It can be tough, these days, to remember that this country is in fact still full of great things and greater people. And that’s why we’re happy to share this Instagram video of America’s Top Baby Riley Curry reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, as posted by her mother, Ayesha Curry, on Dec. 13.
The Warriors may have ended their streak on Saturday at a measly (kidding!) 24 wins, but Riley’s streak of being the Cutest Sports Baby in America shows no signs of slowing.
Bonus: Should you find yourself consumed with rage and dismay while watching tomorrow night’s GOP debate, this video might serve as the perfect antidote. With liberty and justice for all, indeed.
Justin Bieber — a puppy you sort of thought was cute once a long time ago but then he followed you home and wouldn’t stop whining, chewing on the furniture, getting DUIs, sleeping with supermodels and making millions upon millions of dollars, all before he was old enough to drink — has had a really good year.
That’s an understatement, actually. The Great Bieber Rebrand of 2015 will likely be studied by breathless PR apprentices for years to come, as well it should be. How a guy went from professional punchline to topping professional critics’ end-of-the-year lists is a public image redemption arc for the ages.
Except that not everyone is won over so easily. SF City Attorney Dennis Herrera’s office, for example, was probably not bumping Purpose (which just went platinum) when it issued a letter on Dec. 28, addressed to heads of Def Jam and Universal Music Group, blasting the “illegal guerilla marketing stunt” that accompanied the album — a.k.a. the Bieber graffiti that began showing up on San Francisco sidewalks in the weeks before the album dropped in November.
Herrera, who called the graffiti vandalism “illegal and actionable” in a letter today to executives from Def Jam Records and Universal Music Group, vowed to “aggressively pursue all available penalties and costs from those responsible for lawless marketing tactics that intend to financially benefit your respective companies.”
San Francisco Public Works has for weeks responded to neighborhood complaints about the stenciled ads, which have otherwise persisted undiminished through several rainstorms. Unlike other recent instances of illegal sidewalk advertising that was chalk-based, according to Herrera’s letter, the Bieber-related graffiti appears to have been applied with permanent spray paint. Such defiant guerrilla marketing tactics have become an increasingly unwelcome sight to many San Francisco residents, according to their reactions on social media, in published news accounts, and in complaints to City officials.
“….This prohibited marketing practice illegally exploits our City’s walkable neighborhoods and robust tourism; intentionally creates visual distractions that pose risks to pedestrians on busy rights of way; and irresponsibly tells our youth that likeminded lawlessness and contempt for public property are condoned and encouraged by its beneficiaries—including Mr. Bieber and the record labels that produce and promote him.”
The letter does not, unfortunately, address how criminally sad it is for a major corporate media conglomerate to attempt to ply consumers into associating a mainstream-in-every-sense-of-the-term pop star with subversive “street” values, but perhaps that goes unspoken? Herrera does add that he has successfully fought back against “virtually identical” infractions from “IBM, NBC Universal, Turner Broadcasting and Zynga” over the past 15 years. Those actions did not, you will note, make for such fun headlines.
We’ll keep you posted on SF Taxpayers vs. The Biebs as the situation develops. Feel free to insert your own “Is it too late for him to say sorry?” joke here. In the meantime, our young Odysseus appears to be spending the holidays somewhere tropical, doing this:
It is 1997, I am 13 years old, and I have the house to myself.
This is a situation people relish at any age — but when you are 13 years old and confused all the time and spend most of your days in seemingly vacuum-sealed rooms, occupying a series of plastic chairs lined up next to other plastic chairs containing other 13-year-olds who are seething with tumultuous home lives and hormones and unfortunate harbingers of facial hair, a house to yourself is a kingdom. It is possibility.
I already know about music as an escape hatch: I have my stereo in my room, and my mixtapes made off local alt-rock radio stations, and the East Bay punk bands in whom I have such incredibly fierce pride that I hope it helps cover for the fact that I am not actually drinking forties down by the BART tracks with safety pins on my clothes; I am home doing my homework, for now, at least.
