Rootin’ tootin’ Lauren Boebert let the world know that she isn’t really keeping track of what’s happening in Russia these days. She does, however, remain dedicated to heckling President Biden while he discusses his late son, Beau, in the most public of forums. And now she’s combined these twin interests (showing off her utter confusion about congressionally-required knowledge and randomly bashing the president) and made everyone wonder what she meant when she compared Biden to “Prince John.”
This went down on Fox News’ Jesse Watters Primetime, where Boebert was on hand to discuss gas prices (she’s in favor of the “Drill Baby Drill” tactic) and how Biden was reportedly struggling to immediately replace the 3% of U.S. oil imports that come from Russia. Boebert expressed concern about how this oil might come from Alaska, and she thought Biden would sell it to another country. None of this train of thought made sense, and then she called him “Prince John,” and said, “[T]hey are taxing us into poverty.”
One of many possible interpretations for “Prince John” would have been the antagonist of Disney’s 1973 version of Robin Hood, but surely, this wasn’t what Boebert was actually referencing, right? Well, Boebert clarified in the harsh light of day, and yup. Also, she believes that “Prince John > Joe Biden.”
Alright. Boebert wants everyone to know that the crying and thumb-sucking Robin Hood nemesis is preferable to Biden. She did make part of her reference relevant (to the claim that she’s attempting to make), since John’s brief tenure only spread poverty, but as for what this has to do with gas prices and Russia invading Ukraine, well, someone will have to ask for further explanation (if there is one).
The rise of craft brewing over the past few decades has led to an increase in unique, innovative, and exciting beer styles. We’re talking about the New England IPA, various experimental fruited sours, barrel-aged stouts and porters, milkshake IPAs, and countless other popular takes on old standards. This constant push for innovation means we’re never surprised to hear about a new beer style catching on.
Today, we’re turning our attention to the newest “it beer.” The very trendy, very tasty Cold IPA.
Back in 2018, Portland, Oregon’s Wayfinder Brewing created this style when it released Relapse IPA. The brew was made to pay tribute to Relapse Records and the goal was to craft an over-the-top version of a West Coast IPA. They wanted a beer that was dry, hoppy, and clean but with a finish that was crisp and refreshing, not an oily dank bomb. To do this, they used pilsner malts, adjunct lager malts (like rice and corn), and lager yeast.
In essence, they melded lager tactics with an India pale ale’s vibe. Taken all together, they’ve made something wholly unique.
Weirdly, the Cold IPAs name has nothing to do with temperature. Cold IPAs are simply crisper and closer to India pale lagers than your average West Coast IPA, while also having some fruity characteristics like your favorite New England IPA but without the haziness. Overall, they’re exciting, thirst-quenching, and growing in popularity every day.
It’s time to get on the bandwagon — so we’re calling out some examples for you to try below. Naturally, I ranked them based on my own palate, but trust me this list is Kendall Roy approved (ABATT).
8) Bell’s Cold Hearted
Bell
ABV: 7%
Average Price: Limited Availability
The Beer:
Like all Cold IPAs, Bell’s doesn’t want drinkers to mistake this beer for an India pale lager. It’s dry-hopped with Centennial hops during fermentation. It also contains specialty malts, lager yeast, and cane sugar. This creates its signature crisp, piney, and citrus flavor.
Tasting Notes:
This beer’s nose is bready, piney, and yeasty with some resinous pine and slight citrus. The palate continues this trend with bread-like malts, some citrus, and a slight fruity flavor, but… not much else. There’s little to no piney hop flavor.
Overall, a decent example of the style, but not overly thrilling.
Bottom Line:
Cold Hearted is a good take on the style. Like we mentioned above, it’s not the most exciting example of a Cold IPA, but it gets the job done.
This 6.1 percent ABV Cold IPA was created to pay tribute to hard-working people everywhere. Brewed with pilsner malts, flaked rice, and Belma, Nelson Sauvin, Hallertau Blanc, Motueka, Comet, and Cascade hops, it’s known for its balance between malts, hop bitterness, and pine.
Tasting Notes:
This beer has a really fruity nose highlighted by aromas of ripe berries, guava, mango, and tangerines, as well as sweet malts and pine needles. On the palate, you’ll find flavors of resinous, dank pine, bread-like malts, tropical fruits, and piney hop bitterness at the finish.
