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I Am Dead sounds like an awful game to play in year already so full of death and suffering, but as someone on the other side of the gaming experience, I simply can’t recommend it enough. It’s charming, lovely, and all of the words you gently insert into your vocabulary after hearing English accents uninterrupted over the course of a few hours.

The adventure puzzle game from Annapurna Interactive is admittedly more story than game. Created by Richard Hogg and Hollow Ponds (Hohokum, Wilmot’s Warehouse), I Am Dead both provides meaning to the afterlife and amplifies the importance of the small moments in life that can impact others long after we’ve stopped living.

The plot of the game is simple: You play as Morris Lupton, the curator of a museum on the fictional island of Shelmerston. Who is, you know, dead. As his spirit, you work with his dog, Sparky, to search for a new caretaker for the island. Shelmeston happens to have a volcano on it and Aggi, the spirit responsible for keeping that volcano from destroying the town, is tired of doing it after a few thousand years.

If that sounds like an interesting story, know that it’s not really the focus of gameplay itself. In your search for a new caretaker, you learn the stories of recently deceased people in town who have met and influenced others still alive. Each story unfolds in a kaleidoscope of colors as images come into and out of focus while voice actors tell a story about an item you’ll need to find to help Sparky sniff out their spirits.

It’s a game about an island filled with fish people, bird people, and ordinary humans as well. And despite its whimsy and unique humanoid creatures, it’s also one of the most beautiful reflections on life I’ve ever experienced with a controller in my hand. The game’s stories are heartfelt, with love stories and tragic accidents given a proper place in island lore. A puzzle game doubling as a meditation on the value of one’s life after it’s ended is heavy, sure, but it’s also a game about really good toast and smuggling booze and how mementos and keepsakes keep people alive long after they’re gone.

Finding those keepsakes is the main goal of the game, which is done with a point and click navigation of sorts. Items that are clickable get zoomed in on and, since you’re dead, you have the power to look through them and reveal things hidden inside. Most of the main puzzles are fairly easy to snuff out by paying attention to the story, and each item can be found in the nearby area where you hear the tale. But there are more challenging scavenger hunts to be found in the game, with spirits called Grenkins hiding in each area you unlock with the help of abstract images you create by turning and looking “through” items.

There’s also a more mischievous character in the game offering riddles with a time limit if you really want to be challenged, and other surprises await those who seek them out. Once you start looking around, it’s likely you’ll take any excuse to further explore the game’s vibrant island setting. It really is beautiful, a fictional island where everyone lives together in harmony despite things constantly changing. In what’s been such a difficult year for so many, the chance to explore a world so full of connection and meaning was a welcome suggestion of what this reality could be.

“Nobody is just anything, Morris,” your dog assistant Sparky will say at one point, implying not only that everyone has several roles in life but that they’ve all meant something to someone at one point or another. Considering that connection can be overwhelming sometimes, but it’s also a nice reminder that how you treat others and the way you live your life carries on in those who keep your stories.

It’s a really lovely thought, especially in a year so fraught with pain and abrupt endings for so many. I Am Dead doesn’t bring anyone back to life, but it does serve as a reminder that some things just aren’t measured by time the way we think. That alone makes this game a story worth experiencing for yourself.

On the latest episode of People’s Party, Talib Kweli and Jasmin Leigh sat down with the co-founder of the Los Angeles chapter of Black Lives Matter, Melina Abdullah, for an in-depth chat about America’s racial wealth gap, systemic racism, and the types of “good trouble” Abdullah has gotten herself into throughout her career as an activist. Following the countrywide protests over the police killing of George Floyd in late May, Abdullah has remained a vocal champion of the “defund the police” movement — an idea that has spread rapidly and, while not endorsed by either Presidential candidate, is still a matter of discourse across the political spectrum.

While discussing her goal to “undo policing,” Kweli pressed Abdullah on the meaning behind the phrase “defund the police.” She breaks it down definitively in the clip above.