If I’ve realized that music can be a tunnel out, though, I am still learning its dimensions — how far back this goes, how far off it can take you, how long other people have known about this — and I am doing that by going through my parents’ records. They are vaguely alphabetized. Joe Jackson, Janis Joplin, The Kinks, Carole King.
My first real encounter with David Bowie is this: I take Hunky Dory offthe shelf, consider its weathered exterior, pull the record from its sleeve, and place it on the turntable. Then I sit cross-legged on the couch — between the two speakers, enveloped by sound — and listen with what feels like every pore on my body.
I am now in my thirties, and I have known for some time now, while also knowing this is a fantastically unreasonable standard, that all I want from music — from any art, really — is for it to make me feel the way I felt the first time I heard the first chorus of “Oh! You Pretty Things.” The overwhelming, visceral thrill of it: the moment the strings and bass knock your feet out from under you, the seconds-long swoop of going upside down on a rollercoaster — and when the chorus is over, the awareness that your ear is straining for it to come around again, but also that the anticipation is half the fun. That something with no measurable or useful effect on your body has seemingly rewired your brain to make you crave it; that you are now a junkie; that because of sounds recorded in 1971, you just went somewhere else entirely while sitting in your parents’ living room in 1997. The slow realization that music maybe isn’t a secret escape hatch, but rather a vast entry portal hiding in plain sight, and what’s on the other side is maybe much, much bigger than you ever imagined.
Look, I know that writing about a David Bowie memory right now is self-indulgent. It feels gross, and it feels like not enough, and it would feel that way if I spent the next five years writing it, which I could very easily do. There’s no way around this inadequacy: I could choose to put on my objective critic’s hat and focus on how forward-thinking he always was; how tremendously gratifying it is that mainstream pop music was ever this deeply queer and challenging, and offer a hope that we ever get there again. I could say David Bowie’s work is what all art should strive to be: a mirror, a warm blanket, a firepoker. And that even his death — his just-released record, a final act of perfectly timed theater, so Bowie-esque it hurts — should serve as an inspiration.
I could declare, correctly, that because I’m a heterosexual white girl he meant different things to me than he did to other people, people who saw themselves reflected in him for the first time, in real and irreplaceable ways. But I might also venture that one constant throughout his chameleon-like career was a sense of inclusivity alongside the playfulness, and the result was that once you let him in, his music had a mainline straight to your emotional gut no matter who you were; David Bowie would likely not care for the idea of posthumous ownership Olympics.
David Bowie performing in Hartford, Conn., in 1995. (via NPR)
All of which is to say, there are a lot of pieces containing a lot of people’s Bowie memories on the internet today, and none of them are going to be enough, and I want to suggest that that’s okay, because the truth is we don’t know how else to say thank you. We do know how to say “This is what he meant to me.” And because he contained multitudes, it’d be odd if that outpouring were anything but prismatic.
So rather than clamor for one true legacy or final word on the man, I’d offer a step back and, if you can muster it, a tamping down of the inevitable cynicism about the way we process celebrity deaths via social media in 2016. I’m going to aim, at least, in scrolling through an endless feed of search engine-optimized rock star death #content and music videos and entire articles crafted around tweets, for a sober 13-year-old’s sense of awe — at David Bowie’s art, at his humanity, and at the fact that it’s possible for this one weird, beautiful human to have changed so many other humans in so many weird, beautiful ways.
We don’t run into the streets so much anymore, as a society. We don’t pound on neighbors’ doors to spread the news. We’re all sitting on different couches right now, behind separate computers, in separate orbits, with entirely different interpretations of what it is we’ve just lost. What we can do, together, is find ourselves some good speakers and hit “play.”
Today’s science lesson, kids: Don’t pick a rap battle with a scientist — especially if he has a rapper for a nephew.
