One sticking point for a number of basketball players has been using the league’s restart in Orlando as an opportunity to keep the fight against police brutality and systemic inequality in the spotlight. For a number of players, this means doing things like putting a word or phrase across the backs of their uniforms that is related to the current moment in America.
For Denver Nuggets forward Jerami Grant, he sees this as a chance to keep one issue in particular in the spotlight. Grant spoke to the media on Wednesday, and instead of diving into the minutiae of what life is like in the bubble, decided to focus on the fact that the police officers that killed Breonna Taylor have not been brought to justice.
“I think it’s great to be here with my teammates,” Grant told the Denver Post. “It’s great to be back playing basketball. For me personally, and I think a lot of the players, I think it’s imperative that we focus on what’s really important in the world. One thing, for me, is Breonna Taylor’s killers still are roaming around free. I think I just want to focus on that with these interviews.”
Grant echoed this sentiment when asked about Nikola Jokic joining the Nuggets in the bubble. Jokic tested positive for COVID-19 in Serbia, delaying his arrival in Orlando, but he has since made it down to Disney. When asked about this, Grant said, “Like I said, it’s great to have my teammates here, it’s great to be here playing basketball, but at the same time, I want to keep the focus on what’s really important. Breonna Taylor’s murderers still are roaming around free.”
Grant joined the Nuggets last offseason as has been a productive member of the team’s frontcourt, averaging 11.6 points and 3.5 rebounds in 26.2 minutes per game, largely in a role off the bench. On March 13, 2020, Taylor, a 26-year-old EMT who lived in Louisville, was shot by three plainclothes police officers who were executing a no-knock warrant as she was asleep with her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, in an apartment that was incorrectly targeted in a potential drug bust. While all three officers were placed on administrative leave — one has since been fired — and laws have been introduced and passed in some places to outlaw no-knock warrants, none of the officers involved have been arrested for the killing.
It was reported yesterday that Kanye filed a form declaring that the Kanye 2020 committee serves as the “Principal Campaign Committee” and backs Kanye as their candidate. That was just the first set of documents Kanye needed to file to legitimize his candidacy. TMZ reports, though, that Kanye has filed even more paperwork. The publication notes that Kanye has filed a Statement Of Candidacy, which documents that he has raised or spent more than $5,000 in campaign-related expenses. This gives Kanye official candidacy status under federal campaign law.
Yesterday, Kanye also qualified to appear on the Oklahoma presidential ballot. Yesterday (July 15) was the state’s deadline to appear on the ballot.
Kanye has not offered a public statement about his presidential campaign, or even discussed politics, since sharing a video teaching his followers how to register to vote on July 9. Most recently, he fired off a series of tweets about a chair he likes.
Kanye, along with a host of other celebrities and people with verified accounts, was also recently a victim of Twitter hackers perpetrating a Bitcoin scam.
Chuck Klosterman once observed that every straight American man “has at least one transitionary period in his life when he believes Led Zeppelin is the only good band that ever existed.” Typically, this “Zeppelin phase” occurs in one’s teens, when a band that sings lasciviously about squeezing lemons while contemplating hobbits aligns with the surging hormones of the listener. But what about when you hit your early 30s? Is there a band that corresponds with graying beards and an encroaching sense of mortality?
I believe, based on anecdotal evidence, that this band is the Grateful Dead.
Before we talk about the “Mid-Life Dead Phase,” however, let’s recognize that people of all ages are embracing the Dead now more than ever before. In the late 20th century, back when Jerry Garcia was still alive, the Grateful Dead was discussed in the mainstream primarily as a phenomenon that was popular among a small segment of fanatical Deadheads who famously followed the band from gig to gig, dispensing grilled cheese sandwiches and cheap acid in parking lots from Jersey City to Eugene, Oregon. But in recent years, the Dead have emerged as one of the most broadly popular American rock bands right now, even as the 25th anniversary of Garcia’s death in August looms.
In 2015, a poll found that the Dead was loved across all demographics, regardless of age or political persuasion. In fact, the groups you might expect to like the Dead less actually liked them more — in the poll, they had a higher favorability rating among people ages 18 to 44 than it did with the baby boomers who grew up in the band’s prime. And Republicans dug them slightly more than Democrats and independents.
