More than fourteen years ago, Elvis Perkins made his official debut with Ash Wednesday. The 11-track effort took nearly a decade to create; the first half was written around 2000 and the second completed after the tragic death of his mother Berry Berenson Perkin,s who was killed on American Airlines Flight #11, which struck the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. He honored both the 20th anniversary of the tragedy and his mother’s passing with a performance on CBS’s This Morning: Saturday.
Perkins performed three songs from Ash Wednesday: “While You Were Sleeping,” “Emile’s Vietnam in the Sky,” and the album’s closer “Good Friday.” He delivered the performance with his longtime band Dearland, which includes Berry Berenson Perkins’ godson Wyndham Garnett and Nick Kinsey, who was Wyndham’s elementary school friend and who knew and loved Elvis’ mother. The singer also sat for an interview, where he discussed the making of Ash Wednesday and the memories of his late mother.
The performance comes after Elvis released Creation Myths last fall. The album is comprised of nine songs with production from Sam Cohen, and it touches on Americana and folk sounds.
You can watch Elvis Perkins’ performances on CBS’s This Morning: Saturday in the videos above.
The tremendous impact of September 11th, 2001 can’t be overstated. It was such an unbelievable cataclysm that it defies hyperbole. The trauma of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon rippled outward, setting off wars and shifts in foreign policy that still reverberate today.
But before 9/11 was a political cudgel, it was an event. A moment in time. Large enough to collectively terrify a nation of 285 million.
I was there that day. Not at the Towers, but in New York City — teaching in Queens and living in Brooklyn. It was my third day as a high school English teacher. I watched the second tower fall from the gym roof during my prep period, then went downstairs to explain to my third-period students what had happened. In seventh-period, my final class of the day, fighter jets screamed overhead. Not familiar enough with New York to realize that the jets were protecting nearby LaGuardia airport, I feared another attack, yelled “what is that?!”, and ordered the kids to get down.
My voice cracked when I yelled and I’ve always felt bad for letting them see my fear. They were sophomores and needed me to keep it together. I never quite got ahold of that class again, not for the whole year.
The next day, I remember that MTV pulled all of their videos off the air except “One Love” by Bob Marley, “Superman” by Five for Fighting, and a handful of similar tracks. I remember my housemates and me alternating between the news and those five or six videos as they cycled through. It was hot and I spent the day out of my bedroom, wanting to be near people — only to return and find that the wind had shifted and my boxes and clothes, still half unpacked, were blanketed in ash. As I tried to tidy up, I listened to the radio. A request for ice had gone out to cool the drinks of recovery workers, and now that request was being rescinded. So many people with ice were racing toward ground zero that it had caused a massive traffic jam and actual emergency responders couldn’t get through (no subways were running and lower Manhattan streets were closed).
The moment struck me. It was a real-life example of so many people being desperate to help in some way — any way. It reflected a spirit that The Onion captured perfectly a few weeks later with an article titled, “Not Knowing What Else To Do, Woman Bakes American-Flag Cake.”
* * *
My memories of September 11th aren’t profound or even particularly unique. But I return to them often, replaying the sounds and smells and fear and desperation that crashed upon so many people like waves — unrelenting — that day and in the weeks and months to come. And while I’m interested in understanding how 9/11 shaped the nation (and the globe) over the past 20 years, I don’t like to lose sight of the horrors of that one day. The term “Never Forget” seems to have taken on a certain political meaning, but it’s also a good reminder — to remember both the lives lost and the heroic efforts made to save lives on that day.
Perhaps that’s why NatGeo’s 9/11: One Day In America hit me so hard. The docuseries, which is streaming on Hulu and re-airing on NatGeo this weekend, follows firefighters, police officers, military, and civilians through the events of September 11th. The stories they share are incredibly vivid, deeply compelling, and tremendously moving. Some moments leave you heartbroken; others leave you hopeful. By keeping his focus just on the actual day, Director Daniel Bogado paints a nuanced portrait sure to resonate with people who lived through the attacks, watched on TV, or those who are just now coming to understand how that single moment in time has affected all of our lives.
With today being the 20th anniversary of the September 11th attacks, I spoke to Bodgado and South Tower survivor, Kathy Comerford, about their experience with the project and the importance of balancing the agony of that day with stories of inspiration and connectedness. Read our interview below.