“‘Defund’ was our way of getting away with saying we’re abolitionists,” she explains. “Policing, and jails, and prisons, they’re not reformable. They’re irredeemable systems. Policing, literally — and this is not disputable — the American system of policing literally evolved out of slave catching. When we think about what chattel slavery is and why it had to be abolished, and when we think about how ridiculous it would’ve been to say ‘lets reform chattel slavery’ that’s the same ridiculousness with which we have to meet people who say “lets reform policing.’”

Abdullah acknowledges that defunding the police is a road to eventual abolition — an opinion not shared by a majority of Americans in any group surveyed by a recent Gallup poll. But she also offers a new way of envisioning public safety in a world without police,

“We’re not saying we don’t want to live in safe communities. We absolutely want safe communities. But what does public safety, what does community safety look like? So we want to defund and abolish the police and we still want safe communities, recognizing that safe communities are built when everybody has housing. Safe communities come when people have good jobs. When there are quality after-school programs when we have mental health resources and health resources… We want to defund the police and reimagine public safety.”

Watch ‘People’s Party with Talib Kweli’ featuring Melina Abdullah at YouTube.com/UproxxVideo.

The last time we got new music from King Princess was back in February when she shared “Ohio” on the deluxe edition of Cheap Queen. Now, though, for the first time in months, King Princess has given fans something new to chew on: a song called “Only Time Makes It Human.”

The song’s visual features a 3D model of King Princess admiring the real-life human on TV and computer screens. On the track, she sings about simultaneously wanting and not wanting to get over an old flame, singing on the chorus, “And it sucks that I think about her / ‘Cause thinking ’bout her leaves me lonely / And it’s not that I wanna suffer / But thinking of her keeps me going.”

Alongside the video, King Princess has also launched some new merch items, including the underwear and tank top she wears in the video.

King Princess has stayed mostly away from the public eye during the pandemic. In April, she performed an at-home Tiny Desk concert from her Hawaiian “quarantine shed,” and during the summer, she called out JK Rowling after the Harry Potter author shared some controversial tweets about trans women.

Watch the “Only Time Makes It Human” video above.

Donald Trump lost the ratings battle, and he appears to be losing the election war, too.

After the Commission on Presidential Debates announced that the second debate between Trump and Joe Biden on October 15 would be held virtually due to the president having recently tested positive for COVID-19, Trump backed out, telling Fox Business that he was “not going to waste my time on a virtual debate.” ABC, now with a hole in its schedule, soon after announced a town hall event with Biden; NBC quickly (and controversially) followed suit with Trump, whose town hall aired at same time as his opponent’s, Thursday night at 8 p.m. EST. Trump, ever obsessed with ratings, wanted to trounce Biden with a higher viewership. His town hall was even on multiple networks.

Let’s see how that went.

Joe Biden’s town hall on ABC averaged 13.9 million viewers on Thursday night, easily surpassing the Nielsen ratings for President Trump’s town hall on NBC. The Trump town hall was simulcast by two of NBC’s cable channels, MSNBC and CNBC, but even when those channels are included in the total, Biden — on only one network — still prevailed.

Trump’s town hall was seen by 10.6 million viewers on NBC, plus an additional 1.74 million on MSNBC and 671,000 on CNBC. That’s 13 million overall, nearly a million fewer than Biden on ABC alone. “Staffers at ABC News privately admitted to their surprise when the preliminary ratings came in on Friday,” according to CNN.

Good work, TikTok teens!

Trump has yet to respond on Twitter, but you know it’s coming.

(Via CNN)

Thank goodness for John Oliver for keeping things weird while the world burns around us. The Last Week Tonight host recently saw his (only attainable) “dream” come true — one that might be even better than accepting an Emmy while wearing a hoodie. While feeling the afterglow of that honor, Oliver confessed that his remaining ambition for 2020 was to have a sewage plant in Danbury, Connecticut named after him.

