as a presenter at this year’s ceremony. The comic has only recently started joking about getting slapped by Will Smith at this year’s ceremony. At a show in Phoenix on Sunday night, he even revealed the ceremony’s top brass wanted him back for more — while making a pretty strange joke about a murdered woman.

As per AZ Central, the comic claimed the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences asked him to host the 2023 ceremony, perhaps as a way to make things right — or, more likely, because it would be a huge ratings boon. Rock said he declined. He then joked that he wouldn’t want to go back to the place where he was hit, saying it would be like Nicole Brown Simpson deciding “to go back to the restaurant” where she left her eyeglasses right before she was murdered.

It’s a strange reference, even for an “edgy” comic like Rock, and it turned a lot of heads on social media. At the show, he also joked about how he and Smith are not exactly on the same footing, fight-wise, and not only because Smith once played Muhammad Ali.

“He’s bigger than me,” Rock told the crowd. “The state of Nevada would not sanction a fight between me and Will Smith.” He admitted that the slap hurt.

Since the incident about six months ago — which happened less than a half hour before he was handed an Academy Award for the film King Richard — Smith has laid low, even going to India for meditation and self-reflection. Recently he’s baby-stepped back into making social media jokes again, however hesitantly.

(Via AZ Central)

Every year when the new Madden releases there are usually two things that happen. A lot of people talk about how they’re never going to buy Madden again and then everyone else who does buy it posts videos of some really spectacular glitches. Now, it’s important to note that Madden 23 is actually an improvement over previous iterations. It’s far from perfect, but it’s the first positive step the franchise has taken in a long time and we’re glad to see that.

Unfortunately, when we say it’s not perfect we do mean the glitches are still there. This latest one is a new one, though — at least for me. One person posted a video of their match on Ultimate Team where, no matter what they did, the locker room remained on the screen blocking their vision. As far as this player is concerned, they’re playing in the first-ever stadium/locker room on-field combo the world has ever seen.

So, the first observation is obviously that this is incredibly funny because as far as I can tell the locker room has no physical impact on any part of the field so we have guys just phasing in and out of walls like they’re nothing. The next is I’m extremely impressed that this person was able to actually make a field goal with all of this stuff in front of them. They deserve extra points for making one basically blindfolded.

As always, it’s important to remember that making video games is very difficult, but that doesn’t mean we can’t laugh at how funny some of these glitches are. Let’s just hope this was a one-time bug and something that is going to be patched out relatively fast.

“Gilmore Girls” is one of those TV shows that’s easy to judge negatively until you actually watch it. The fast-paced dialogue, quick-witted humor, colorful characters and surprisingly smart cultural references can take you by surprise if you’re not expecting them.

The show was moderately popular when it aired on the CW, but it got a huge second life thanks to DVD and streaming services. However, like every show, not every element has stood the test of time. Since its creation, we’ve been through some major cultural shifts that have shone a spotlight on problematic tropes and forced us to reexamine what we find funny.

The “Me Too” movement brought into focus the ubiquity of sexual harassment and sexual assault against women. That conversation included the problems with objectifying women’s bodies. But objectification can happen to—and hurt—both women and men, as “Gilmore Girls” actor Scott Patterson shared on a recent episode of his podcast.

Patterson played Luke Danes, one of the primary love interests of the show’s main character Lorelai (played by Lauren Graham). Patterson’s adorably grumpy, flannel-shirted character was a fan favorite, and for the first time, the actor is rewatching the whole series and giving scene-by-scene commentary in his podcast “I Am All In” (named for one of his most swoon-worthy lines).

Most of what he shares in the podcast is positive, but while watching an episode from Season 3 (“Keg! Max!”), he shared an experience that bothered him. One of Patterson’s podcast cohosts pointed out what she called “the butt scene” in the episode. In that scene, Lorelai and her best friend Sookie (played by Melissa McCarthy) spend an inordinate amount of time discussing Luke’s butt after Sookie accidentally touches it. The cohost said she didn’t know if that scene would fly today and that acknowledgment prompted Patterson to share how he felt about it.

“You want to ask me how that feels?” he said. “Yeah, that was disturbing. I realized it wasn’t OK, and it didn’t make me feel comfortable at all. It made me feel really embarrassed, actually.”