Just to give you some personal context for the interview, September 11th was my seventh day living in New York and my third day of teaching. I was only 21, teaching 18-year-olds — so I was out of my depth that day on a million different levels and put in a position to explain that tragedy to them, with the school locked down. All of that said, I want to thank you for making this incredible piece of work that really zeros in on a day that changed America….
I guess the biggest question I want to get at, for both of you, is: how did this project both reawaken and hopefully continue the healing process of the trauma of that day?
Kathy Comerford: I have always been very open and vocal about me and the World Trade Center and my experience. But this project is very personal to me and very important because it’s been 20 years since 9/11. The memory has faded for a lot of people. There’s a whole generation that wasn’t even born on 9/11. So we really have no context. And this documentary — the way that Daniel and the team did it — it also allowed the viewer to step into our shoes on that day. Because there’s no background noise, there’s not a lot of fanfare and music. And it’s truly us talking to the audience about what happened.
Being able to tell that story and carry the message of that day and share not only the horror and the terror, but also the goodness and the humanity of that day is really important to me. To be able to have that as a legacy for those who started to forget, but also those who had no idea.
I think if you were in New York which, as I mentioned, I was at that time, it’s one of the defining moments of your life. And certainly, people who lost close family members it’s even more traumatic. It was a confusing time, too. There was a lot of beautiful, as you say, humanity, and then there was also a lot of rage and sometimes that rage got misplaced. How did you all wrestle with that? And Kathy, how did you experience that in the moment as you tried to recover in the months that followed the attacks?
Kathy Comerford: It’s almost like going through the stages of sympathy, of loss. So I was very angry at first and I was angry because of what they did to the country, but to take it down even small as to what they did to my family, to my children. My children were very young. They were first grade, fifth grade, and first day of high school. My son played lacrosse and freezing on a lacrosse field because we were by Kennedy Airport and the planes were really low. And he dropped to the ground because he thought the plane was going to crash. Or them not wanting me to walk outside because they thought that the terrorists were looking for me — it was really hard to deal with as an adult and then really hard to deal with, to reassure my children and to make sure they were okay.
Because that day I knew where I was every step of the day. But my family didn’t. They didn’t know I was alive till three o’clock in the afternoon. So you have all that anger and rage.
You were in the South Tower, working for Morgan Stanley, on the 70th floor — is that right?
Kathy Comerford: The impact knocked me out of my shoes, so I went to look for them and found them, to start down the stairs. It was like a switch went. And it was like, “nothing’s going to keep me from going home.” I had to stay calm and collected because I was the only one who could take care of me at that point and to get myself motivated, to get into the stairwell, to get down those stairs, and to be part of this group of people that were reaching for each other and helping each other.
As we get further away from the day, the horror and the terror and the fear has sort of subsided a little bit, and then it was the gratitude that I was someone who was spared that day. And then the feeling of, “was I saved for a reason? If so, what is the reason? Is it something greater than I know now? Is it to be a mother to my children? Is it something I can do in my community?”
I always believe that there’s a reason why, on that day, I was one of the fortunate ones to be able to come home.
NIST
I remember there was a boy in my class whose mom was a window cleaner and had woken him up that morning to tell him she was cleaning one of the towers. And she got transferred at 7:00 AM and he didn’t know. And I remember sitting with him and the trauma and the fear of thinking that you’ve lost a parent — I’m sure, was cataclysmic for your family. And it’s probably still something on some level that they reel from and has clearly shaped your life. So thank you for sharing that.
Daniel, as a director, clearly this is a heavy responsibility to manage and tell these stories and to look at it from both the micro and macro point of view. What was your philosophy as you tried to manage all the complexities that go into such a massive project?
Daniel Bogado: Once you begin work on a documentary it’s a journey. You can’t just say two years in advance, “this is exactly what will happen.” The other end of the project — you need to allow the possibility of extraordinary things to happen in front of the camera and extraordinary things to happen in the edit, organically, as we find the correct way of telling these stories. But the most important guides for us were our contributors. Very early on, we realized the canvas of the whole series would allow us an opportunity to do something that a documentary that’s one hour long and focuses on one issue, as good as many documentaries have been, couldn’t do. We wanted it to be a landmark and be comprehensive, and you could bring all these stories together in one place, and craft them together to be part of a narrative.
