Pop Culture
John Mulaney and Olivia Munn Are Dating: Report
<span class="localtime" data-ltformat="F j, Y | g:ia" data-lttime="2021-05-13T20:32:23+00:00“>May 13, 2021 | 4:32pm ET John Mulaney is reportedly dating Olivia Munn. People reports the 38-year-old comedian and 40-year-old actress met at a church in Los Angeles. “This is very new, they’re taking it slowly,” a source close to Mulaney told People. Earlier this week, Mulaney and his wife of six years, Anna Marie Tendler, announced their separation. “I am heartbroken that John has decided to end our marriage,” Tendler said in a statement. “I wish him support and success as he continues his recovery.” Related Video Late last year, Mulaney entered inpatient rehab for cocaine and alcohol abuse. This week, he returned to the stage for a series of sold-out s...
Dave Chappelle, Mos Def, and Talib Kweli Unveil The Midnight Miracle Podcast
<span class="localtime" data-ltformat="F j, Y | g:ia" data-lttime="2021-05-11T17:52:40+00:00“>May 11, 2021 | 1:52pm ET Dave Chappelle, Talib Kweli, and Yasiin Bey aka Mos Def have launched their new podcast The Midnight Miracle. The first two episodes are streaming now through the Luminary Podcast Network. The three longtime friends recorded this material during Chappelle’s 2020 Summer Camp series of socially-distanced comedy shows in Ohio. They spent hundreds of hours in front of microphones at the converted mechanic’s garage The Shack, which resulted in enough material to release new episodes through the end of the year, with a summer hiatus. Episode 1 is titled “How to Inspire”, and it opens with a prayer in Arabic that Chappelle then ...
Joe Rogan Hits Reverse on Vaccines: “I Believe They Are Safe and I Encourage Many People to Take Them”
<span class="localtime" data-ltformat="F j, Y | g:ia" data-lttime="2021-04-29T22:14:16+00:00“>April 29, 2021 | 6:14pm ET Earlier this week, Joe Rogan was roundly criticized for telling healthy young people to not get vaccinated against COVID-19, remarking on an episode of his popular podcast, “If you’re like 21 years old, and you say to me, should I get vaccinated? I go no.” Now, via The Hollywood Reporter, he’s walking back those statements, saying on the latest edition of The Joe Rogan Experience that it “makes sense” to get vaccinated to protect other people. It wasn’t quite an unequivocal apology; Rogan spent some time attacking the “click bait” instincts of the media, and questioned why anyone would listen to him in the first pl...
Florence Welch, Thomas Bartlett Writing Music for New Great Gatsby Broadway Show
<span class="localtime" data-ltformat="F j, Y | g:ia" data-lttime="2021-04-28T14:26:56+00:00“>April 28, 2021 | 10:26am ET Concert tours aren’t the only live musical productions gearing up for a post-pandemic return, as Broadway just got it first new project in over a year. Florence Welch of Florence + the Machine and producer Thomas “Doveman” Bartlett (St. Vincent, Sufjan Stevens) are set to write the lyrics and music for an upcoming stage adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic The Great Gatsby. “This book has haunted me for a large part of my life,” said Welch in a statement (via Deadline). “It contains some of my favorite lines in literature. Musicals were my first love, and I feel a deep connection to Fitzgerald’s broken romanticism. It is ...
Joe Rogan Tells Young People Not to Get COVID-19 Vaccine
<span class="localtime" data-ltformat="F j, Y | g:ia" data-lttime="2021-04-27T21:25:04+00:00“>April 27, 2021 | 5:25pm ET Joe Rogan, who once coached the contestants of Fear Factor through drinking donkey semen, now says that healthy young people shouldn’t be vaccinated against COVID-19. Via Media Matters, the highly compensated Spotify podcast host and all-around moron contradicted CDC guidelines on his April 23rd episode, saying, “If you’re like 21 years old, and you say to me, should I get vaccinated? I go no.” Rogan has long advocated for a kind of “thinking for yourself” that is unrecognizable as thinking: giving a platform to far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, spreading misinformation about the novel coronavirus, and repeatedly att...
Dave Chappelle, Mos Def, and Talib Kweli Announce New Podcast The Midnight Miracle
<span class="localtime" data-ltformat="F j, Y | g:ia" data-lttime="2021-04-20T19:14:51+00:00“>April 20, 2021 | 3:14pm ET Dave Chappelle has announced the new podcast The Midnight Miracle with his good friends Talib Kweli and Yasiin Bey, who raps under the name Mos Def. The show will arrive on the subscription podcast platform Luminary “in the coming weeks.” Chappelle’s relationship with Kweli and Bey goes back decades, and the two Black Star rappers were frequent guests on Chappelle’s Show. They also appeared at Chappelle’s 2020 Summer Camp series of socially-distanced comedy shows in Ohio, and it is here that The Midnight Miracle was born. The three friends gathered at the converted mechanic’s garage The Shack, recording hundre...
