Robert Durst, the focus of the HBO docuseries The Jinx, has passed away while serving a life sentence. The convicted murder and real estate tycoon was 78 years old. Going all the way back to his 40s, Durst has been the main suspect for a series of murders, including his own wife and, later, his best friend, Susan Berman. After alluding prosecution for years, Durst was famously caught and tried for Berman’s murder after making one hell of a slip-up while filming The Jinx.
In a story made for supermarket tabloids, Mr. Durst, a small, rail-thin man, was a cross-dressing fugitive from justice with $100 million in assets. On the run, he became a vagrant urinating in public, sometimes disguising himself as a mute woman. He beat his wife and forced her to have an abortion; beheaded a man he had killed as he sat in a pool of blood, and once wrote a “cadaver note,” telling the Los Angeles police where to find a woman who had been shot in the head. Distraught and alone in a bathroom, he unwittingly confessed to all the killings on a live recording used in a 2015 HBO mini-series about himself.
As for his cause of death, Durst’s lawyers told The Daily Beast that it was “natural causes associated with the litany of medical issues we had repeatedly reported to the court.” So in other words, oldness. Durst was very, very old, and also a convicted murderer, which really can’t be emphasized enough. Easily a top three takeaway.
Irish post-punk quintet Silverback splashed onto the UK scene when their debut album Fad was nominated for the Choice Prize, Ireland’s top music prize. Their music falls somewhere between the surging post-punk of UK bands like Dublin’s Fontaines DC and Bristol’s Idles, and the classic slacker ethos of Pavement. In short, this is choice stuff.
Today, the band have dropped “A Job Worth Something,” the final single ahead of the January 21st release of their sophomore album, Archive Material. The track is a self-reflective look at the roles that matter most in our society, and it’s presented with rad guitars and driving rhythms. Singer/guitarist Daniel O’Kelly shared a statement on the very personal tune:
“For most of the pandemic I lived with my sister who is a healthcare worker and was working in the designated covid hospital in St James’ Dublin. Unfortunately, I was far less heroic, writing copy for a car insurance company.
This song is about feeling embarrassed about how different our lives were at this time. When it comes to telling my grandchildren what all this was like, I’ll be telling them about my sisters who have more important stories to share.”
Listen to “A Job Worth Something” in the new video above and check out the Archive Material album artwork and tracklist below.
Full Time Hobby
1. “Archive Material”
2. “A Job Worth Something”
3. “Wear My Medals”
4. “They Were Never Our People”
5. “Rolodex City”
6. “Different Kind Of Holiday”
7. “Carshade”
8. “Central Tones”
9. “Recycle Culture”
10. “Econymo”
11. “Nothing To Write Home About”
12. “I’m Wild”
Archive Material is out 1/21 via Full Time Hobby. Pre-order it here.
Pam & Tommy looks fantastic, but even in the extremely unlikely event that it’s a dud, the Hulu series has an all-time great tagline: “The Greatest Story Ever Sold.” Beautiful. The aforementioned greatest story involves Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee, who have their sex tape stolen by a mullet-sporting scumbag. If “sex tape,” “mullet,” and “scumbag” all appearing in the same sentence doesn’t get you to watch Pam & Tommy, I don’t know what to tell you. Enjoy your non-mullet programming, I guess.
The Mötley Crüe drummer and Baywatch actress are played by Sebastian Stan and Lily James, who wanted to get in touch with Anderson before filming started.
“I was really hopeful that she would be involved. I wish it had been different. My sole intention was to take care of the story and to play Pamela authentically,” James told Net-a-Porter. When asked if she reached out independently, the Cinderella star replied, “Yes. I was very hopeful that we would be in touch right up until we started filming.”
A friend of Anderson’s informed the Sun that “Pamela has no intention of watching this God awful show, absolutely not. Never. She’s never heard of the actors playing her or Tommy, and doesn’t care to know them. She and her family think the show is a cheap knockoff. The whole thing is a joke to them.” Another pal of hers, Hole singer Courtney Love, wrote on Facebook in a since-deleted post that Pam & Tommy is “f*cking outrageous,” and that its existence was “further causing” Anderson “complex trauma.”
Anderson herself has not officially commented on the show.
It’s like watching a scene from an action film, only it’s real.