Early on, we realized that the archives that the team had been collecting was extraordinary. It was very, very watchable. They didn’t need to do visualizations or reconstructions or actors or anything like that. Just use the archives. And then, speaking to the contributors, just on the phone and reading oral testimonies, we realized that there was just so much power and eloquence and dignity, just them with their own words. So we just really wanted those two elements to be the pillars of it. And we just need to get out of the way. We just need to be invisible and just create a structure where you can place those things and make them work together seamlessly. That was our goal.
It’s interesting, because it was called One Day in America, and that was the intention for it to be focused on just that day. But at the same time, it’s 20 years later, right? This documentary series is different from one that had been done a year later or five years. Twenty years is a long period of time. The responses are always personal, how somebody deals with something so traumatic, so horrific, so earth-shattering. Everybody deals with it in a different way. It had a profound impact on everybody. But I would say that most of the contributors we spoke to had found… You talk about the stages of grief. They had found a way, for instance, for people who lost loved ones, to be able to speak about them, and think, instead of thinking, just of the final horrible moments, to think about the beautiful moments of their lives and the good people they were, and the good they brought into this world. They were able to smile when they thought about them.
Right — the gift of some psychic distance allows people to have found some sense of peace with what happened. They are angry, obviously, but can still reflect on the beauty of those they lost.
Daniel Bogado: That is kind of the sentiment and the overall sentiment, the overall intention of the series is that, “Yes, we do have these horrific images and these horrific actions that happened that day and not shy away from that. We need to show the reality. We need the next generation to understand the scale of the horror. But it can’t just be that because if you follow those stories, those people that are fleeing and you zoom in to their stories, you realize that’s just half the story. The other half is about the humanity, courage, and kindness.” All these stories that we have, they’re not exceptions. They were representative of stories that we found, hundreds and hundred stories, and that was overwhelmingly the tenor. So my goal, my hope would be that people watch the series and they gain both things.
The horror and the humanity woven together?
Daniel Bogado: A true understanding, a true grasp, why it was so horrific. The scale of the cruelty of what was done. But also the humanity — really shown in a way that’s inspiring. So when people, maybe next time they see those images and they think of the horror, they also think that there was, the way people behaved that day. There’s a lot that’s just incredibly inspiring. So that was the goal, I suppose.
NIST
Kathy, I’m sure that in some ways you remember every piece of the day, and maybe in some ways you feel completely dislocated from the day. I mean, that’s what trauma does in our brain. What was it like to dive back into this, to reveal this for the cameras, about what you saw that day. I know that you saw a tremendous amount of agony and I’m deeply, deeply sorry for that. But also what did you see that day that also gave you some hope in humanity… I just want to open the door for you to speak to that if you would.
Kathy Comerford: Everybody, in the beginning, was panicky. Things were exploding. The building was bending in half. The floor was buckling. And then everything straightened up. And at that point, everybody just started to do what they needed to do. They got into groups and we went into the stairwell and as we were going down our stairwell, there was a gentleman sitting there who had two prosthetic legs. And he said, “I can’t walk anymore because my legs are burning” — from the friction of trying to get down all these stairs. We were on the 44th floor at that point. And these two men did not know him. They said, “Oh, no, you’re not.” And they each got under his arms and they carried him all the way down the stairs. And that was just one act. I mean, there was a woman who was having an asthma attack and for some reason I had my son’s inhaler in my pocketbook and I just took it out and I gave it to her. And I said, “Let’s go. Take some hits and let’s keep moving.”
It really got poignant when we got to between the 22nd and the 20th floor. And all of a sudden the integrity of the building started to go and the stairwell just twisted. And you could see cracks in the wall and, probably between 22 and 20, and we were like, “Well, we got to really pick this up.” So we started to move so much faster, but what was happening is the people below us would yell what floor they were on.
We would say, “We’re on 19” and we’d yell up to the group behind us just to give everybody encouragement that we are still seeing it’s clear and everybody’s still moving down and “Hurry up. We’re on 18, we’re on 16, try to catch us.” And so everybody was just in the stairwells, just rallying together. And it wasn’t just me going down the stairs by myself. It was almost like a community. Everybody just kept reassuring everybody else. And New Yorkers get the bum rap that we’re always rushing and we’re shortsighted or anything else. This was the best of New Yorkers. Everybody just was trying to help, as big or as little as they could, just to get people out of that building.