“It’s infuriating to be treated that way,” he continued. “It is infuriating because you’re being treated like an object. And it’s disturbing, and it’s disgusting. And I had to endure that through that entire scene and many takes. It was all about the butt, the butt, the butt, the butt. When we weren’t filming, we were sitting down and people were still talking about the butt, the butt, the butt. It was the most disturbing time I have ever spent on that set, and I couldn’t wait for that day to be over.”

Patterson’s female co-hosts debated the appropriateness of the scene within the context of the relationships of the characters. On the one hand, it felt like the type of flirting a couple might do, and Luke and Lorelai do eventually get married on the show. But at the time of that scene, Luke was dating someone else and the repeated nature of going back to his butt pushed it from a singular flirtation (which still may have been questionable) to something that made Patterson feel like the character was being humiliated and having his dignity taken away.

“It wasn’t OK with me. I hated that scene,” he said. “It’s as disgusting for women to objectify men as it for men to objectify women and it’s as harmful. It was just the most offensive day I’ve ever spent on a set. Just because it was 2003 didn’t mean it was OK. It’s never OK. And I didn’t feel comfortable doing it and it pissed me off.

“I never said anything, so I was angry at myself for never saying anything,” he added. “But, you know, I had this job and I didn’t want to make waves and all that.”

Patterson said he hadn’t planned on sharing those feelings on the podcast, but rewatching the episode brought back how uncomfortable he’d felt at the time.

As his cohosts pointed out, if you reversed the genders and switched out “butt” for “boobs,” it would be a glaringly inappropriate scene. Of course, there’s always been a different power dynamic between men and women that has made it extremely difficult for women to speak up when they are being objectified, so the experiences aren’t exactly comparable. But in this case, the showrunner was a woman with power over Patterson as an actor. Some women might say, “Well now he knows how it feels to be a woman,” with little sympathy, but that reaction feels less than healthy. Objectification is objectification, and Patterson has every right to feel disturbed by how he and his character were treated in that scene.

Here’s to the hard conversations that have led us to this point where people being objectified can speak out about how it feels and actually be heard, and here’s to Scott Patterson for moving those conversations forward.

You can listen to the podcast episode here. And watch Patterson share why he started the podcast with TODAY:

This article originally appeared on 02.12.22

Street artists are a special breed. While “the art world” can sometimes be a snooty, elite place for those with means, street art is made for everyone. Sometimes that means large public murals, but street art can be small, too. In fact, some of the best street art is so small you might miss it if you’re not paying attention. But those who are can discover some delightful surprises.

Just imagine walking down a sidewalk and seeing this little fella at your feet:

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Or this young lady:

Or this creature:

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That would make your day, wouldn’t it? Or at least bring a smile to your face for a while?

Public art is an act of love to strangers, a way of connecting to people without saying a word. It says, “Hey there, fellow human. Here’s a little something to make you smile, just because.”

That’s the beauty of David Zinn’s street art. It’s meant for the public—just average passers-by—to enjoy, individually and collectively.

Zinn has created an entire world of characters who pop up in unexpected places. For instance, meet Gerald the otter, who is waiting for a blind date in this tree stump.

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Zinn uses chalk and charcoal to make his cast of characters come to life in cracks and crevasses, sidewalks and tree trunks. His creations aren’t meant to last forever; in fact, as Zinn points out, the temporary nature of them adds value to them.

“Famous works of art hanging in museums get seen by thousands of people every day. But this? You could be among the dozens of people who get to see this while it exists,” he told CBS Mornings. “That’s pretty special.”

Watch how he takes something he finds in the sidewalk and transforms it into a sweet little duo.

Sometimes he uses natural things he finds as inspiration for a piece.

See on Instagram

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Other times, he uses something human-made, like this upside down terra cotta pot:

See on Instagram

Or this manhole cover:

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Sometimes the shape of a rock lends itself to a character, like Keith and his emotional support chick here:

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Or the space itself serves as inspiration.

Nadine the mouse features in many of Zinn’s pieces, probably due to her small size making it easy for her to fit into small spaces.