Ok, so where to begin? If you turned on the radio at all in 2010, you were probably unable to avoid a song called “Nothin’ On You,” the debut single from B.o.B., aka Bobby Ray Jr., a rapper from Decatur, Georgia. In the five years since then, the artist has had several chart-topping singles, often collaborations — with Hayley Williams of Paramore, with T.I. and Chris Brown, with Taylor Swift.
Well, the 27-year-old went and made headlines again yesterday for another, um, collaboration of sorts. First, he spent the evening of Jan. 24 and most of Jan. 25 tweeting about his belief that the world is in fact flat and that NASA is lying to us all (see below).
The cities in the background are approx. 16miles apart… where is the curve ? please explain this pic.twitter.com/YCJVBdOWX7
The World’s Most Accessible Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson then had the audacity to respond to some of B.o.B’s tweets with some verified science facts, explaining why the world might look flat while continuing to be round, a reality that was established in the 3rd century BC.
@bobatl Flat Earth is a problem only when people in charge think that way. No law stops you from regressively basking in it.
B.o.B then responded overnight with — what else? — a diss track sampling a speech of Tyson’s. Bonus (kind of): In said track, the rapper expresses a much wider ranger of beliefs in conspiracy theories (including references to Holocaust deniers, Stalin, UFO crash cover-ups, and President Obama being controlled by some kind of shadowy Jewish force) than his original burst of crazy. Check out the lyrics on Genius.com for a handy walk-through of the insanity.
As for Neil deGrasse Tyson? Never one to shy away from a debate, the scientist did what any beloved celebrity intellectual would do — turned to his nephew, the rapper Steven J. Tyson (aka TYSON) and released a response diss track of his own just this afternoon.
Behold: “Flat to Fact,” which, if you didn’t catch the reference to Drake’s 2015 Meek Mill diss track “Back to Back,” perhaps you’ll note that the beat and instrumentals are pretty much exactly the same, while the rapping is, well…it’s rapping.
“I got science in my corner and there’s nothing to fear/I’m not sure what it was that really made you think you could disrespect a Tyson and your ship won’t sink.” The song manages to diss Stacey Dash and Donald Trump in a rather efficient manner, as well.
’s second season may have started, but all anyone can talk about is how it doesn’t hold a candle to the greatness of the first season. That is, when they’re not talking about all the recent developments in Adnan’s case.
In case you don’t know:
Last January, a court said they would consider Adnan’s appeal. In February, he won his motion to appeal. In May, Adnan was granted a chance at a shorter sentence. In August, Adnan’s lawyer submitted new evidence that could overturn his conviction. And in November, a judge ordered for Adnan Syed’s case to be officially re-opened.
Fast forward to present day and we now know when the rehearing will occur — February 3-5, 2016. Yes, as in next week!! The rehearing will focus on the testimony of Asia McClain, who said she was with Adnan at the time of Hae Min Lee’s murder, as well as new cell phone tower evidence.
There’s surely more to come out of all of this so watch this space. Until then, check out all of our Serial coverage (there’s a lot).
In an excellent GQ profile out today, Justin Bieber took the time to remind us all of his birthday, March 1. The perpetually remorseful pop star will be turning 22 next month, but if you want to serenade him with a special YouTube or Instagram video, you should probably wait two weeks afterward to be safe: March 14, 2016 will mark the first official day that you can’t get hit with a copyright infringement suit for broadcasting a recorded performance of “Happy Birthday to You.”
Yes, one of the weirder legal battles of our time has come to an end. The birthday song, a tune most children learn by the time they’re 3 years old, will finally enter the public domain.
“Happy Birthday to You” was originally written in 1893, by sisters Patty and Mildred Hill. Patty, a kindergarten teacher, said she came up with the song as a “good morning” tune for school children; the birthday-specific lyrics were added as an optional verse.
Their copyright expired in 1949. Music publisher Warner/Chappell music acquired it in 1988 — and since then has collected about $2 million in royalties a year. (Think about how often you hear the song in movies and on TV. Yeah. It’s a lot.)