All six episodes of National Geographic’s 9/11: One Day in America are available to stream on Hulu, and will re-air on Nat Geo on Sept. 10 and 11th.
Trae Young tormented the New York Knicks and Madison Square Garden during the first round of the 2021 NBA playoffs. Young made MSG his personal playground, putting up a number of big games in the World’s Most Famous Arena as the Hawks upset the Knicks in five games on their march to the Eastern Conference Finals.
Well as it turns out, Knicks fans still are not particularly big fans of Young after having a few months for tensions to boil over. Young showed up on WWE SmackDown on Friday night at Madison Square Garden, with Sami Zayn teasing that he had a special guest for the crowd ahead of a 10-man tag team match. Zayn was wearing a Kevin Knox jersey, and then, he announced that he brought Young to The Garden. It went over about as well as you’d imagine.
Young even got involved in the match in a delightfully heel way. Zayn distracted the ref while Rey Mysterio was on the ropes, which led to Young trying to cheat. The issue was the ref looked and ejected Young, which sent the crowd at MSG into a frenzy.
That series against the Knicks established Young as one of the best heels in all of the NBA, but still, proving that he’d be a pretty good heel in the squared circle, too, was a bit of a surprise.
Even before winning the 2019 WNBA MVP award and her first championship that year, Elena Delle Donne has had just about as bad a run of health problems as an athlete can have, one that was extended this week when Washington Mystics head coach Mike Thibault said he was unsure of her status for the rest of the year due to complications from two back surgeries last year.
During her MVP run on a revolutionary spread-out Mystics squad, Delle Donne made good on the promise she had long flashed, and it seemed a dynasty might be in the works centered on the preternatural scoring ability Delle Donne has at her size. Washington won the 2019 title and then traded for future Hall of Famer Tina Charles the following offseason.
Of course, the WNBA season went sideways in 2020, but Delle Donne’s luck was particularly bad. She initially requested out of the Bubble due to COVID concerns after a Lyme disease diagnosis that she has said forces her to take 20-plus pills on a daily basis, but the request was denied by the league’s medical panel. Later, the team was able to get a medical exemption by way of Delle Donne’s back injury, meaning she had two health scares bad enough to opt out of an entire season.
Those back injuries intensified in the months following, prompting two surgeries to repair multiple broken discs. Delle Donne’s recovery was expected to be complete in time for opening day of the 2021 season, but instead, her debut did not come until last month, when the WNBA returned from its Olympic break (Delle Donne was not on Team USA in Tokyo, either).
After a nearly two-year wait, Delle Donne looked like her usual self as a scorer but was pulled from an Aug. 26 game and has not played since. The return lasted just three games. Now, Thibault has said Delle Donne is not even practicing with the team and described her physical progression as “not great improvement.”
The fallout of Delle Donne’s ongoing misfortune and consequences of her increasingly brittle body are that one of the greatest basketball players ever may miss chunks of three out of four playoffs and effectively two straight full seasons.
For the last year Apple and Epic Games have been embroiled a lawsuit in relation to the Fortnite app and purchases within it. The short version is that Apple was charging more for in-game purchases in the app than if someone were to make those same purchases straight through Epic, so Epic was telling everyone to use external links to make purchases for Fortnite instead of using the ones inside Apple’s app.
Unsurprisingly, Apple wasn’t very happy about this and banned Fortnite from the app store. In response, Epic sued Apple and began a very posturing campaign about how they were fighting for the rights of gamers. What the lawsuit was really about, though, was that Epic didn’t like how much of a cut Apple was taking from their in-app purchases so they wanted to send buyers straight to the source.
When they entered into the lawsuit with Apple they came at it from the standpoint that Apple was monopolizing the market through the app store. Essentially, to them, the app store violates anti-trust law. Despite the posturing, Epic had an intriguing case because their argument that Apple received too much of a cut.
On Friday, the year-long court case came to a conclusion. The result of it? Well, Epic technically won what they were originally fighting over but they lost the rest of their arguments. We broke down the general news of what happened in today’s rulings here. What a lot of people are interested in, however, is what this means for gaming as a whole. Did Epic succeed in their quest for “gamers” and what does this mean long term?