There are other, less statistically driven signs of the Dead’s widespread acceptance. This year, there have been new Grateful Dead sneakers and new Grateful Dead edible deodorant. (Who ever thought people would want to smell like the Dead?) One of the summer’s most popular new music podcasts, Good Ol’ Grateful Deadcast, is officially sanctioned by the band and details the making of their classic album, Workingman’s Dead, which turns 50 this year. (There are dozens of other Dead podcasts as well, including a medium-popular one co-hosted by yours truly.) There’s also a massive new Vinyl Me, Please box set repackaging several of the Dead’s best albums that includes liner notes written by a wide cross-section of young musicians, ranging from country singer Margo Price to indie rockers liker Jim James of My Morning Jacket and MC Taylor of Hiss Golden Messenger.
If there were a normal year, the post-Jerry incarnation of the Dead, Dead & Company, would be in the midst of a stadium tour this month. Even tribute bands to the Dead, like the well-regarded Joe Russo’s Almost Dead, have graduated to headlining large outdoor venues like Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado.
This “Dead bump” can be traced back to 2015, when the “core four” surviving members reunited that summer for the Fare Thee Well concerts in California and Illinois. Soon after, guitarist Bob Weir and drummers Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart connected with John Mayer in Dead & Company, which quickly became the most successful version of the Dead since Garcia’s passing. (As of 2019, they have grossed more than $200 million on the road, and sold two million tickets.) Two years later, the excellent four-hour documentary Long Strange Trip helped to introduce the band to a newer, younger audience, contextualizing the band’s story right down to the minutia of their epic “Wall Of Sound” P.A.. (No other rock band doc has ever featured as much input from roadies.) That same year, Pitchfork ran an in-depth feature positing the best live versions of various Dead songs, a delightfully nerdy endeavor that would’ve been inconceivable on the taste-making indie site back in its early days. (Consider that in 2004, when Pitchfork ranked the 100 best albums of ’70s, they didn’t include a single Grateful Dead LP, even though the decade coincides with the band’s best studio work, including American Beauty and Workingman’s Dead, as well as the iconic live triple album, Europe ’72.)
Of course — as many Deadheads, no doubt annoyed by an abundance of recent “why are the Dead so popular?” articles, will point out — this band has always been bigger than they appeared to outsiders. In an evocative 2012 New Yorker story, journalist and Deadhead Nick Paumgarten recalled how the band “was something of a cult” at the boarding school he attended in the early ’80s, a period when the Grateful Dead were as far removed from the trendy rock vanguard — which at the time was enraptured with new wave bands and synthesizers — as they are from pop and hip-hop music in 2020. Back then, the gospel of the Dead was spread strictly via word of mouth, as fans shared cassette tapes of the band’s live concerts, “copies of copies of copies, usually many generations removed from the original source,” Baumgarten writes. No music critic would have called the Grateful Dead “relevant” in 1983, and yet the Dead ultimately transcended such transitory thinkpiece fare thanks to deathless grassroots support.
For years, the Dead’s approach to their career appeared counterintuitive to the point of wanton self-destructiveness: Largely eschew radio singles, make albums with bored indifference, commit to improvising at every concert and throw consistency to the wind, and adopt a laissez-faire attitude toward bootleggers. But they were playing the long game — kids like Baumgarten (and many generations after him) were plugged into a kind of social media before social media, relying on each other to “report” on their favorite band, which (as the internet does) fed their interest in the Dead to the point of mania. The Dead somehow stumbled upon a career path that bonded their audience tightly to them, while also avoiding the inevitable burnout that comes from having a ubiquitous hit song or album that people grow tired of. Years later, when the power of radio diminished and people stopped buying music, the Dead were uniquely positioned to keep on truckin.’
So if the Dead has always been popular, what’s different now? For starters, it’s easier than ever to become an obsessive Dead fan. Collecting live tapes in the ’80s and ’90s required a lot of patience, a lot of Maxell cassettes, and a connection to a nationwide (or even worldwide) network that distributed the music via the mail, in the parking lot outside of a Dead gig, or the sort of dorm-room networks that Paumgarten describes. (This was Spotify before Spotify.) Now, you can simply download the Relisten app on your phone and voila, instant access to good (and frequently great) sounding recordings of virtually every concert (more than 2,000 of them) that the Dead ever played over the course of 30 years.