Bottom Line:
Knuckle Buster is definitely not a bad beer but leans a little too far in the fruity flavor and not enough in the malts for my liking.
Released back in November, this Cold IPA is brewed with El Dorado, Citra, and Azacca hops as well as 2-Row and DextraPils malts and Flaked Rice. The result is a crisp, light, and highly drinkable. This is a well-balanced IPA that stays true to the style.
Tasting Notes:
On the nose, you’ll find aromas of orange peels, lemon curd, tropical fruits, grapefruit, and slightly sweet malts. The palate reveals notes of pine, apricot, tangerine, grapefruit, mango, honey, and bready malts. The finish is slightly piney with a gentle, dry ending.
Bottom Line:
Hopworks Winter Ritual is a great example of brewers taking the Cold IPA style and running with it. It’s fruity, piney, dry, and crisp, making it a great beer any time of year.
This Cold IPA was brewed with ale yeast, Weyermann Pils and Gambrinus Pils malts, as well as flaked rice and Simcoe, Centennial, Columbus, and Cascade hops. It’s known for its clean sweet flavor, piney hops, and crisp finish.
Tasting Notes:
The nose features grassy notes, pine needles, floral hops, and nice, tangy citrus notes. Drinking it surfaces flavors of clover honey, bready, sweet malts, spruce tips, tangerines, lime zest, all with a crisp, bitter, memorable finish.
Bottom Line:
This is a complex, well-rounded example of the style. It’s also a great gateway into the style for West Coast IPA fans with the myriad Pacific Northwest hops that are featured.
4) pFriem Cold IPA
pFriem
ABV: 6.2%
Average Price: Limited Availability
The Beer:
pFriem is a big name in the craft beer world. It’s no surprise the Hood River, Oregon-based brewery tried its hand at the Cold IPA craze. This version is brewed with Gambrinus Pilsner and Rahr Old World pilsner malts as well as lager yeast, rice, and Mosaic and Strata hops.
Tasting Notes:
At first sniff, it’s obvious this is a very fruity beer. There are notes of grapefruit, pineapple, honeydew melon, and tons of bright citrus that moves into pine and slightly sweet, bready malts. On the palate, you’ll find hints of lemon curd, honey, sweet malts, more tropical notes, and a crisp, dry finish.
Bottom Line:
This is an interesting beer. It smells like an explosion of fruit, but while there is a ton of fruit in the taste, it’s not overwhelming and allows the malts and hops to shine through with a real balance to everything.
The originator of the Cold IPA still makes one (Relapse IPA was a limited-edition beer). This iteration is made with an adjunct lager malt bill, two-row American pilsner malt, lager yeast fermentation, and dry-hopped.
Tasting Notes:
Complex aromas of orange zest, ripe berries, tropical fruits, and a light malty flavor fill your nostrils. The palate follows suit with more ripe berries, tangerines, grapefruit, fruit esters, dried hay, bready, sweet malts, and gentle, dry bitterness that leaves you wanting more.
Bottom Line:
If you’re only going to try one Cold IPA, make it Wayfinder. They invented the style and it’s always a great idea to start your journey at the beginning.
Fremont’s Cold IPA is named for a pet, lovingly named Baxter. It’s brewed with Pilsner and 2-row pale malts, flaked corn, as well as Citra, Cryo, Centennial, Citra, and Strata hops. The result is a blast of tropical fruit that’s a perfect for spring.
Tasting Notes:
Ripe pineapple, mango, guava, and grapefruit dominate the nose with ripe berries, wet grass, and dank pine. The palate follows along with more grapefruit, juicy pineapple, citrus zest, sweet malts, and more resinous floral pine. It all ends with a slightly bitter, sweet, and fruity finish.
Bottom Line:
This is a Cold IPA for fans of fruity IPAs. It has the notable IPA bitterness and dank pine, but it’s the tropical fruit flavor that takes center stage, which makes it really shine and nearly top this list.
1) Ecliptic Cold IPA
Ecliptic
ABV: 8%
Average Price: Limited Availability
The Beer:
This limited-edition beer was a collaboration between Wayfinder and Ecliptic. This Cold IPA was brewed using lager yeast and pilsner malts as well as Talus and Pacific Sunrise hops. The result is one of the best examples of the style you can find (if you can actually find it).