Fortnite doesn’t have to return to the app store
The biggest result of this entire case has to be in regards to the status of Fortnite on the app store and if Apple was considered a monopoly. The court ruled that Apple did not violate any anti-trust laws, but not only that they said in the process Epic violated their terms of agreement with Apple. Because of that they aren’t required to put Fortnite back into the app store. Not being able to have Fortnite available on Apple devices is a huge blow to Epic.
Why is that? Well, consider how many people own an iPhone. That’s the potential install base of Fortnite on mobile devices alone. Not to mention Apple TV. Mac users have been dealing with limited features ever since Epic and Apple’s feud began. Fortnite is still a lesser experience on Apple devices and that’s a hit that is going to hurt Epic for sure.
In-app purchases may change because of this suit
The original big argument point between Epic and Apple was over Epic providing links to make purchases without going through Apple. This is the one part of the lawsuit that Epic won. The court ruled that Apple has to allow apps to use external payment options which, of course, is not good for Apple because when purchases are made through the app store they then get a more significant amount of money. It would be one thing if only Epic couldn’t do this, however, but starting on December 9 all companies will be allowed to provide external payment links. Essentially circumventing Apple’s revenue stream.
This will leave Apple with two options. They can either continue to provide in-app purchases at current prices, hoping people pay extra for the convenience of not clicking on a link, or they can work with developers to reach an agreement on pricing. Either way, Apple will no longer be able to charge extra just because it’s Apple and they control the store. Considering how many apps there are on the app store this has the potential to cost Apple billions.
Epic wanted the judge to declare Apple a monopoly and force it to lower fees below 30%, neither of which happened. The judge also ruled that Epic violated Apple’s terms and did not rule that Fortnite must be reinstated to the App Store. This was a big loss for Epic
While Epic won the original argument, it’s hard to say that they’re coming out of this case on top. Of the 10 rulings the court made in the Epic vs. Apple case, they ruled in favor of Apple in nine of them. Epic is, of course, going to appeal, but it’s safe to say that they didn’t win outright. The results of this case is going to cost them millions of dollars down the line. Not that Apple losing where it did is going to help them much better. Apple survived most of the rulings, but the external payments costing them billions are going to be a huge hit that may change how they approach the app store. If you were hoping this was all over though then think again.
Today’s ruling isn’t a win for developers or for consumers. Epic is fighting for fair competition among in-app payment methods and app stores for a billion consumers. https://t.co/cGTBxThnsP
Epic isn’t going to give up this one without fighting so we might see these two back in court again in the very near future.
At least we got this
Epic vs. Apple might not be entirely over, and the impact this is going to have on financials is going to absolutely have an impact on these two companies down the line, but we can take some joy out of it. Since Fortnite, one of the silliest games ever made, was at the forefront of all of this we got extensive arguments between lawyers about Fornite characters. This is a universe where they consider everyone that’s even been in the game as canon. That means Rick and Morty, NFL players, Travis Scott, Ariana Grande, and Marvel superheroes are all part of the Fortnite universe. One character in Fortnite, however, had the particular attention of the judges. Mr. Peely.
YouTube
There was a significant amount of deliberation spent on what exactly Mr. Peely was. Is this a person dressed up as a banana or a sentient being? Well we finally have our answer. Mr. Peely is, according to a United States courtroom, “just a banana man.”
Seattle Storm forward and reigning WNBA Finals MVP Breanna Stewart will miss the rest of the regular season with a left foot injury, the team announced on Friday, leaving the league’s third-ranked team without its best player for the stretch run — and perhaps beyond.
The Storm have a quiet schedule to wrap up the season, meaning Stewart will miss a minimum of just two games. But in the aftermath of the injury, which was sustained Tuesday in a matchup with Washington, teammate Sue Bird told reporters that Stewart gave her an “uh-oh” look when she initially went down.
The injury resulted from hardly any contact, so it is hard to determine how significant it was. Regardless, for a player who just came back from an Achilles rupture last year in time for the WNBA Bubble, the hope is clearly that this is not too serious.
Seattle wraps up its season with a Sunday tilt in Los Angeles followed by a finale at home against Phoenix on Friday night that could play a major role in the race for the third seed in the playoffs. Currently, the Storm are tied with Phoenix and Minnesota. The WNBA seeds regardless of conference for the playoffs.