As KQED reported last fall, Bay Area band Rupya and the April Fishes were among the artists who got hit with the reality of said royalties after they wanted to include the song on a live album recorded during a show they performed at the Independent. The show took place on singer Rupya Marya’s birthday, and the band — and audience — surprised her with a sing-along. But to include the track on the record, Marya discovered, she’d have to pay $455 in royalties.
That’s when she joined LA filmmaker Jennifer Nelson’s class-action lawsuit against the music publisher. The suit’s lead plaintiff, Nelson first brought the suit in 2013 after she was charged $1500 to use said song in a documentary she was making about it.
A judge ruled in Nelson’s favor last year, but Warner/Chappell held to their claim on a couple of wonky technicalities (a separate, 1935 copyright agreement) until settling this week. The publisher has agreed to pay out some $14 million to people who’ve paid to use the song.
A memorandum in support of the settlement adds the following proclamation and/or warning, depending on how you feel about the song to begin with:
“Because Defendants have charged for use of the Song, untold thousands of people chose not to use the Song in their own performances and artistic works or to perform the Song in public. After the settlement is approved, that restraint will be removed and the song will be performed and used far more often than it has been in the past.”
Worth noting: There is nothing in said settlement about performers having to be in tune.
Anthony Lucero has too many trophies to carry at once. The writer-director’s first feature film, East Side Sushi, about a Latina woman who aspires to become a sushi chef, has been racking up awards since it first debuted on the festival circuit in 2014.
But back in 2011, when the Oakland native was shopping his screenplay around to potential investors, it was a different story altogether.
Anthony Lucero
“There were multiple strikes working against it,” says the filmmaker, who was born and raised in the Fruitvale District. “I had a very strong sense that no one wanted to pay for a film with a woman lead. The second issue was she was Mexican. And the other lead was Japanese. And you just don’t see that in cinema.”
Think that sounds like an oversimplification? Think again. A recent report by the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism has confirmed what many in the entertainment business say has been common knowledge for decades: Hollywood’s diversity problem goes far beyond the Academy Awards. Below the surface of the buzzy #OscarsSoWhite conversation that’s dominated social media the past few months lies an iceberg — it’s the industry itself, and it’s overwhelmingly comprised of straight, white men.
“Overall, the landscape of media content is still largely whitewashed,” reports the USC study. With an eye to gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation, researchers analyzed roles in front of and behind the camera on 109 films released by major studios in 2014, as well 305 scripted television and digital/streaming series that aired across 31 different networks. Shows distributed by Disney, NBC, CBS, Hulu, Netflix, 21st Century Fox, Sony and more were included in the data.
At a time when the U.S. population is increasingly made up of minorities, the report casts a clear spotlight on the damning degree of disparity between what Americans look like and what we see on our TV screens. Asians, Latinos, and African-Americans are all vastly underrepresented, both onscreen and off. Only 2 percent of speaking characters on television were identified as LGBT. White directors outnumber those of color by nearly 7 to 1. Only two black women directors were identified in an entire year’s worth of major motion pictures.
Those numbers may seem shocking — but asked for their reactions, several local industry insiders responded with a resounding “duh.”
“Not surprising,” says Margaret Cho, a comic who — sometime in between doing impressions of her mother in small San Francisco nightclubs as a teenager and becoming a household name — had the distinction of being the first Asian-American to have her own primetime network TV show, with 1994’s ABC sitcom All-American Girl.
Margaret Cho on Fashion Police.
“I have often been the only person of color on set or involved in an entire production. It’s not unusual to me. For a long time, it was the norm, and it still is to some extent.”
Cho says she gravitated toward comedy in part because of its inclusiveness, which set it apart from film and television.
“I was told all the time, by many people, that I didn’t belong in show business — from my family to important agents and producers and managers and other actors,” says Cho. But “in comedy, there was no supervising entity limiting your participation in the medium. You just had to be good, that was all. You didn’t have to fit into anyone’s story; you didn’t have to wait until there was ‘Trouble in Chinatown.'”