Tasting Notes:
Aromas of ripe pineapple, grapefruit, sweet malts, berries, and bright pine meet your nose before your first sip. Drinking it highlights flavors like cantaloupe, caramelized pineapple, bready malts, passionfruit, citrus zest, and just a hint of dank pine needles. The finish is clean, bittersweet, and dry.
Bottom Line:
Even though this wasn’t the original Cold IPA, we believe this is the best example of the style. It’s sweet, clean, crisp, and dry. It’s also tasty as all get out — everything you could want in a Cold IPA.
My Chemical Romance has added a slew of new dates to one of the most anticipated tours of the year. The new shows will take place across ten new cities across the US, as well as additional evenings in Brooklyn, Toronto, and Boston.
On top of 14 new arena shows, the Gerard Way-fronted band has added additional tickets to some of their already sold-out shows. Joining MCR on their extensive North American tour on select dates are Badflower, Devil Master, Dilly Dally, Ghosh, Kimya Dawson, Meg Myers, Midtown, Nothing, Shannon And The Clams, Soul Glo, Surfbort, Taking Back Sunday, The Bouncing Souls, The Homeless Gospel Choir, The Lemon Twigs, Thursday, Turnstile, Waterparks, and Youth Code.
General on-sale begins Friday, March 11. Check out the full tour schedule below.
08/20 — Oklahoma City, OK @ Paycom Center
08/21 — San Antonio, TX @ AT&T Center
08/23 — Nashville, TN @ Bridgestone Arena
08/24 — Cincinnati, OH @ Heritage Bank Center
08/26 — Raleigh, NC @ PNC Arena
08/27 — Belmont Park, NY @ UBS Arena
08/29 — Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Center
08/30 — Albany, NY @ MVP Arena
09/01 — Uncasville, CT @ Mohegan Sun Arena
09/02 — Montreal, QC @ Centre Bell
09/04 — Toronto, ON @ Scotiabank Arena
09/05 — Toronto, ON @ Scotiabank Arena
09/07 — Boston, MA @ TD Garden
09/08 — Boston, MA @ TD Garden
09/10 — Brooklyn, NY @ Barclays Center
09/11 — Brooklyn, NY @ Barclays Center
09/13 — Detroit, MI @ Little Caesars Arena
09/15 — St. Paul, MN @ Xcel Energy Center
09/16 — Chicago, IL @ Riot Fest
09/20 — Newark, NJ @ Prudential Center
09/21 — Newark, NJ @ Prudential Center
09/23 — Dover, DE @ Firefly Music Festival
09/24 –Sunrise, FL @ FLA Live Arena
09/27 — Houston, TX @ Toyota Center
09/28 — Dallas, TX @ American Airlines Center
09/30 — Denver, CO @ Ball Arena
10/02 — Portland, OR @ MODA Center
10/03 — Tacoma, WA @ Tacoma Dome
10/05 — Oakland, CA @ Oakland Arena
10/07 — Las Vegas, NV @ T-Mobile Arena
10/08 — Sacramento, CA @ Aftershock Festival
10/11 — Los Angeles, CA @ The Forum
10/12 — Los Angeles, CA @ The Forum
10/14 — Los Angeles, CA @ The Forum
10/15 — Los Angeles, CA @ The Forum
10/17 — Los Angeles, CA @ The Forum
10/22-23 — Las Vegas, NV @ When We Were Young
10/29 — Las Vegas, NV @ When We Were Young
Some of the artists mentioned are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Sad news for the large swaths of “single-and-ready-to-mingles” across Russia: there’s now one less dating app willing to foster romance while Vladimir Putin continues to go method with his Joseph Stalin impersonation.
Bumble, the female-first dating service launched by Whitney Wolfe Herd in 2014, announced this week that the company would be “discontinuing its operations in Russia, as well as removing all of its apps from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store in Russia and Belarus” in response to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The popular dating app had previously tweeted in support of the Internation Rescue Committee currently helping women and children flee Ukraine amidst the fighting.
According to a press release and The Washington Post, the company stands to lose $2 million of revenue due to the decision, with most of those losses coming after it removes its Badoo App from stores. What makes this story even more interesting is that Russian billionaire Andrey Andreev is credited with helping launch Bumble, as well as with creating Badoo. In 2019, after a Forbes investigation singled him out as one of the primary reasons for the reportedly toxic work environment at the company’s headquarters in London, Andreev sold his stake.