As Deadline reported on Friday, Disney will keep the rest of its slate of movies off of its Disney+ streaming service in the initial part of their respective theatrical windows. That means following the strategy Shang-Chi saw a lot of success in: a traditional release date in theaters without a streaming option amid the still-ongoing pandemic.
Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Encanto will bow November 24 with a 30-day exclusive theatrical window before appearing on Disney+. Five other pics will have a 45-day exclusive run in cinemas: The Last Duel (October 15), Ron’s Gone Wrong (October 22), Eternals (November 5), West Side Story (December 10) and The King’s Man (December 22).
While movies like Black Widow and Mulan were add-ons to Disney+, other films like Soul hit the platform the same day as theaters. Other studios like Warner Bros have continued that model with HBO Max, but the news means that Disney is still betting big on the box office for a number of films. Eternals is probably the most notable of those movies, of course, but it’s clear that Marvel and Disney feel like people are willing to risk a trip to the movies to stay up to date on the ever-expanding superhero canon.
Saturday Night Live‘s 47th season has a premiere date, but even inside Studio 8H there’s apparently some considerable uncertainty about who will actually appear on stage come October 2.
The NBC sketch comedy showcase announced on Thursday it would return next month with a brief video that spliced some past and present SNL together to drop the return date. But beyond that, things were scarce. That includes who will host the episode, the musical guest and, according to Deadline, the actual cast members trying to make the funny.
According to the report, cast members decidedly on the fence about returning are still mulling over their future. And while summer is traditionally the time Lorne Michaels and crew lock down their cast and get things ready, there’s a chance the show will actually start without major contracts in place for several notable names.
The news comes as creator and executive producer Lorne Michaels is still in talks with key cast members over who will return and who won’t.
The rumor mill has swirled over the last few months as to whether the likes of Pete Davidson, Kate McKinnon, Aidy Bryant and Cecily Strong will be back for Season 47; these conversations are understood to be ongoing.
The hope is that most of the contracts will be signed and sealed ahead of the premiere, but there is a possibility that not all will be completely resolved.
Bryant, Strong, McKinnon and Davidson are all likely to seek work outside of SNL, and Deadline had previously reported that Michaels and the show were less restrictive of those outside efforts lately in an attempt to keep the cast around. In fact, rumors that he wants a veteran cast locked in until at least Season 50 would make keeping at least a few of these longtime contributors a priority.
What’s unclear here, though, is whether contracts not settled means the show starts with an incomplete or shorthanded cast or final details would get locked down with veterans returning to the fold. It’s all very late in the game to figure anything out here, though, which means there are likely a lot of improv experts frantically checking their phones in New York and Los Angeles over the next few days and weeks until there’s an official announcement about who we’ll see on TV this fall.
Fans in attendance at Future’s headlining set at Wireless Festival in the UK were treated to a surprise performance of the Atlanta rapper’s buzzy Drake collaborations “Life Is Good” and “Way 2 Sexy” when Drake himself popped out to assist his musical mate. It was Drake’s first performance before a festival crowd since before the coronavirus pandemic began, as well as his first time performing “Way 2 Sexy,” the silly but inescapable new single which also features Young Thug, since dropping Certified Lover Boy a week ago.
The moment was naturally captured from dozens of angles by fans with camera phones in hand, giving those not in attendance a chance to see Drake’s interactions with the crowd. “We missed you so much,” Drake declared. “While we’ve been apart for whatever it’s been — two years — we wrote a lot of songs that we played in our crib or in our studio that we never got to do in front of y’all.” Drake and Future then launched into one of those songs, the aforementioned “Way 2 Sexy” as the screen behind them read, “Hey Wireless, the boy is home.”
They also played their 2020 hit “Life Is Good,” which was a dominating song itself that year, before Drake spun off a quick medley of his own hits, including the Lil Durk-featuring “Laugh Now, Cry Later.” Check out some of the videos and photos below.
If you’re a connoisseur of fresh, powerful, great-tasting weed produced via attentive and proper cultivation that’ll melt your face off and make music, sex, food, sleep, and wasting time better than it has ever been, you’ve probably got an expensive habit on your hands. It wasn’t always this way. A couple of years back, it would cost you $60 tops for a California dispensary’s best product, and if you couldn’t afford that you could sample the top shelf stuff by purchasing smaller amounts, like a single gram.