“And then being a successful comic was like a backdoor entry into the rest of Hollywood,” says the comic, who’s currently juggling a guest-hosting job on E!’s Fashion Police with standup, songwriting, and activism. “I made a name for myself. I couldn’t have broken into TV from the other side. There were no significant roles for people of color at all.”
Natalie Wood in ‘West Side Story.’
Lucero notes that he, too, was far from shocked by the USC report’s numbers. “I’ve known [about the disparity] ever since I’ve known about film,” he says. “I mean, it goes back to Natalie Wood portraying a Puerto Rican in West Side Story. It’s not surprising, just sad.” (For a plethora of other facepalm-worthy instances of whitewashing, check out this week’s New York Times feature on being non-white in Hollywood.)
So: Considering this long-running legacy of underrepresentation — what the study refers to, in turns, as an “inclusion crisis” and an “epidemic of invisibility” — is the media’s current focus on the Oscars misguided?
In an interview with Variety this week, Mo’Nique, who in 2010 won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for Precious, argues that the talk around “the trophy” is irrelevant and detracts from real issues — such as the pay gap faced by women of color. (The actress has said she was paid only $50,000 for her award-winning role.)
N’Jeri Eaton
Still, “I think it’s a conversation we should be having, in part because it’s a launching point to many other conversations about diversity,” says N’Jeri Eaton, an up-and-coming documentary filmmaker whose recent film First Friday examines a changing Oakland, with its accompanying race, class, and gentrification issues, via the focal point of its monthly Art Murmur.
“There are so many different aspects to this — say, for black women in particular, when black women do win [awards], what kind of roles is it for? It’s always women who are in peril, this tragic black woman narrative — because those are the opportunities we get as black women actors.”
Eaton says one of the best bets for moving beyond the online conversation involves hiring decisions: When it came time to select a crew for First Friday, she made it a point to seek out a team that reflected what Oakland actually looks like, and that comes through in the film.
But making change is multi-fold, she says: we must create opportunities, platforms and financial support for young people of color who are interested in filmmaking. (Her day job at San Francisco’s nonprofit media organization Independent Television Service provides grants of up to $15,000 to do just that.) And the movie-going public must also vote with their wallets.
“I’m a closet fan of the Fast and Furious series,” she says with a laugh. “And it might seem silly, but that series is incredibly diverse, and I think that’s part of the reason it’s so successful — it’s more reflective of our country, and people are dying for that. No one could say that [franchise] isn’t profitable.”
Ludacris, Dwayne Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez and Tyrese Gibson at the Hollywood premiere of ‘Furious 7’ (Carlos Piaggio/AKM-GSI**)
If the Oscars serve as a springboard for discussion, however, she’s all for it. “I mean, I’m black. I think about race every day of my life, maybe every hour of my life,” says Eaton. “But for some people, this might be their very first entry point to thinking about race.”
Cho echoes that statement. “I think it’s great,” she says of the Oscars conversation. “The only thing that seems to take down overt racism, invisibility, and cultural erasure is shame.”
But come Monday morning, when the Oscars are in the media’s rearview mirror, her focus will be back on paving her own way, making a space in entertainment outside of the studio-sanctioned blockbusters, and supporting others in the same boat.
“I think that we have to make our own movies — bring our own stories and do it any way we can, whether that’s making content for social media, making movies with our phones, making music on our laptops,” says Cho. “We need to do it on our own.”
Anthony Lucero adds that, for a young person of color who doesn’t have many high-profile role models in the industry she can relate to, putting that DIY ethic on display can be nothing short of powerful.
“A lot of it is education — filmmakers giving back. I’m doing a lot of tours at high schools and middle schools right now, to show kids that, yeah, I’m Chicano, I come from the Fruitvale District, and it’s possible to come from there and make films,” he says. “I do feel like it’s my duty to do that.”