Bumble now joins a growing list of companies refusing to do business in Russia, a list that includes Starbucks, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Pizza Hut, and more.
Taylor Swift has a whopping four nominations at the most prestigious awards show of the year: Nickelodeon’s Kid’s Choice Awards, which airs next month. The singer snagged not one but two nominations for album of the year, both for her re-recorded albums Fearless (Taylor’s Version) and Red (Taylor’s Version). She’s also nominated for Favorite Female Artist and Favorite Song for “All Too Well (Taylor’s Version).” This is noticeably not the 10-minute version of “All Too Well” but, since there are nearly a dozen versions of this song, the confusion is acceptable.
Along with Swift’s four nominates, Adele also managed to secure Favorite Global Superstar, Favorite Song for “Easy On Me,” Favorite Female Artist, and Favorite Album for 30. Also among the nominees is pop breakout star Olivia Rodrigo with three nominations — two for her music, one for her role onHigh School Musical: The Musical: The Series. Billie Eilish also has three noms: Favorite Album, Favorite Song, and Favorite Female Artist.
As for TV and movie categories, Marvel shows have also come out on top, with Loki and WandaVision receiving numerous nominations, along with movies Black Widow and Eternals. Favorite movie actress includes Angelina Jolie, Camila Cabello, Emily Blunt, Emma Stone, Scarlett Johansson, and Zendaya. For Favorite Movie Actor, the nominees include Tom Holland for his portrayal of Peter Parker, Dwayne Johnson for both Jungle Cruise and Red Notice (was that a kids movie?), John Cena, LeBron James, Ryan Reynolds and Vin Diesel. As always, the Favorite Movie category includes a lot of CGI animals: Clifford the Big Red Dog, Disney’s Jungle Cruise, Space Jam: A New Legacy, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Tom & Jerry: The Movie, and Cinderella.
The awards will be hosted by iCarly star Miranda Cosgrove and Rob Gronkowski, and will probably feature a lot of slime. You can catch The Kid’s Choice Award’s April 9th at 7:30 pm on Nickelodeon. Check out the full list of nominees here.
It’s time to put Horsegirl firmly on your radar. Meeting at the intersection of shoegaze and post-punk, the young Chicago trio is signed to Matador Records and has announced their debut album, Versions Of Modern Performance, out June 3rd.
There’s something that grabs you instantly with their music and the album’s lead single is a prime example of this. Dead-panned drums, gazy guitars, and driving bass prop up the audacity of a song called “Anti-Glory” with a hook that asks you to “dance, dance, dance with me.” It’s the spirit of ’90s grunge and early indie living on in multi-talented band members Penelope Lowenstein, Nora Cheng, and Gigi Reece, who are fiercely Chicagoan. “As always, this song and album are for Chicago, our friends, our friend’s bands, everyone who can play the guitar, and everyone who can’t play the guitar,” they said in a statement.
Watch the video for “Anti-Glory” above and check out the Versions Of Modern Performance album artwork, tracklist below, as well as the band’s summer tour dates.