A pilot flying a Cessna 172 aircraft lost power and crashed shortly after takeoff from Whiteman Airport in California’s San Fernando Valley on Sunday, according to the Associated Press. The FAA clocked the crash as occurring at approximately 2:10 p.m., with the plane coming to a stop at a railroad crossing just blocks from the Los Angeles Police Department’s Foothills Division station, about 20 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles.
Officers arrived at the scene, and at 2:15 p.m.—just five minutes after the plane crash-landed—a train barreled into the airplane, smashing it to pieces. Thankfully, four officers on the scene were able to extricate the pilot from the aircraft, literally seconds before the Metrolink train slammed into it. Video of the rescue was captured on bodycam and by a bystander from distance, and it’s just about the most harrowing real-life footage imaginable.
Watch the cell phone video from a somewhat safe distance (the person filming was nearly hit with flying pieces of airplane when the train hit). The group of people moving away from the tracks just before impact are the officers carrying the pilot.
Frightening cell phone video of first responders pulling a pilot to safety seconds before a train slams into the plane that crashed onto the tracks near Whiteman Airport in Pacoima. @CBSLA #BreakingNow #news #crash #kcal Luis Jimenez http://www.luisjimenezmusic.comu00a0 @composerluispic.twitter.com/D4VhNPGYID
Then watch the bodycam footage from one of the officers involved in the rescue. (There is no audio for the first 10 seconds, FYI.) Utterly terrifying.
Foothill Division Officers displayed heroism and quick action by saving the life of a pilot who made an emergency landing on the railroad tracks at San Fernando Rd. and Osborne St., just before an oncoming train collided with the aircraft.pic.twitter.com/DDxtGGIIMo
CBSN Los Angeles identified the four officers at the scene as Damien Castro, Christopher Aboyte, Robert Sherock and Sgt. Joseph Cavestany.
“I had requested Metrolink to cease all train activity,” Cavestany told the station, “but apparently that didn’t happen.”
The Los Angeles Fire Department said that the pilot was the only person on board. According to the Los Angeles Times, the pilot was in stable condition as of 8:00 p.m. Sunday evening. No other injuries were reported.
“Seeing what happened, I’m grateful to be alive. I’m grateful the pilot survived as well,” Sherock said, according to the AP.
It’s not every day that you see someone dramatically escape death not once, but twice, within minutes. Especially in such a close call. Best wishes to the pilot, and kudos to the four LAPD officers for their quick thinking and quick-moving heroism.
It’s no secret which fast food chain dishes out the best chicken sandwich, but who makes the spiciest? There are a lot of contenders fighting over that top spot. Popeyes’ sandwich, while delicious, is more sweet than spicy, even in its “spicy” variant. McDonald’s and Carl’s Jr’s chicken sandwiches are trash. Burger King, Shake Shack, and Raising Cane’s all make decent sandwiches, but a majority of them aren’t even trying to be spicy. If you like your chicken sandwiches so hot that they make your brow sweat as you salivate between bites and leave your mouth feeling like you’re breathing fire, all you’ve got is Chick-fil-A’s Spicy Deluxe and Wendy’s Spicy Chicken Sandwich.
Both bring some heat, but for fans of hot chicken with a high tolerance for spice, they both kind of miss the mark. It baffles me that we’re living in a time where the fast food space is obsessed with chicken sandwiches to an almost ridiculous degree, and yet we don’t have a single sandwich that is spicy enough to satiate true lovers of hot food. Until now.
Today, master of meats, Arby’s, is launching the Diablo Sandwich line which consists of your choice of a smoked brisket or fried chicken topped sandwich that provides what Arby’s promises will be the “ultimate spicy experience.” I sampled the fried chicken topped version of the sandwich ahead of launch to see if Arby’s can truly deliver what they’ve promised.
Is the Diablo Chicken the spicy sandwich we pepper heads have been waiting for? Let’s find out.
Arby’s Diablo Chicken Sandwich
Dane Rivera
Retail Price: $5.99
The Sandwich:
Beginning today until February 6th, Arby’s nationwide will be selling the Diablo sandwich, which is so spicy that Arby’s felt fit to provide each customer with a free vanilla shake with every order. This sandwich is a monument to spice! It’s built with multiple layers of peppers; ghost pepper jack cheese, a few shakes of what Arby’s is calling “Fiery Hot Seasoning,” which to me tastes like mostly paprika with a bit of cayenne pepper, diced jalapeños embedded into the cheese, a swirl of spicy barbecue sauce (I’m getting a hint of citrusy habanero here) on the top bun, mayonnaise on the bottom, lettuce and pickles and your choice of a fried chicken filet or 13-hour smoked brisket served on a toasted chipotle bun.