And then there’s the most troublesome baggage affixed to the Grateful Dead — the obnoxious Deadhead stereotypes that defined the band’s media coverage in the late ’80s and early ’90s, when they rode the wave from their sole Top 10 hit, “Touch Of Grey,” to stadium-headliner status. Paumgarten sums up these stereotypes in his New Yorker piece: “Airheads and druggies, smelling of patchouli and pot, hairy, hypocritical, pious, ingenuous, and uncritical in the extreme.” I was a teenager around that time who was equally enamored with alt-rock and classic rock, and yet the Dead didn’t interest me largely because the fan culture both repulsed and intimidated me. Even if you could get past the baggage of Dead fans, would Dead fans actually accept you? Looking back, these worries and prejudices seem quaint. Anybody can be a Deadhead now, whether you’re an old-school hippie like Bill Walton or a modern right-wing ghoul like Ann Coulter. If we believe national polls, the world absorbed Dead culture. Or, maybe, Dead culture absorbed the world.
But what explains the “Mid-Life Dead Phase”? After dabbling a bit in the Dead in my 20s, I turned the corner and became a devotee in my early 30s, which coincided with so many Dead shows being available for download on Live Archive. So technology certainly had a lot to with it. But I had also grown disillusioned with the persistent taste politics endemic to conversations about contemporary pop and indie music. So much of the talk then centered on whether you were a “hipster” for liking certain artists, or hopelessly lame and passé for favoring others. It was all about turning what you like into what you’re like, and it was frankly exhausting. I might have also been a little insecure. As a music critic in a youth-obsessed industry, I was no longer young. But in the Dead world, that didn’t seem to matter, either.
From the outside, getting into the Dead seemed like a vacation from all of that fashion-obsessed stuff I loathed about mainstream music. After all, who likes the Dead to be cool? Becoming a Deadhead, therefore, felt like a way to liberate myself. As much as I’m inclined to reflexively make fun of anyone who claims to “only care about the music, man,” I wanted to be around people who, ahem, only cared about the music, man.
Now, obviously, this was all a naive fantasy. The Dead scene, like any scene, is rife with extremely judgmental people. For Deadheads, the taste police might for instance bust you for caring too much about Cornell ’77, the single most famous Dead live recording that, naturally, makes some of the band’s “obscure for obscure’s sake” self-appointed custodians bristle. (For the record, I love Cornell ’77 and implore you to put it on now if you’ve never heard it.) But I wasn’t completely off. And I suspect this “vacation from fashion” aspect has brought other pilgrims to the Dead after they turned 30.
When I interviewed Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend, an enthusiastic Dead convert who often talks about the band on his Apple Music radio show “Time Crisis,” earlier this year, his experience reminded me of my own. “This is a broad-stroke, reductive view, but there is something about the jam-band ethos that feels pleasantly removed from the hard-core branding-and-marketing side of almost every other genre of music,” he said. “You could poke holes in that argument so easily — I recognize that. But to some extent it does stand apart.”
Some of the holes you could poke in that view are the aforementioned Grateful Dead shoes and deodorant, among hundreds of other band-related merchandise. But if the Dead scene isn’t exactly a post-taste and corporate-free utopia, it does offer a tremendous opportunity for seemingly endless discovery. This, more than anything, explains why I and perhaps others have been drawn into this world relatively late in life. Getting into the Dead replicates the feeling I had as a kid learning about music for the first time, when all artists were new and classic albums I had never heard were blowing my mind every day. Once you reach a certain age, it’s impossible to feel that way again, which is why so many people drift away from discovery in middle age and stick with the music they know. With the Grateful Dead, however, there’s always a new tape that includes an amazing “China>Rider” you’ve never heard. Your mind never stops being blown. You put a Dead tape on, and time stops. Jerry is alive again, and the world seems exciting and fresh once more.
The Grateful Dead is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek, who made his stage IV pancreatic cancer diagnosis public last year, offered an encouraging update on his health. “I’m doing well. I’ve been continuing my treatment and it is paying off, although it does fatigue me a great deal. My numbers are good. I’m feeling great,” he said in a video message before revealing that even he wrote a book, due out July 21. Trebek is also sporting some impressive facial hair, as he’s had time to grow a beard due to a break in Jeopardy! taping schedule.
About that: it’s still not safe for Jeopardy! to resume production, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, but Trebek is busy at home “recording show openings for some very special Jeopardy! episodes that will be coming out in July,” he said. “For the first time ever, we are going to open the Jeopardy! vault and take another look at some of our favorite episodes, including the very first Jeopardy! show I ever hosted.” He’s so smiley!