If that doesn’t speak to the dumpster fire that this year has been, than I’m not sure what else would qualify. Well, there’s some fantastic news coming for those who’ve been watching this story. Not only did the Danbury city council vote almost unanimously to officially rename the facility as the John Oliver Memorial Sewer Plant, but Oliver will be present at a rechristening ceremony. He’s either actually made this decision on his own, or Mayor Boughton is trolling him so that he has to show up, but either way, Oliver is on the ribbon-cutting calendar.

Boughton told the Greater Danbury Chamber of Commerce on Thursday that Oliver “agreed to come to the city.” Via the Danbury NewsTimes:

“We’re still working out the details on that to cut the ribbon on the John Oliver Memorial Sewer Plant, which we renamed last week,” Boughton said. “We’ll be putting something up on Facebook about that, but it won’t be available or open to the public, unfortunately, as they’re very strict in terms of the COVID-19 regulations.”

This event (please let the ceremonial ribbon be brown) will end a lengthy (mock) feud between Oliver and Boughton, who called the host “full of crap.” Oliver was actually delighted to hear the insult but then disappointed to hear that it was only a joke, at which point he opened his wallet and made a $55,000 donation to the city. After the Emmys, he gushed, “My dream this year is to have a sewage plant named after me in Danbury, Connecticut… And I’m close. I feel like I’m real close.”

Previously, Oliver enthusiastically faux-raged in front of his HBO audience, and that reached an apex in August, “Listen, I didn’t know that I wanted my name on your sh*t factory… But now that you floated it as an option, it is all that I want.” And he’s teaching us all to never give up on his dreams, no matter how silly they might seem.

(Via Danbury’s NewsTimes)

David West is one of the most thoughtful people in basketball, but his latest take, that Andrea Bargnani would be a dominant scoring force in the NBA if he played right now, is a bit surprising. But West was certain of it in an appearance on Basketball News’ NBA Finals Watch Party last week, and that the same was true of Chris Bosh.

Here’s West’s explanation:

“I thought about this the other day. When [Andrea] Bargnani and [Chris] Bosh were in Toronto, the reason why that sh** didn’t work is ’cause the NBA let us beat them up! We beat up Bargnani, they let us body Bosh.

“Like, Bosh and Bargnani right now, they would blow this NBA out of the water. They were damn near impossible to guard. I’m serious. The only reason Bargnani didn’t have a (successful) career was ’cause the referees let people like me beat him up!

“In today’s game, he would be killin’ because he would be protected. Ryan, you know, you remember — he would try that sweep at the three-point line; they wasn’t giving him that sh**, that rip-through. We could grab both arms.”

Now, it’s hard to say why West coupled Bosh, a perennial All-Star, two-time NBA champion, and potential Hall of Famer, alongside Bargnani, one of the biggest busts from the No. 1 pick slot in NBA history, but his point stands. We see many more slender scorers at forward these days than we did in the early 2010s, when these two were battling bigger bruisers inside.

At the same time, players like Dirk Nowitzki and LaMarcus Aldridge were able to succeed in the frontcourt despite less-than-elite athleticism, while many more athletic and strong scoring forwards like Michael Beasley and Derrick Williams failed to make good on their promise in the NBA despite matching up better with the old era of the league.

Still, as one of the only players who could match up with just about anyone on the inside because of his physicality and smarts, it’s not surprising West would be the one to make this observation.

(Via SLAM)

Once autumn begins in full, people all over the northern half of the US (and parts of California) decide that the most exciting weekend activity imaginable is driving out of the city to an apple orchard to pick their own apples. It’s always a thing that sounds cool and ends up being a more mid-level fun thing — unless there are fresh apple cider donuts on hand, in which case it moves waaaaaay up the “fall weekend activity ranking.”

Regardless of whether or not you’re hitting orchards for a little you-pay-them-type manual labor anytime soon, apples are synonymous with autumn. Fall is the time for apple pie, apple cider, and, perhaps most importantly, applejack and other apple-flavored spirits.

To find bottles of apple-centric booze for fall, we decided to head to the experts for advice. We asked some of our favorite bartenders to tell us the best applejack and apple-flavored spirits to drink before the leaves drop.