As decadent and delicious as the smoked brisket version looks, Arby’s brisket is a bit on the sweet side, and if I wanted the ultimate spicy experience I knew I needed the more neutral flavor of fried chicken to accompany all of those sources of heat. The result? Well, for starters, this is a sandwich so spicy that you can smell the heat before you bite into it.
The layers of heat hit you in waves, the spicy barbecue sauce eases you into things with the slightest hint of sweetness and spice before that ghost pepper jack cheese meets your palate and provides the fire. The liberal use of cayenne seasoning ensures each bite is as spicy as the next and builds as you go. As you chew through the sandwich the diced and roasted jalapeños offer the occasional burst of extra heat that pleasantly lingers as an aftertaste between bites, counterbalanced by some tangy pickles, which keep your breath from turning to literal flames.
Throughout the meal my mouth felt like it was on fire in the most delicious way. But rather than luxuriating in the heat, I found myself eating this sandwich quicker than I’d usually eat. The heat has this way of pulling you through the experience. I couldn’t take a break, lest I be engulfed.
Dane Rivera
The sandwich is a legit sweat-inducer but it suffers from a few minor problems that can be easily remedied on Arby’s part. First up is that toasted chipotle bun. Arby’s tried to shoehorn in another layer of spice but this bread comes off as more of a gimmick than an enjoyable part of the sandwich. It’s very dry and I find the orange color of the bread straight up unappetizing. The pickles, while a welcome inclusion, are just a little too thin to really impact the flavor as much as I’d like them to. I’m not sure why this sandwich has mayo (couldn’t taste it, which is great if you hate mayo), and the lettuce is little more than a texture that kind of makes the sandwich taste wet.
And then we have the chicken.
It’s not the best chicken filet in fast food, it’s thin and dry to the point of being stringy. Even though I haven’t had it, I’m willing to bet the better move is to grab the brisket instead. Still, I went looking for the spiciest chicken sandwich in the fast food universe and the Diablo Chicken Sandwich is definitely the spiciest sandwich I’ve had in all of fast food. Ever.
My favorite feature of this sandwich is the vanilla shake pairing. It’s not that the sandwich is so hot that you need the shake to offer relief (some will, my tolerance for spicy food is very high), but the flavors really play off one another in an interesting way, creating a harmonious eating experience that bounces between two extremes.
The sweetness acts as a sort of palate cleanser that washes away the lingering heat so that you can experience it all over again during your next bite. Once your palate is inundated with heat to the point of numbness, a swig of vanilla will put you right back to where you were on your first bite.
The Bottom Line:
Arby’s really has something here. It’s not the best chicken sandwich you’ll ever eat. Hell, I wouldn’t even say it’s top five, but when it comes to delivering on a spicy experience no sandwich in the fast food universe can even compete with this. It is hands down the spiciest fast food sandwich currently on the market. If you can’t handle spicy food, don’t even attempt to eat this sandwich, you’ll need more than a vanilla shake to help you through it.
In his third season, Memphis Grizzies guard Ja Morant has risen to full-fledged stardom. Averaging 24.7 points, 6.7 assists, 5.8 rebounds and 1.4 steals on 57.5 percent true shooting, he seems en route to his first career All-Star berth. He’s been awesome and is vital to the Grizzlies’ 28-14 record that sees them just a game back of the three seed out West.
Last week, when initial returns on All-Star votes were released, Morant sat third among West guards, about 118,000 votes behind Luka Doncic for a starting spot. So, on Tuesday, Grizzlies minority owner Justin Timberlake ended his self-imposed social media hiatus to advocate for the high-flying playmaker’s All-Star campaign.
Like I said… I haven’t been on any platform in a while so I’d like to take this opportunity to make a very important statement:
I was not aware that hashtags counted as votes. So, retweet THIS one…#JaMorant#NBAAllStar
Fan votes compose just half of the criteria for selecting All-Star starters, but Timberlake’s efforts surely won’t hurt. Stephen Curry has nearly two million more votes than Doncic and Morant, while Klay Thompson is fourth, more than 300,00 votes behind Morant. Among fans, it seems like a two-man race between Doncic and Morant to join Curry as a starter.