Here’s the schedule:
July 20-24: The Best of JEOPARDY!‘s First Decade
This week features five of the best and most exciting shows from the 1980s, including the series premiere, the first “super-champion,” the first record-setting contestant, and more.
July 27-31: The Best of Celebrity JEOPARDY!
Throughout the years, JEOPARDY! has invited celebrities to play for their favorite charities, and more than $9 million has been won for great causes. This week features five of the most entertaining celebrity games ever.
August 3-7 & August 10-14: Million Dollar Masters (2002) Encore Presentation
For its first-ever million-dollar competition, 15 of the best contestants from the first 18 seasons of the show competed in a two-week contest taped at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.
Christopher Osburn has spent the last fifteen years in search of the best — or at least his very favorite — sip of whiskey on earth. In the process, he’s enjoyed more whiskey drams than his doctor would dare feel comfortable with, traveled to over 20 countries testing local spirits, and visited more than fifty whiskey distilleries.
There are few spirits more American than bourbon (although apple jack enthusiasts would beg to differ). Distilled the United States since the 1800s, for a whiskey to be called a ‘bourbon’ it must fit certain criteria. Among the specific parameters it has to follow, it’s got to be made from at least 51 percent corn in the mash bill and barrelled in first-use American oak (it doesn’t, however, need to be made in Kentucky). The corn is where the spirit gets that mellow, corn-honeyed sweetness that every bourbon lover expects when they crack open a new bottle. The oak gives it the mellow, toasty spice.
In the hierarchy of bourbon, there are a handful of names that dominate in both name recognition and production. They include Jim Beam, Wild Turkey, Buffalo Trace, and — on the elite end — Pappy Van Winkle. But while these brands and their various subsidiaries continue to craft whiskey at high levels, there are a handful of other brands perhaps equally if not more deserving of accolades.
With literally thousands of expressions on the market, every serious drinks writer is going to develop a few favorites. Check out my list of underrated bourbons below.
George Remus Repeal Reserve
Story:
From MGP, this high rye bourbon is in its third year of availability. Made from a blend of 11-12-year-old bourbons and two different mash bills, Remus Repeal is named for a bootlegger and crafted to pay homage to the repealing of prohibition in the United States on December 5, 1933. The new Remus Repeal is released on King George’s birthday on November 13 every year.
If you’re able to find a bottle, you’ll be treated to the velvety smooth mouthfeel of the 2019 limited edition bottling. This blended bourbon is created to have a full range of flavors including toffee, baking spices, candied orange peel, rich caramel, and just a hint of pleasing rye spice that builds throughout.
Old Grand-Dad Bonded
Story:
You might not know it, but the “Old Grand-Dad” on the bottle is none other than Basil Hayden (yes, that Basil Hayden). That’s because his grandson Raymond Hayden created the brand in the 1800s. Currently, the brand is owned by Beam Suntory (who also own Basil Hayden’s) but that hasn’t changed the overall Old Grand-Dad experience.
The core Old Grand-Dad line comes in three different proofs: 80, 100, and 114.
Old Grand-Dad Bond is inexpensive, 100 proof, and surprisingly easy to drink. Sure, it works well as a mixer for your favorite whiskey-based drinks. But if you sip it neat or on the rocks, you’ll be met with an initial spicy hit of cinnamon followed by dried fruits before gently gliding into sweet caramel and subtle oak.
Four Roses Yellow Label
Story:
This high corn (75 percent) whiskey is aged between 4 and 12 years. That range guarantees a fairly high-quality bourbon at a value price. Sure, you can pay a little more to get a bottle of small-batch, single-barrel or small-batch select, but you honestly don’t even need to.
Even at a low sticker price, this bottle if well-suited for sipping neat or mixing into an old fashioned or mint julep.
We hate to keep harping on the low price of this offering, but it should be noted that even though you don’t have to pay a week’s rent to get a bottle, it’s perfectly balanced, soft in mouthfeel, and full of fresh sweet corn, dried fruits, vanilla, and just a hint of pleasing peppery spice at the very end of each sip.