See on Instagram

Usually his pieces use what’s already there—like a crack in the sidewalk—to tell a story.

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The 3D nature of his drawings make it feel as if his characters are truly there.

“Looks like another long day of things stubbornly refusing to be impossible,” he writes in a caption of one of his “pigasuses.”

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(Speaking of having wings, Nadine found a pair for herself.)

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Watch Zinn turn a simple pot into a character with personality in a matter of minutes:

His entire Instagram page, Facebook page and TikTok channel are filled with endless delight. It was nearly impossible to decide what to include in this article because I wanted to include everything.

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This is all well and good, you might say to yourself, but how does Zinn make a living if he’s not selling this art?

He sells books and prints of photos of his artwork on his online store. He also gets invited to schools and events. He has created a career for himself by rejecting blank canvases, putting his imagination out on the street for everyone to see for a while, then selling versions that will actually last. Pretty brilliant, really.

Zinn gave a fascinating TEDx Talk explaining how he found his own artistic niche. You’ll never look at a parking meter or sidewalk the same way again.

We are thrilled to announce that a new mathematical formula has been discovered that blows the lid off of everything we think we know and contains the potential to revolutionize life on planet Earth forever:

Kevin Bacon + guitar + Beyoncé + 3(goats) = untold joy(∞)

Who knew that Kevin Bacon playing guitar and singing a Beyoncé song surrounded by goats on a farm was key to unlocking the mysteries of the universe? Nobody, that’s who.

And yet, here we are on this day in the year of our Lord 2022, witnessing the consummation of viral musical achievement over millennia in one minute and 16 seconds of pure Kevin Bey-conny delight.

Seriously, what did we do to deserve this gift?

Bacon shared the video, in which he casually strums his guitar and sings Beyonce’s “Heated” while being surrounded by goats on his farm, on Twitter. “Hot day, hot song. The goats and I are feeling Heated @Beyonce,” he wrote. “Loving this track.”

You just have to see it:

u201cHot day, hot song. The goats and I are feeling Heated, @Beyonce. Loving this track. #GoatSongs #Renaissanceu201d

— Kevin Bacon (@Kevin Bacon)
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It’s the delightfully unexpected acoustic cover none of us asked for but all of us needed.

Kevin Bacon and Beyoncé fans alike responded with joy over the video, with several people welcoming him to Beyoncé’s collective fan base known as the Beyhive.

u201c@YeezyShowerBoot @kevinbacon @Beyonce Right. Not Kevin Bacon making us wait for part 2 where he says “Only a real man can tame me, only the radio could play me”.u201d

— Kevin Bacon (@Kevin Bacon)
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u201c@thesheajenkins @kevinbacon @Beyonce ud83dude05ud83dude05ud83dude05 for real!!! I wanna hear Pure/Honey nextu201d

— Kevin Bacon (@Kevin Bacon)
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u201c@danjanjohn @kevinbacon @Beyonce @kyrasedgwick Underrated tweet. I agree 100%.u201d

— Kevin Bacon (@Kevin Bacon)
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u201c@HeySpencerK @kevinbacon @Beyonce It was a lil vibe lolu201d

— Kevin Bacon (@Kevin Bacon)
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For those who haven’t heard the original, here’s the official lyric video of “Heated” from Beyoncé newest album, “Renaissance,” so you can see the inspiration for Bacon’s cover.

Beyoncé – HEATED (Official Lyric Video)

And if less than a minute and a half of Kevin Bacon singing with farm animals wasn’t enough for you, never fear. Here he is with his ukulele singing The Beatles’ “When I’m 64” on his 64th birthday last month, with what appears to be a llama or alpaca in the background. Because of course. What else would you do on your 64th birthday if you were Kevin Bacon?

u201cI couldnu2019t resistu2026This is 64. @thebeatlesu201d

— Kevin Bacon (@Kevin Bacon)
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(Side note: Please tell me I’m not the only Gen Xer having a hard time wrapping my mind around the fact that Kevin Bacon is 64. That seems impossible.)

Thanks to Kevin Bacon and Beyoncé and the goats for bringing us all together today for a desperately needed respite from the heaviness of the world. What a great way to start the week.