Morant and the Grizzlies are riding an eight-game winning streak and have the NBA’s fifth-best record this season. They’ll have a chance to make it nine in a row and add another layer to Morant’s All-Star hopes when they welcome Curry’s Golden State Warriors to town Tuesday evening.
Before rewatching Dirty Work, the only thing I fully remembered about it was I saw it twice in theaters. To the point that, when the person I was about to watch it with asked if it was good, I responded, “When I was in college I thought it was funny enough to see twice in theaters. Other than that, I don’t remember.”
First, to get this part out of the way, it is still very funny. I laughed many, many times. But it’s also, strangely, a movie that’s kind of sad to watch under these circumstances. The obvious one being that both the star of the movie, Norm Macdonald, and the director of the movie, Bob Saget, would die within just a little over three months from each other. The other being the whole “what could have been” from both of their movie-making careers. Obviously, both had success in the years following Dirty Work, but Saget would never again direct another movie given a wide theatrical release and Macdonald would never again star in a movie this good. (I haven’t seen his follow-up film, Screwed, in many, many years, but I remember it being unpleasant. Watching Dirty Work today, it’s just sad we didn’t have more collaborations between Saget and Macdonald because they seemed to bring the best out in each other.
After the news of Saget’s death broke on Sunday night, social media was filled with tributes from people who knew Saget and truly seem to love the guy, then people like us who admired him – usually mentioning how different his raunchy standup could be from the character he was most known for playing, Danny Tanner on Full House. (Though he doesn’t get enough praise for his work on America’s Funniest Home Videos, a show that, maybe more than any other, predicted our cultural future.) But Saget’s tendency to be raunchy is what’s so surprising about Dirty Work. Especially in the heyday of Full House, Saget seemed to relish in his raunchiness, often pointing out to unsuspecting audience members at his shows that maybe this isn’t what they were expecting from the star of one of the most popular family situation comedies of all time. Which is why, given the keys to directing a Norm Macdonald movie, it would kind of be expected for him to lean onto that here, too. But instead, Dirty Work is almost surprisingly sweet. (Yes, it’s true, Dirty Work was supposed to be rated R and a lot was cut out. But that still wouldn’t change the basic premise of the story and the genial sweetness of Macdonald’s Mitch Weaver.)
The plot of Dirty Work kind of fits in perfectly with the comedies that were popular at the time, which always seem to start with meeting the two main characters when they were children, for no reason in particular other than to prove, look, they were losers then and, today, guess what? Still losers. Mitch (Macdonald) and Sam (Artie Lange) can’t hold down a job, so, after a series of events, they go into the revenge-for-hire business. Basically, did someone do you wrong? Well, hire us and we will make sure that person gets what’s coming to them. This all culminates when Travis Cole (Christopher McDonald, because of course he’s in this movie) hires Mitch and Sam to get a building condemned, which turns out to be a trick and innocent people are about to be evicted, so the boys learn a hard lesson and set out to make things right. (It’s funny, like in Happy Gilmore, Christopher McDonald’s character’s evil plan relies on evicting someone from their residence.)
On its opening weekend Dirty Work would finish eighth, in a time when, maybe, this kind of movie had run its course. At the time, there wasn’t anything particularly unique about Dirty Work (though, keep in mind, I saw it twice) but, in retrospect, it benefits today that no movies are like this anymore. There are no low-stakes comedies in theaters. So, today, yeah, it kind of does feel unique. Especially considering it brought together both Macdonald and Saget. And, like I said, there’s something here. These two worked well together and it feels like they could have gone on making comedies together for the foreseeable future. That’s the thing about Saget, he was raunchy, but he was a warm human being that everyone truly seemed to love. No matter how raunchy his comedic sensibilities might have been, it worked for him because, deep down, he was a genuinely good person. And that comes through in Dirty Work because he gets the best out of Norm Macdonald.
(As an aside, last week I was listening to Marc Maron’s podcast when he was interviewing Tom and Dick Smothers. They are both in their 80s now and still sound great and are still legitimately funny. Maron asked them why they retired their act together. They responded that they didn’t want to die on the road. At first, I thought this was a joke, but they were serious. And I’ve been thinking about that a lot this past week, then especially Sunday night.)