Apple Playa Cinnamon Liqueur

Marla White, lead bartender at Lona Cocina & Tequilera in Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Apple Playa. Notes of cinnamon and apples go great in our ‘el pecado’ cocktail: blend of Contradiction Bourbon, Apple Playa, honey, and cinnamon.

The result is an adult liquid version of apple pie.

Crown Royal Regal Apple Whiskey

Molly Safuto, bartender at Mila Rooftop Bar at The Glenmark Hotel in Glendale, California

Crown Royal Regal Apple Whisky. You can drink it neat or mix it with sparkling apple cider. With the crisp apple flavor and notes of cinnamon spice, you start to forget that you are drinking whisky.

Laird’s Bottled in Bond

Andy Printy, beverage director at Chao Baan in St. Louis

Laird’s remains the champ! It’s America’s oldest registered distillery and a staple of early saloons. They harvest their own Pennsylvania apples and do a ton to support the bartending community. The balance of Apple to toasted oak is a profile designed to be the harbinger of autumn.

Their “bonded” expression is heftier in the ABV, but easily just as delicious.

Barking Irons Applejack

Crystal Chasse, beverage director at Talk Story Rooftop in Brooklyn

I am a big fan of Barking Irons Applejack. It’s locally made with delicious New York apples; the cider is produced Upstate and the aging process taking place in a stillhouse in Brooklyn. Their original aged 100 proof Applejack has fragrant caramel and baking spice notes, and their un-aged 80 proof is crisp and perfect in lighter style cocktails.

Old Hampshire Blended Applejack

Hayden Miller, head bartender at Bodega Taqueria y Tequila in Miami

Old Hampshire Blended Applejack works great in bourbon or cognac cocktails as a subtle introduction of apple flavor. This 100% New Hampshire apple-made applejack is sweet, rich, and full of cinnamon and vanilla flavors.

Laird’s Straight Applejack 86

Max Stampa-Brown, beverage director at Borrachito in New York City

Laird’s Straight Applejack 86, that’s all you really need. I ordered too much of it at a bar I worked at not long ago and wound up making a warm glühwein (mulled wine) with it. Tasted like apples and raspberry jelly on a toasted slice of whole wheat. People were upset that it only lasted a week.

Leopold Bros New York Apple Whiskey

Mitchell Cochran, bar manager at Shades Bar & Grill in South Walton, Florida

Leopold Bros New York Apple Whiskey. It has a very real apple flavor. It is easy to drink on the rocks but also goes great with Sprite and cranberry juice to bring fall flavors together.

Koval Apple Brandy

Brendan Bartley, head bartender and beverage director at Bathtub Gin in New York City

The best applejack is from Koval Distillery, in Chicago. Their ethos towards distilling is something I really love. They have a grain-to-bottle mentality and care where they source their products for distillation. In this case, apple-farm-to-bottle is the order of the day.

This, to me, is a sipping applejack. Aged in whiskey barrels, it has hints of vanilla and oatmeal, slight banana as well. But it’s a mellow smooth mouthfeel, like a creaminess to it. This has few sharp edges on it, and I think it’s a great way to spend a few hours watching the world go by during fall.

Laird’s Blended Applejack

Gavin Humes, bartender at Scratch | Bar & Restaurant in Encino, California

Laird’s Blended Applejack is the beginning and end of this conversation. Basically, their entire lineup provides the complexity and depth that I’m looking for. It’s got just enough wood, with the sweetness of the apples to be a fantastic sipping applejack, or fantastic in a cocktail.

Writer’s Pick:

Copper & Kings American Apple Brandy

This applejack was finished in bourbon and new American oak barrels. The result is a 92 proof, rich, subtly sweet brandy with hints of apple pie, vanilla, and caramelized sugar.

Donald Trump’s attempt to buy the Buffalo Bills in 2014 is a quest largely lost to the history of all that followed. Perhaps this world is very different if neither Jon Bon Jovi or fracking billionaire Terry Pegula exist, but they do and the latter now owns New York’s only NFL franchise.