Horsegirl
1. “Anti-Glory”
2. “Beautiful Song”
3. “Live And Ski”
4. “Bog Bog 1”
5. “Dirtbag Transformation (Still Dirty)”
6. “The Fall Of Horsegirl”
7. “Electrolocation 2”
8. “Option 8”
9. “World Of Pots And Pans”
10. “The Guitar Is Dead 3”
11. “Homage To Birdnoculars”
12. “Billy”
03/16 — Austin, TX @ SXSW — FLOODfest @ Mohawk @ 2:00pm
03/16 — Austin, TX @ SXSW — Roskilde Festival @ Cheer Up Charlie’s @ 10:00pm
03/17 — Austin, TX @ SXSW — SX San Jose @ Hotel San Jose
03/17 — Austin, TX @ SXSW — Gorilla vs. Bear x Luminelle @ Seven Grand @ 11:15pm
03/19 — Philadelphia, PA @ PhilaMOCA
03/20 — Washington, DC @ DC9
03/22 — Brooklyn, NY @ Market Hotel
03/29 — Allston, MA @ Boston Calling Festival
06/05 — Chicago, IL @ Thalia Hall (record release show) ^
06/10 — Giessen, DE @ Stadt ohne Meer
06/2 — Mannheim, DE @ Maifield Derby
06/16 — Antwerp, BE @ Trix Bar
06/17 — Paris, FR @ Pop Up Du Label
06/19 — London, UK @ Paper Dress Vintage (early show)
06/19 — London, UK @ Paper Dress Vintage (late show)
06/21 — Manchester, UK @ YES (Basement)
06/22 — London, UK @ Bermondsey Social Club
06/26 — Bristol, UK @ Rough Trade Bristol
06/28 — Cologne, DE @ Bumann & Sohn
06/29 — Berlin, DE @ Monarch
07/01 — Denmark, DE @ Roskilde Festival 2022
07/02 — Hamburg, DE @ Molotow Upstairs
07/15 — Vancouver, BC @ Wise Hall *
07/16 — Seattle, WA @ Neumos *
07/17 — Portland, OR @ Polaris Hall *
07/19 — San Francisco, CA @ Rickshaw Stop
07/21 — Los Angeles, CA @ Zebulon *
07/22 — Los Angeles, CA @ The Echo *
07/23 — Santa Ana, CA @ Constellation Room *
07/26 — Minneapolis, MN @ Fine Line *
07/27 — Madison, WI @ High Noon Saloon *
07/30 — Sat. Jul. 31 — Detroit, MI @ Mo Pop Festival
08/02 — Columbus, OH @ Rumba Cafe *
08/03 — Cleveland, OH @ Grog Shop *
08/05 — Toronto, ON @ Velvet Underground *
08/06 — Montreal, QC @ Petit Campus *
^ with Lifeguard, Friko, Post Office Winter
* with Dummy
Versions Of Modern Performance is out 6/3 via Matador Records. Pre-order it here.
Thanks to the pandemic, we learned about several celebrities who apparently hate bathing themselves and/or their own children, and now, Cameron Diaz is getting in on the action. In Diaz’s defense, her admission comes from a place of rejecting societal pressure for women to look a certain way, which she’s abandoned since retiring from acting.
“I am absolutely a victim to all of the societal objectifications and exploitations that women are subjected to,” Diaz told Michelle Visage’s Rule Breaker podcast. “I have bought into all of them myself at certain times.”
However, in Diaz’s zeal to emphasize her new lack of concern for her looks, she also admitted to never washing her face. Via Page Six:
“Literally the last thing I think about on a daily basis … like maybe not at all during the day, is what I look like,” she said. “I literally do nothing. I, like, never wash my face.”
Despite embracing her natural beauty, she did say that “twice a month,” she’ll put one of her “billion products” on her face. “One time works, right?’ Like, is that all I have to do?” she joked.
Again, even though it’s probably a good idea to wash your face regularly, Diaz spent years being subjected to Hollywood beauty standards after making her debut in the ’90s, so it’s understandable that she’s living her best life with minimal concerns about her appearance. Since retiring from acting, she’s had nothing but positive things to say about finally being out of the industry. “I feel whole,” she told Kevin Hart last year.
Obi-Wan Kenobi, now that’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time. A long time. Not since 2005’s Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (no, I do not count The Force Awakens and The Rise of Skywalker, and neither should you), when the character originated by Alec Guinness was played for the third and final time by Ewan McGregor. At least we thought it was the final time — until Obi-Wan Kenobi was announced.
The Disney+ series takes place 10 years after the events of Sith, “where Obi-Wan Kenobi faced his greatest defeat—the downfall and corruption of his best friend and Jedi apprentice, Anakin Skywalker, who turned to the dark side as evil Sith Lord Darth Vader,” according to the official plot description.
Darth Vader is, of course, played by Hayden Christensen, a reunion that McGregor called a “great experience. We just had a great time… We got to play scenes together again as Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker and it was just fantastic to work with him again.” The Emmy-winning actor also praised Deborah Chow, who has directed episodes of Better Call Saul and The Mandalorian, for “really knowing the Star Wars world, inside out, far more than I do.”
Obi-Wan Kenobi, which also stars Moses Ingram, Joel Edgerton, Bonnie Piesse, Kumail Nanjiani, Indira Varma, Rupert Friend, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Sung Kang, Simone Kessell, and Benny Safdie, premieres on May 25.