The scene in Dirty Work that struck me the most involves an amusing setup as Mitch convinces Sam to moon a bunch of people, out of a passenger side window, waiting in line at a movie theater. Sam does this and Mitch immediately pulls the car over, parks it on the street right next to the movie theater, gets out and walks off, leaving Sam there with his ass still hanging out the window.
What got me about this scene is just how happy Macdonald looks. Like, he’s beaming right before the punchline of this scene. I wish these two had made ten more movies. They didn’t. And now they’re both gone. At least we have this one.
Thompson rewarded the fans with a 17-point outing in his return, taking 18 shots in 20 minutes of a Warriors win over the Cavs, complete with a poster dunk that nearly blew the roof off of the building. It was a pretty incredible scene and one of the best atmospheres you can get for a January regular season NBA game, and one of those Warriors fans who was in the building was Jeopardy! champion Amy Schneider.
Schneider is also an Oakland resident, and after arriving in the Bay Area in 2009 became a big fan of the Warriors and Stephen Curry, so when she got the chance to be in the building for Klay’s return she couldn’t pass it up. As you can see in the video above, the Warriors announced her on the Jumbotron at the game and she got a strong cheer from the crowd as the Bay’s very own Jeopardy! super champ.
On last week’s Billboard Hot 100 chart, Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” and other vintage holiday tunes were still dominating the top ten spots. On the new chart dated January 15, though, we’re back to non-Christmas programming, as holiday tunes are out of the top ten and Adele’s “Easy On Me” is back to No. 1 for an eighth total week.
Perhaps the top-ten song that stands out most, though, is “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” from the new Disney movie Encanto. The track — which is credited to Carolina Gaitán, Mauro Castillo, Adassa, Rhenzy Feliz, Diane Guerrero, Stephanie Beatriz, and Encanto Cast — jumped from No. 50 last week up to No. 5 this week, making it the first top-five song from a Disney movie since Frozen‘s “Let It Go.” Aside from those two, other Disney songs to crack the top five include Vanessa Williams’ “Colors Of The Wind” from Pocahontas, Elton John’s “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” from Tarzan, and Peabo Bryson and Regina Bell’s “A Whole New World” from Aladdin.
Furthermore, “Bruno” is Lin-Manuel Miranda’s first top-ten hit, as he wrote the song (and all the others from the movie). The song is also the first top-ten track for all of the credited artists. Also, speaking of Elton John, his and Dua Lipa’s “Cold Heart (Pnau Remix)” rose to No. 7 this week, making it his first top-ten hit in the US since “Candle In The Wind”/”Something About The Way You Look Tonight” in 1997.
“We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” from @EncantoMovie, earns @Lin_Manuel his first career top 10 hit on the #Hot100 as a songwriter.
Black Monday in the NFL arrived and quickly saw a number of teams open up head coaching and general manager vacancies. Among them were the Chicago Bears, a team that had been expected to fire coach Matt Nagy for months, as fans chanted “Fire Nagy” at Bears games, Bulls games, and even his poor son’s high school games for much of the season.
On Monday, the team announced Nagy and general manager Ryan Pacer were both “relieved of their duties,” which is the cordial way of saying fired, and the search to replace them was announced on Monday afternoon.
The Bears have relieved general manager Ryan Pace and head coach Matt Nagy of their duties.
McCaskey says #Bears‘ search for GM and HC will be “thorough, diligent and exhaustive.” Search team will consist of McCaskey, Ted Phillips, Hall of Fame exec Bill Polian, Bears VP of player engagement Soup Campbell and senior VP of diversity, equity and inclusion Tanesha Wade.
Nagy went 34-31 in his four-year tenure in Chicago, but after a 12-4 season in his first year at the helm, the Bears progressively got worse, culminating in this season’s frustrating 6-11 record. The defense was always there in Chicago, but Nagy’s pedigree as an offensive coach never yielded the intended results and after Mitchell Trubisky failed to develop into the face of the franchise under Nagy, their struggles this year with Andy Dalton and Justin Fields seemed to put the nail in the coffin. The offense’s struggles went beyond the quarterback, as the roster simply didn’t have enough offensive talent, both up front on the line of scrimmage and at the skill positions, which is why Pace is likewise out.
The next GM will be in charge of finding a better roster balance between offense and defense, surrounding Fields with the talent needed to succeed, while the new head coach will be tasked with tapping his full potential.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