Good luck finding a gram of top-shelf weed these days. And a $60 eighth looks more like $100 after taxes, etc.
Enter California Cultivator Green Dragon. The brand attempts to ease the financial strain of smoking herb with Féria, or “The Fetti” for those of you too scared of Spanish. It snagged gold for Hybrid strains at High Times’ 2020 Cannabis Cup (California Region), beating out CBX’s massively popular Cereal Milk strain, which is almost twice the price after taxes. Féria is slang for “money” and, with an average price of $45, it attempts to save you some while still providing a powerful high that helps to stretch your dollar and make your weed last longer. But THC% isn’t everything, so we set out to see if this strain is actually worth your time or if it just benefited from a bunch of hype over its low price tag and potent THC content.
For those who don’t know, since the pandemic, the Cannabis Cup has gone from being judged by industry veterans and celebrity connoisseurs like Tommy Chong, Snoop Dog, assorted members of Wu-Tang Clan, and Kid Cudi to being voted on by stoners like you and me. That’s not a knock on the Cannabis Cup, it’s a better model! I care more about what your average stoner thinks than what some rich stoner smokes.
But I still needed to try it for myself, especially since Cereal Milk has been my personal go-to this year. Check my review below:
Before we get into the high, we need to talk about the presentation. It’s easy to be unimpressed by Féria — the jar is wrapped in a plastic label that acts as both decoration and the jar’s seal, featuring a graphic of a $100 bill with a cartoon dragon over Ben Franklin’s face, and a whole bunch of mixed fonts. It’s ugly. I realize this isn’t a beauty contest, but great packaging only adds to the experience, and it’s hard to get excited about Féria before you open the jar.
On the cap is a sticker label that lists your basic strain information and also has a QR code that transports you into a portal of your strain’s lab-certified analysis, which gives you a full breakdown of the strain’s terpenes, and other nerdy things like pesticide analysis, moisture content, and cannabinoid potency. As someone deep into weed, I love this kind of nerdy shit, so I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t won over by this feature.
On to the weed!
Dane Rivera
Féria didn’t get its name because it saves you money, but because of its luxurious appearance — dense frosty green nugs with flecks of purple flowers and wild twisting orange hairs. It’s an absolute pleasure to look at and will make you want to break it up with your fingers just so that magical kief doesn’t get wasted on the teeth of your grinder. It’s not as sticky as I’d like it to be, but it’s easy enough to work with that you can roll it up in a joint or blunt wrap without the need for any additional tools.
The high is predictably powerful, with a THC content of 34.9% this stuff is going to blast even experienced smokers on their ass after a single bowl. If you’re an occasional smoker, pack less than you think you need, because this stuff goes far.
The high began centered squarely above my brow. After a few hits, I felt a weightiness behind my eyes and my whole body slipped into relaxation mode. This is definitely a couch-lock-inducing strain, and I found myself forgetting what I was doing often, so don’t smoke this and then find something to watch, do, or listen to. Pre-planning your experience, which admittedly sounds lame, will help ensure that you don’t waste most of the high laying down trying to remember what it was you were just about to do. Unless that’s how you want to spend your high!
Dane Rivera
While the high was strong, I wasn’t sold by the taste or smell. Féria has a very dirty and earthy flavor, subtle notes of pine and citrus lurk beneath all the muck, but this strain mostly keeps things in the sort of peppery realm that isn’t easy on the throat, whether you’re vaping or hitting a bong. The aftertaste also has a sort of chemical quality to it — I think Green Dragon was going for mint here, but mint isn’t an easy flavor to achieve in weed. When it’s done wrong, it more often than not tastes like hand soap or lotion than cool and refreshing.
For that reason, we’re going to suggest you skip flavor-focused smoking methods like vapes or bongs and instead roll this up in a flavored blunt wrap, or pack it into a bowl with some of your grinder’s kief catch sprinkled on top.
The Bottom Line
For the price, you won’t find a strain that gets you this high and looks this beautiful, but Green Dragon has a bit more work to do in the flavor department if they want this stuff to really compete with real California top-shelf mainstays like CBX, Connected, Or A Golden State.
It’s not our favorite Hybrid strain of the year, but it’s definitely worth a pick-up on your next weed run. Especially if money is tight.
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