Trump went on, of course, to run for president and win, while Bon Jovi is still making music and gotten a bit more politically active as well. But in a recent interview with GQ UK, he revealed he’s very much not over his failed attempt to buy the Bills, calling it “one of the biggest disappointments” of his life. He also still has special ire for Trump, who schemed out a reported ratf*cking campaign against Bon Jovi and his bidding partners in the city of Buffalo as a way to turn public opinion against the rivals.

In case this moment was truly lost to history for you, the sale of the Bills after the death of owner Ralph Wilson became a high-profile bidding war in 2014, as Trump publicly threw his hat in the ring along with a Toronto-based ownership group led by Bon Jovi. Rumors at the time were that Bon Jovi’s group eventually wanted to relocate the Bills, and Trump jumped on that in an attempt to gain public favor for himself.

Allegedly Trump had also been interested in buying the Bills, but he knew he would be unable to outbid Bon Jovi and his Toronto-based partners, so he hired Republican operative Michael Caputo – who has previously worked as a political consultant for Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin – and they incited a grassroots campaign to turn the people of Buffalo against him.

A group of activists called “12th Man Thunder” sprung up and began establishing “Bon Jovi-free zones” in the city, with Caputo pulling the strings from behind the scenes. Radio DJs in the city refused to play his songs on air.

While Trump and Bon Jovi were fighting, however, the numbers were in another bidder’s favor. Anyone who was paying attention in Buffalo at the time of the sale could tell you that it was always going to be Pegula — the wealthiest of all parties involved — with the highest bid and his ownership of the Buffalo Sabres already signaled he was committed to keeping the team in Buffalo long-term. Trump and Bon Jovi may have jockeyed for position with each other but, quite frankly, they were both worried about the wrong guy the whole time. And when it came time for the bidding, that’s exactly what happened.

“We showed up with a billion three, sitting there with a cheque. And we could have easily bought it at any price. We didn’t get to get back in the room. [Pegula] said, ‘What do I have to do to not leave this table without owning the team?’”

Bon Jovi claims he could have paid “any price,” but the Toronto Sun reported in 2019 that the Pegulas paid $1.4 billion for the team, a record at the time. The paper also claims Bon Jovi’s group had a final bid of $1.05 billion. Trump, meanwhile, reportedly submitted a bid of just $800 million, though the Sun reported that Trump never actually submitted a final bid for the team at all. Bon Jovi and Trump both apparently seem keep to fudge the numbers here, but one thing the rocker is adamant about is that he was never going to move the team to Toronto.

A large part of the scheme involved convincing the fans that Bon Jovi and his partners intended to move the team to Canada, which Bon Jovi strenuously denies. “I can tell you, I swear to you on a stack of Bibles, because I had to have this hardy conversation with the two partners: ‘We’re not gonna get this unless we keep this here,’” he says, recalling the incident, which he calls “one of the biggest disappointments” of his life. “We never saw it coming. I was calling the town councilman, telling him, ‘I’m moving to Buffalo, New York!’”

We’ll never know what would have happened to the Bon Jovi Bills. But it’s clear that, despite more than six years removed from the incident, Bon Jovi is not ready to forgive. On Bon Jovi’s new album, for example, he has a song about Donald Trump that isn’t very positive.

But he does take direct aim at Donald Trump on his song “Blood In The Water”. “A storm is coming / Let me be clear / Your days are numbered,” he sings.

“‘Blood In The Water’ is directed at the administration, for sure. It starts off with ‘A storm is coming’ – Stormi Daniels. ‘Your shadow sold your secrets and he’s about to do some time’ – Michael Cohen. That’s what this was all written about. Now there’s blood in the water, a year later, or two months ago, you could say that it was the impeachment.”

What’s odd about all of this is, again, neither celebrity really had much chance of buying the team out from under Pegula, a man who was valued around $4 billion at the time of the sale. That doesn’t mean the musician will ever forgive the city of Buffalo for Trump’s apparent misdeeds, though, saying, “I won’t ever go back to the city of Buffalo. You will never see my face in Buffalo ever. I have knocked it off the map.”