Diana Elizabeth Torres on the poster for ‘East Side Sushi.’
As for East Side Sushi? Lucero wound up paying for it himself (with a little help from Kickstarter). And a couple months later, right after he took the top audience award at Cinequest, he got a call from the head of acquisitions at a major studio who was interested in distributing the film.
“They loved the film, their whole staff loved the film, but they wanted somebody famous in the lead,” says Lucero. “They weren’t comfortable putting a no-name Latina woman on an ad on the side of a bus.”
So when it came time to make marketing materials, Lucero went with a big, solo shot of his leading lady — who, yes, is Latina. Her name is Diana Elizabeth Torres.
“I said, okay, I’m gonna put her face front and center on this poster. That poster that you see is my defiance against Hollywood,” says Lucero with a laugh. “That’s just me. When there are obstacles, I go against them.”
It’s Friday, April 15, and across these great United States, that loud thump you’re hearing is the sound of hard-working Americans’ foreheads hitting their desks in the universal sign for “Goddammit, THIS AGAIN.”
If you’re one of those virtuous people who filed their forms weeks or even months ago, congratulations. How lovely for you. Pat yourself on the back. Now get outta here.
I’m talking to my people: the dawdlers, the heel-draggers, the last-minute panickers. The good news is that, because of a Washington, D.C. holiday called Emancipation Day, the Internal Revenue Service is actually closed on April 15, so your taxes aren’t due until next Monday, April 18. We love you, Emancipation Day. We’d never heard of you before, but we love you.
With this in mind — the fact that you have the entire, glorious weekend to sift through insurance forms and bank statements and scrutinize thousands of tiny numbered boxes and ponder questions like “Could my income from my last job technically be considered wages earned as an inmate?” while you could be taking a beautiful hike outside or belting Whitney Houston at karaoke or sharing a meal with your loved ones — here are a handful of tax- and empty bank account-themed tunes to keep you company as you toil.
Pro tip: You can’t claim cats as dependents. I checked.
A playlist featuring The Beatles, Sharon Jones, Cheap Trick, and others
And if these haven’t exactly lifted your spirits: This beautifully stupid cover of Snoop Dogg’s “Sensual Seduction” — featuring a pre-Key and Peele Keegan-Michael Key on Mad TV — oughta do the trick.
Otherwise? Can’t help ya. But onward and upward. Maybe this is year we’ll learn to save some receipts.
Ed. note: This review of a Dave Chappelle standup show was originally published by the San Francisco Bay Guardian online. (The newspaper was shut down less than a month later — but is in the process of a comeback!) In light of the announcement that Chappelle will perform a handful of shows at The Chapel over the next 48 hours, we now republish it, uncensored (with permission from SFBG’s publisher), to give ticketholders an idea of what they might be in for. As with all of Chappelle’s last-minute shows in the Bay Area, tickets for tonight sold out in a flash — but if you’re truly devoted, Craigslist is, as always, your “friend.”
Dave Chappelle Kept Me Up Until 5 This Morning and I’m Still Trying to Process What Just Happened
By Emma Silvers Sept. 18, 2014
The first time I saw Dave Chappelle perform live was 10 years and three months ago, in a large, echo-y gymnasium at UC San Diego. It was my 20th birthday and I was so excited.
This was June of 2004, and the comedian was at the absolute peak of his Chappelle’s Show fame, which meant he suddenly found himself performing for sports arenas full of college kids who had neither the patience nor the decorum (and certainly not the sobriety) to actually sit and listen to a standup comic performing material, choosing instead to holler “I’M RICK JAMES, BITCH!” or “WHAT!” and “YEAH!” in Lil Jon voices at random — in reference, of course, to their favorite Chappelle’s Show impressions. They did this without provocation or logic. They interrupted him constantly. They did not care. He was pissed. Every audience member who was not participating was super pissed.