Kelly Clarkson tore the roof off Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas on Monday night at the 57th Academy of Country Music Awards with a powerful performance of Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You.” The performance was a tribute to Parton, who was the ceremony’s host.
Clarkson’s performance was magnificent because she sang the song with the perfect balance of power and vulnerability, which is no easy feat. “I Will Always Love You” is commonly seen as one of the most difficult songs to sing and to do it in front of the woman who wrote it had to be nerve-wracking. It was a bold move considering the fact that Whitney Houston’s version of the song is one of the most impressive vocal performances ever committed to tape.
But Dolly loved Clarkson’s rendition.
“Oh my, God, that was so great!” Parton exclaimed after the performance. “That’s so great, Kelly. I know that Whitney is smiling down on us tonight. Thank you very much … I was backstage trying not to cry my false eyelashes off.
“That just topped it off for me,” Parton continued.
“I Will Always Love You” has had many lives. Dolly’s first version hit No.1 on the charts in 1974. In 1982 she rerecorded it for the film “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” and it hit No.1 again.
In 1992, the song was a monster smash for Whitney Houston, who performed the song on “The Bodyguard” soundtrack.
While most people assume that it’s a love song, it was written by Parton as a way to say goodbye to her duet partner and mentor Porter Wagoner.
That’s because, in the hour-long set Look At You (available to stream on Netflix now), Tomlinson does exactly what her professional mental health advisor told her not to: she airs out her dark, dirty-minded laundry for laughs.
“Your therapist always says that. Like, ‘Hey, maybe keep some of this private, just for us,’” Tomlinson tells UPROXX, recalling the session she had before the special aired. “And you’re like, ‘Yeah, for sure.’ And then you process it for like a month or two and then you’re like, ‘I thought of something funny about it. I’ve got to try it.’”
Medical degrees aside, we’d argue hearing Tomlinson riff on everything from her mom’s untimely passing to being ghosted by a suicide hotline operator is, actually, therapeutic. It’s certainly funny – sometimes even painfully relatable, which is what’s always made Tomlinson’s comedy so compelling.
In 2020, the then-25-year-old was offering up sharp, insightful commentary on surviving a Quarter-Life Crisis in her first Netflix special. Now, two years later, her comedy’s grown. Her material is a bit more morbid, sure, but it’s also refined, armed with the kind of self-reflection and ability to package the pain and heartbreak of life into quippy punchlines and sarcastic one-liners that comedians twice her age are still struggling to perfect.
We chatted with Tomlinson about her new special, focusing her storytelling on her own mental health journey, and the science behind making six minutes’ worth of dead mom jokes work on-stage.
You got your start in the Christian comedy circuit. I feel like I should’ve known there was a Christina comedy circuit.
Oh, there’s no reason you should know that. I grew up really religious and I didn’t know. I only found out because I took a standup class in high school from a church comedian.
What was the turning point, then? The moment you realized you wanted to do a different kind of comedy?
[It was] very gradual. I was probably 22 when I started going, “I feel pretty confident that I don’t subscribe to this belief system anymore. And I don’t want to be dishonest about being a Christian or something.” Because I think if you do those shows, you’re telling those venues that’s what you are and what you believe. And I just wasn’t that person anymore. I wanted to talk about other things.
Right. Like d*cks. You can’t really joke about d*ck at the pew pit.
[laughs] No, they don’t like it. It’s so strange. You can’t even be like, ‘God made d*cks.’ He did, but we don’t mention that
You dive into the topic of mental health more than you’ve done before. Why did now feel like the right time for that?
It was just what was happening in my life. It wasn’t something I was holding onto necessarily. The jokes about losing a parent really young… that had been a subject that I had touched on before and didn’t feel I was mature enough as a performer to really get into it and sell it and make it funny. I hadn’t dealt with it enough. A lot of times you talk about something, and you haven’t dealt with it enough to make it funny and people can sense that. But as far as the mental health stuff, that was stuff I was experiencing in real-time and that’s just how I write — coming from a place of what’s actually happening to me. It was just like, “This is what I’ve got. This is who I am right now.’”