I think it’s fair to say you shouldn’t expect a Bon Jovi concert in Western New York anytime soon. Then again, it’s also fair to say if it keeps the Bills in Buffalo, people there will take that deal every single time.

Late-night television over the last four years has been largely characterized by how the late-night hosts have handled Donald Trump. The affable and apolitical Jimmy Fallon, who entered the Trump era as the top-rated host on The Tonight Show, has fallen well behind The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, who has taken Trump head-on. Kimmel, meanwhile, has remained consistent, although he’s bought a lot of goodwill from many by attacking Trump while he’s also taken more lumps than other some late-night Trump critics because his former viewer base may have been more aligned with the Republican president.

One late-night host who has remained mostly unscathed by the Trump era has been Conan O’Brien, who has weirdly become the elder statesman of late-night TV these days, although in the last year or so, he’s probably found more success and influence on his podcast (and his podcast network) than on his TBS show, which has changed its format for the better. Most people probably know exactly where he stands politically, but Conan O’Brien largely steers clear of politics all the same. “I am just not a political comedian,” he said on his most recent podcast episode. “That is something that I have always stayed away from.”

Conan admits, however, that he supports Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and that he grew up in a household full of strong Democrats. He also joked that he really doesn’t understand undecided voters in 2020. “‘Well, the election is tomorrow,’ they will say to the undecided voter,” Conan joked. “‘The United States has been embroiled in financial and racial [controversies]. Half the United States is on fire. There have been unprecedented horrors under this administration. What do you think, [undecided voter]? Insane reality [show host] Donald Trump, or seasoned calm, moral Joe Biden?’”

Conan, then doing an impression of a dumb undecided voter, jokes: “‘Oh, I don’t know! I’d like to hear a little more about the crazy guy! Does he like animals? Well, maybe him then?’ But Biden likes animals, too. ‘Well, then, I’m still undecided!’”

“It is maddening,” Conan exclaims. “It is maddening!

That said, Conan also concedes that, while he is a Democrat, he has had a lot of great experiences with high-profile Republicans in the past, like John McCain, Bob Dole — both of whom have great senses of humor, according to O’Brien — and both Bush presidents, the first of whom once kindly invited Conan to his place in Kennebunkport, Maine.

“I’m not strident about politics,” Conan insisted. “But what I am strident about is morality and ethical behavior. And justice. And you do not have to be an ethicist to know that this President has completely undermined the norms of human behavior. As a Dad, I’m embarrassed, and I have said several times to my kids, ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry that this is the President that you’ve got.’”

I should note, too, that Conan made these remarks with his guest, Hillary Clinton, who started her own podcast and attributes its inspiration to Conan himself. Meanwhile, perhaps in a reflection of Conan’s more quiet political inclinations ahead of the election, he also had Michelle Obama on his podcast last week.

Source: Conan Needs a Friend

This weekend will bring the virtual Save Our Stages festival, an effort spearheaded by the recently formed National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) attempting to raise awareness for the need to support small music venues during the pandemic. A lot of artists signed on to help out, and one of them, Foo Fighters, took to TV last night to promote the event.

The band guested on yesterday’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, heading to the empty Troubadour in West Hollywood to perform one of their all-time classics, “Learn To Fly.” The performance was more acoustic than the album version, although they still worked on electric guitar into the mix.

Dave Grohl previously said of the event in a statement, “The smaller music venues and the ones that are really struggling are not only culturally important, they are emotionally important.”

The three-day event starts today, October 16, and runs through to October 18. Over 30 artists have been booked to perform, and aside from Grohl and the gang, participating acts include Brittany Howard, Brothers Osbourne, Dave Matthews, Dillon Francis, Finneas, G-Eazy, Gus Dapperton, Jason Mraz, Kelsea Ballerini, Leon Bridges, Macklemore, Major Lazer, Marshmello and Demi Lovato, Miley Cyrus, Phoebe Bridgers, The Roots, and YG.

Watch Foo Fighters perform “Learn To Fly” above.