Too Soon Gone: How the Life and Music of DMX Tell a Tragically Familiar Story for Black Men
<span class="localtime" data-ltformat="F j, Y | g:ia" data-lttime="2021-04-11T15:15:47+00:00“>April 11, 2021 | 11:15am ET “I want Black men to grow old.” While scaling out to the larger population, away from the complexities of rapper Earl “DMX” Simmons’ untimely death, television writer Camilla Blackett simultaneously managed to home in on a core understanding. For Blackett and many others, the premature loss of Simmons labors as a frightening reminder that we, Black men, do not grow old, at least not nearly enough of us. Chadwick Boseman, Charlie Murphy, Bernie Mac, Nipsey Hussle, Prince, Heavy D, George Floyd, Gerald LeVert, Tupac Shakur, Notorious BIG, Prodigy (of Mobb Deep), J Dilla, Bernard Tyson, Fred the Godson. MF DOOM. These are an exceedingly...
Caitlyn Jenner Considering Run for Governor of California
Caitlyn Jenner, the 1976 Olympic gold medalist and former reality TV star best known for Keeping Up with the Kardashians, is considering a run for Governor of California. According to three sources “with direct knowledge of her deliberations,” Jenner has already made moves towards a political future, reports Axios. Jenner is a longtime Republican and was a vocal supporter of Donald Trump until late 2018 when she realized the president was “relentlessly attacking” the trans community. If she moves forward as a potential candidate, it’s likely that Jenner will seek the Republican nominee position — and champion a platform that’s a stark contrast to that of Gavin Newsom, the current Governor of California and Democrat who’s facing a recall election. The three sources who spoke with Axios reve...
Bill Burr Announces 2021 Tour Dates
Slowly but surely the US is preparing for a post-pandemic lifestyle, and that means large-scale in-person events are appearing on the horizon. Now, the latest person to plan for such is Bill Burr, who just announced a number of 2021 tour dates for later this summer. Burr’s upcoming tour spans 21 shows throughout the US, primarily in the fall. Beginning with his rescheduled dates at The Chelsea at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas on July 2nd and 3rd, the tour will see Burr stopping in Florida, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Georgia, California, Indiana, and more before concluding his trek in Phoenix, Arizona on December 30th. After taking part in COVID-19 benefit shows and hosting a controversial episode of Saturday Night Live, Burr was eager to get back to in-person comedy events where h...
San Diego Comic-Con Sparks Backlash for Planning In-Person Event on Thanksgiving Weekend
Just about every industry figured out ways to approximate their typical experiences online over the last year. Anaheim’s annual comic convention WonderCon just wrapped up its virtual event over the weekend, and the iconic San Diego Comic-Con has plans for a second online edition this summer. But just as many businesses are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, SDCC is already planning its big comeback extravaganza. The convention organizers have announced their first in-person event since 2019, Comic-Con Special Edition, and they’re holding it on… Thanksgiving weekend? CCSE is currently set for November 26th-28th this year, and responses to the dates has been largely negative for pretty obvious reasons. The pandemic prevented many people from spending the holidays with their ...
San Antonio Tussaud’s Pulls Wax Donald Trump Because People Keep Punching It
Louis Tussaud’s Waxworks in San Antonio, Texas has removed a figure of Donald Trump because people kept punching it, the San Antonio Express-News reports. The museum in Alamo Plaza is owned by Ripley Entertainment, and according to regional manager Clay Stewart, they’ve had to hide their Trump in a storage closet. “When it’s a highly political figure, attacks can be a problem,” Stewart said. In addition to regular pummelings, the wax sculpture received several deep, cathartic scratches to the face. The Waxworks initially tried to defend 45 by placing him in the lobby under the protective eye of ticket takers. But this proved to be no deterrent, as many visitors were moved to violence even while employees were watching. Eventually, Trump had to be pulled from circul...
New York Times Columnist Says Pepé Le Pew “Added to Rape Culture”
The last few weeks have seen a reckoning come to the world of children’s media, as some Dr. Seuss books have been pulled for racist imagery, while the Mr. Potato Head toy line dropped its gendered name (though that’s more of a branding move than anything). New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow has come out strongly on the “pro” side of such changes and argues further actions are needed. In particular, he’s called out the Looney Tunes character Pepé Le Pew for normalizing rape culture. In an opinion article for the Times, Blow commended the Dr. Seuss Enterprises’ decision to stop printing six books that contained racist imagery. His piece also pointed out a number of incidents in kids’ culture that he argued irresponsibly enforced racial stereotypes and inappropriate behavior. ...