Very Old Barton
Story:
Very Old Barton actually isn’t very old at all. The juice inside is somewhere in the 6-year range. But at less than $15 dollars at most retailers, we’ll let someone else worry about the age semantics. For the price, this is a can’t miss bourbon. Made by the Sazerac company, Very Old Barton is bottled in multiple proofs including 80, 86, 90, and 100 and was once given a very surprising score of 90.5 in Jim Murray’s Whiskey Bible.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a better bottom shelf bourbon on the planet. With a mash bill of 75 percent corn, 15 percent rye, and 10 percent barley, this is a very well-rounded whiskey. Due to the overwhelming amount of corn, this bourbon is sweeter than most, if you dig that sort of thing. It’s full of sticky toffee, honey, and stone fruit flavors as well as just a hint of peppery spice at the end thanks to the rye.
Bib & Tucker
Story:
There’s a reason bartenders enjoy this Tennessee-based bourbon. It’s only been available since 2014 but has already gained a cult following for its high quality that starts with 70 percent corn-based mash bill and 6 years of maturation. While the distillery listed for producing it is 35 Maple Street Spirits, it’s rumored that it’s actually produced by George Dickel. This would surprise no one, as it’s the same high level as the beloved Tennessee whiskey brand.
While this 90 proof offering is made up of 70 percent corn, it’s also comprised of 26 percent rye. The result is a highly complex, well-balanced whiskey with smoky cinnamon on the first sip followed by hints of anise, cloves, and dried fruits, all brought together by sweet cream and light peppery spice from the rye.
Baker’s
Story:
Baker’s is the sometimes-forgotten member of Jim Beam’s Small Batch Bourbon Collection. Basil Hayden’s, Knob Creek, and Booker’s seem to get all the press. Named for Baker Beam, the grand-nephew of Jim Beam, Baker’s is aged for 7 years and sits at a highly potent 107 proof. This doesn’t stop it from being extremely sippable and bold.
Even though this whiskey is 107 proof, it’s surprisingly mellow — with subtle Christmas spices prevalent on your first sip. This is quickly followed by vanilla, caramelized sugar, and rich dried leather. The heat is long-lasting, but not harsh as it seems to warm you all the way through by the end of your first glass.
Jay-Z, Rihanna, and many more stars of the music world have created and signed a petition to reopen the case of a man who was shot and killed by police in 2010, according to NME. The man, DJ Henry, was shot and killed by police officer Aaron Hess outside of a bar in Pleasantville, New York when officers reportedly asked him to move his car out of a fire lane. Police later reported he’d rammed two of them with his car, prompting them to open fire, but eyewitness accounts contradict the official report.
Rihanna and Jay were joined by Charlize Theron, Mary J. Blige, Pharrell Williams, and more, addressing the petition to New York Attorney General William Barr asking him to “reopen the case and probe the wrongful death of Danroy ‘D.J.’ Henry.”
“As the Department knows, this agonizing case remains an unhealed wound for the Henry family and the people of New York,” the letter reads. “More concerning, even a cursory review of the fact pattern of what occurred distills more questions than answers. DJ, a Black youth with a bright future ahead of him, was killed for no apparent reason inside his own vehicle. The facts of the case reek of local conflict of interest, racial bias and even false testimony.”
It continues, “But like so many other unarmed and innocent young, Black men who find themselves guilty of being at the wrong place at the wrong time, DJ too, lost his life for no good reason and with absolutely no good explanation — to this very day, Justice, it appears, has been denied.”
The petition comes as protests against police violence continue across the nation including the participation of many hip-hop stars such as YBN Cordae, who was arrested at a sit-in in Kentucky demanding accountability for officers who shot and killed Breonna Taylor.
The making of Charli XCX’s quarantine album, How I’m Feeling Now, was a transparent process, more so than the creation of most music. Charli sought ideas and input from her followers in real time, bouncing ideas of them as she released songs and created visuals. Still, fans didn’t get to see the entire process, but Charli will be pulling back the curtain even more with a new documentary, 6ft Apart.
“It felt only natural to document myself making this album. I don’t think I’ve ever made music in such a unique situation: being so logistically far apart from my collaborators, but going through exactly the same thing, writing songs about my relationship with my boyfriend sitting in the next room, and being so connected to my fans in such an intense and creative way, it felt quite overwhelming and heartwarming all at the same time. So I wanted to film it all.
Why not add to the pressure of making an extremely personal album within a five-week timeline by putting a load of cameras in my face and zooming in on my personality and insecurities too??! You know???”