Comedians are natural storytellers, but I think we forget that the stories you guys are telling are from your own life and they can be really painful and you’re just really good at repackaging them for laughs. Is that process therapeutic for you, or is it draining?
It was pretty draining, to be honest. As soon as we filmed the special, I started switching in newer jokes and the first ones I dropped were the ones about my mom and the suicidal thoughts bit because I was like, “Okay, doing this every single night, it’s just a lot.” It’s a lot of yourself to put out there to strangers. Touring is also just exhausting on its own. So, I think emotionally and physically, I was a little drained and exhausted. I think this next one, this next hour of material will hopefully be a lot lighter. Hopefully relatable and whatnot, but not so heavy.
I used to think that if you were doing jokes on stage, it meant you were fine with whatever happened. But then you get back into actual therapy and you’re like, “Oh no, that’s not really true. It’s just you trying to make it seem better.”
Was there a joke you were surprised by the reaction to in this special?
I worked really hard to get that suicide hotline joke to work. I don’t remember how soon after I started doing that joke, but I did need some distance between it for sure. Because I think the first couple of times I tried it, it was like too fresh or something.
You hadn’t fully processed it yet?
That was my personal experience. I remember waiting for them to call me back. And they didn’t and that genuinely made me laugh. It did weirdly help. If I hadn’t had a super dark sense of humor, that would not have been helpful, but I do. So, I was like, this is objectively very, very funny
But I think I was surprised that I got it to work. Because for a while I was like, “I think it’s funny, but it’s not going to work.” And I felt that way about a lot of stuff. I felt that way about the mom stuff for a while where I was like, “This just might not work, but I think I can get it there.” That’s why you run stuff into the ground on tour in a bunch of different cities so that you can know for a fact that it’s going to work with most people.
Are you intentional about where you place jokes within the hour? Are you sandwiching the heavier stuff in between lighter jokes?
Yeah, I definitely did that with that six-minute chunk of dead mom jokes. It’s like, if you really look at it, it’s not six minutes about my dead mom. There are d*ck jokes in there and the Taylor Swift joke. There’s other stuff that was strategically placed in there to help it. There’s the whole sit-down thing I do where I’m like, “It’s not going to feel long because I’ve cushioned it.” I remember that took a while to get people to laugh at because it is so morbid. But the second half of that joke basically started out as save lines to make up for this heavy thing that I really wanted to say.
Some of your peers have talked about how you’re really good at living your life and narrating it almost simultaneously. Are you constantly measuring your experiences for potential material?
Yeah, I think your brain just works like that as a comedian. This is probably unhealthy, but when you’re doing things, there’s a little part of your brain going, “Is this something?” Which is probably not the best way to be present. So, whenever you are truly present, it’s beautiful and a miracle. But yeah, I think that I’m still working on that balance of trying to live my life and have things to say.
Are there other comedians whose work feels similar to yours that you admire?
Yeah, [Tig] Notaro doing that set about having cancer. That was when I was, I don’t know, 18? I thought that was so cool. And that’s such a raw set too. I don’t think it was planned. But mental health is much less taboo now to talk about. Everybody’s obsessed with Bo Burnham’s Inside. People who didn’t even think they had struggles with mental health, I think the pandemic… If it didn’t reveal to you that you had work to do on yourself or certain aspects of your mental health that could use some support, I think you at least became more empathetic towards people who do have mental health issues normally, because everybody was anxious and depressed. Some people for the first time in their life.
The goal of storytelling is to make someone feel something. Is that goal the same for comedy? Or is it more about making you confront the things you’re already feeling?
I guess you could say it’s to confront the things you’re already feeling because you’re trying to say things that are relatable to people. Even if it’s not confronting some difficult feeling they have, if it’s just like, “Oh my God, that’s how I feel too.” But then also, there are comedians who change the way people think about stuff. So, I think it just really depends on your material. Because sometimes you’ll do a set that skews one way thematically and then you’ll do one that’s completely different. My goal to have my next hour be a lot lighter is a good example of that. The next hour you’re like, “Okay, this is what I want to talk about and this is who I want it to resonate with. And this is what I want to spend my time going on about it and finding out what’s already funny to people and all that.”
But I think all anybody really wants is for people to think it’s funny and laugh.
Taylor Tomlinson’s ‘Look At You’ comedy special is available to stream now on Netflix.
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