The official announcement also reads in part:
“The project would be a virtual experiment like no other, with Charli making use of all the tools at her disposal – collaborating online with select artists and her fans around the world via social media. No fancy recording studios. No glossy music videos; everything is made at home, and yet everything is made with the world watching. ‘6ft Apart’ depicts how this project would become a cathartic lifeline for both Charli and her fans, called the ‘Angels’, and a welcome distraction for the wider music world. At the very heart of ‘6ft Apart,’ we uncover the profound power of music to inspire hope, bringing people together in a time where we are forced to be apart; from Charli’s own relationship with her long-distance-now-live-in boyfriend, to a generation around the world in times of global crisis.”
6ft Apart does not yet have an announced release date, but it is currently in post-production and is set to be released later this year.
Charli XCX is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Chrissy Teigen has blocked over one million Twitter accounts in the days since Jeffrey Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested. The author has been the subject of conspiracy theories linking her to the convicted sex offender, “never mind the fact I have never even met the man. Or been to the island. Or on the plane,” she wrote.
On Wednesday, Teigen tweeted, “I have block chained over one million people, ONE MILLION people today and I am still flooded with sick psychopaths. So please, spare me the ‘just ignore them, they’re just trolls.’ I’ll do my best to stop entertaining them. They have definitely been living for this and have zeroed in on ONLY me. Thank u to EVERYONE for helping me.” She also recently “deleted 60,000 tweets because I cannot f*cking STAND you idiots anymore and I’m worried for my family. Finding me talking about toddlers and tiaras in 2013 and thinking you’re some sort of fucking operative.”
The social media blitz against Teigen started last week with claims that her name appeared on unsubstantiated flight logs said to belong to Epstein, who killed himself while awaiting trial in a New York federal detention center in 2019. (Via)
Teigen, who is convinced that the theorists “won’t stop until I die” (and “even then they’ll think of another conspiracy”), has considered leaving Twitter altogether if the platform “doesn’t do something about this *actually scary* harassment… I have a family and job and there are too many to target. I’ve tried everything. every lawyer says it will take many years and not change a f*cking thing. because they will ALWAYS be crazy.”
But she found one silver lining: “ok pissing them off is way more fun than being sad.”
The long list for the Polaris Prize, one of Canada’s biggest musical honors, was revealed last month. Among the most notable works included among the 40 potential nominees included albums by Andy Shauf, Caribou, Daniel Caesar, Dvsn, Kaytranada, Jessie Reyez, US Girls, and The Weeknd. Now, that list has been further pared down to just ten albums, and there are snubs.
Of the aforementioned artists, Caribou, Kaytranada, Jessie Reyez, and US Girls earned nominations. However, The Weeknd, Andy Shauf, Daniel Caesar, and Dvsn did not.
Despite his super successful career and his status as one of Canada’s biggest music stars, The Weeknd hasn’t had much success with the Polaris Prize. His debut mixtape, 2011’s House Of Balloons, earned a nomination that year, but none of his other works have.
As for the other artists who have been nominated this year, previous winners include Caribou (who won in 2008 for Andorra) and Kaytranada (2016, 99.9%). Previously earning nominations are Caribou (2010, Swim; 2015, Our Love), US Girls (2016, Half Free; 2018, In A Poem Unlimited), and Reyez (2019, Being A Human In Public).
Find the full list of nominees below.
Backxwash — God Has Nothing To Do With This Leave Him Out Of It
Caribou — Suddenly
Junia-T — Studio Monk
Kaytranada — Bubba
Nêhiyawak — Nipiy
Pantayo — Pantayo
Lido Pimienta — Miss Colombia
Jessie Reyez — Before Love Came To Kill Us
US Girls — Heavy Light
Witch Prophet — Dna Activation
It was around the first week of April that the nightmares started, nightmares that persist to this day. I’ve come to notice there are two kinds of tweets about the pandemic: those from people who were in New York City in April, and those from people who weren’t in New York City in April. And I’ve become very good at being able to tell which category any given tweet might fall into. There’s a special kind of urgency from those of us who were in New York City in April, shouting as loud as we could to take all this seriously because I promise you don’t want to experience what we did. The sirens really were nonstop. Mass graves were dug. Trucks full of bodies were parked on the streets. I remember one week, the worst week, when my only goal was hoping we didn’t get sick that week, because the chances of getting treatment seemed poor. If we were going to get sick, please let it be another week. The impact of that month is only starting to hit me lately. At the time, you just kind of do it. But, I don’t sleep well. I suspect I’ll have nightmares about that month the rest of my life.
As the pandemic rages through other parts of the United States, it’s hard not to feel despair. At least, I thought, others will look at what happened to us and take the necessary precautions to make sure that it doesn’t happen elsewhere. Though, even then, when I’d talk to friends not in New York, there was always an underlying sense that this was “a New York thing” and certainly couldn’t happen to them. It is really frustrating trying to warn people of something that is so real, so dangerous, yet they refuse to listen. Anyway, yes, when someone tweets about the pandemic, I can tell right away if they were in New York City in April. You can still read the fear.
It was pretty early on that I realized my life as I knew it was over for the considerable future. This seems to be something a lot of people are still struggling with and actively trying to resist, which is leading to a whole host of problems. And I’m not talking about the frontline workers who are bravely showing up every day to keep things going, I’m talking about the idiots putting those frontline workers in jeopardy because they don’t like wearing a mask, or think they can still have a robust social life during a pandemic. So, yes, it was early on I conceded this would be the lost year. (I am still holding out hope it’s only a year.)
But then, I thought, what if it wasn’t a “lost” year?
There’s no way around the fact we’ve all been dealt a bad hand right now, even though there still seem to be plenty of people out there who still think they can win with a pair of twos. So, I made a pact with myself that, after all this is over, I wanted to be able to look back on it and think, well, at least I did that. When this all first started there was the whole King Lear meme, but I wanted to be realistic. (And I knew whatever my version of King Lear drivel I came up with in my current headspace, would turn out more like “The Big Heist,” the book Chevy Chase writes in Funny Farm.)
So, we’ve all been there. Those awkward moments when someone references a movie we haven’t seen, but we totally should have seen, and we just kind of play along, “Oh, yeah, what a line!,” even though we haven’t seen that particular movie. What if I compiled a list of pretty much every time this has ever happened and watch them all? What if I filled every movie blind spot I have? What if I watch every movie that I’ve either watched to see and never got around to it, or just plain feel guilty I’ve never seen? What if, after all this is over, I have another decade’s worth of pop culture knowledge I didn’t have before, all crammed into one year?
So, now, about three and a half months into this, I’ve watched 173 movies. Some of these are new streaming movies I’ve watched for work. Some are movies I’ve seen before. (Weekend nights are usually reserved for stuff I’ve seen before, but just want good escapism.) But before this started, two of my biggest blind spots were Robert Altman movies and Humphrey Bogart movies – I would consider neither of these to be “blind spots” anymore. I’ve become a bit obsessed with all this. On the nights I don’t watch something, I feel kind of guilty. Like, I’ve been “given” all this extra time and I need to do something with it. Which is also why I get so frustrated with the people we see without masks, trying to live their lives like before. Not just for the obvious health risks to others, but also, this is your chance to go do something productive. But, instead, they’d rather stand around and whine about how they don’t like masks.
But something weird has happened. With no movies in theaters, old and new movies have morphed together into one conglomerate. There are no longer new movies and old movies. All of a sudden, since there are no new movies in theaters, every movie was now released in 2020. Everything is fair game. A few years ago, a friend of mine was working on a story about how if movies stopped getting made, the average human being would still have enough classic movies they haven’t seen to last a lifetime. When he told me that, I found that fascinating, because it’s true. But it was also unrealistic, because movies weren’t going to stop and the impulse is to watch the latest, greatest thing and not something from the past we haven’t seen.
But movies did stop. And it’s a fascinating effect. (Even if you look at the box office numbers right now, The Empire Strikes Back, Gremlins, Black Panther, and Jurassic Parkare all in the top 10.) And I don’t think I’m alone here because when I peruse through people’s Letterboxd accounts, I see a lot of similar journeys. All of a sudden, movies stopping has created this weird time vortex where the date a movie released no longer matters. It’s all “now.” When I someday look back on 2020, and I bet I will quite a bit, I’ll remember April. I’ll always remember the fear. But I’ll also remember it as when both Palm Springs and Key Largo came out in the same year. It’s the year both Da 5 Bloods and California Split came out.
There are no longer new movies and old movies, there are only movies that help us get by and, at least, give us something to hold onto for now.
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.