Two weeks later, encountering a similar audience in Sacramento, he left the stage for two minutes, then came back and said: “This show is ruining my life. This is the most important thing I do, and because I’m on TV, you make it hard for me to do it. People can’t distinguish between what’s real and fake. This ain’t a TV show. You’re not watching Comedy Central…You know why my show is good? Because the network officials say you’re not smart enough to get what I’m doing, and every day I fight for you. I tell them how smart you are. Turns out, I was wrong. You people are stupid.”
Less than a year later, mid-production, he took off for South Africa and the show came to an abrupt end.
I have always felt a strangely personal guilt about this. I’m sorry about the idiots at UCSD, Dave, I have wanted to tell him. To this day, I can’t think of another instance in which such an intelligent brand of comedy has amassed such an astoundingly high percentage of morons as its fan base.
This being the case, I went into Dave Chappelle’s midnight performance at the Punch Line in SF last night with, well — I don’t want to say great expectations. But it’s a small club; I’d heard great things about his smaller shows in SF over the past year or so, and I was ready for something like a redemptive Dave Chappelle experience.
“All of those 20-year-old idiots have grown up,” some part of my brain believed. “These shows sold out so quickly. These are super-fans. This will be great.”
You know what happens to drunk 20-year-old idiot college kids who get an ego boost from yelling stupid shit at standup comedians? They do grow up. They get jobs. They move to SF. They buy expensive collared shirts. And they become drunk 30-year-old idiot startup bros who get an ego boost from yelling stupid shit at standup comedians.
“DAVE! Who’s the hottest celebrity you’ve slept with!” (“That question assumes I’ve slept with a celebrity.”)
“DAVE, you lift, brah? You lift!” (“No, this is actually just a really small shirt.”)
“Hey Dave! HEY DAVE! Are you gonna get the iPhone 6?” (Blank stare of disbelief. “Uh, probably.”)
Have you ever cringed so hard in a public place that it takes all your strength not to pull your shirt up over your head and crawl under your chair into a duck-and-cover position? Imagine a club full of people sharing this feeling. Now sit with it for four hours. Now add a two-drink minimum and stressed-out waiters serving mandatory drinks that mandatorily must be downed within the next 10 minutes because it’s 1:45 in the morning.
To be fair: Chappelle was asking for it, quite literally. He opened with some Bay Area-centric bits — a story about how he got mugged for the first time ever in San Francisco, and it was by a gay man. There was a quick, sweet anecdote about hanging out with the “startlingly funny” Robin Williams at the Punch Line, and a nod to Joan Rivers (“Joan Rivers was a great comedian. The problem is, she died a couple days after Robin Williams. Great comedian, but that’s bad timing”). And then the evening became a neverending Q&A session, with very loose interpretations of both Qs and As.
“What do you guys wanna talk about?” he repeated at least a half-dozen times, leaning forward on his barstool in a short-sleeve black button-up shirt (looking, yes, noticeably buff), chainsmoking an entire pack of yellow American Spirits that he stubbed out in succession on his sneaker, drinking tequila and Coronas, and, at one point, ordering shots for a couple in the front row.
Fresh from appearances the past couple months at the traveling Oddball Comedy Festival, Chappelle — who, most of the year, lives in a farmhouse in Ohio with his wife and three kids — acknowledged that he was using this handful of last-minute SF performances as “practice” before heading to Chicago this weekend, where he’ll host Common’s Aahh! Fest, with Lupe Fiasco, De La Soul, MC Lyte (!), and others. And either he was plain sick of repeating material he’d performed three times in the last 48 hours, or he doesn’t have any new material, because most of what he did last night — sorry, what he did this morning, from 12:30 am until just shy of 5 am — is not what most people would refer to as “material.”
This is also likely one reason the most sober he appeared all night was in the couple instances he caught people holding their cell phones, which were strictly and clearly prohibited from the moment he walked on stage. (“YouTube ruins comedy.”) Also to be fair, Dave Chappelle is one of the few comedians alive who could get away with straight-up, absolutely non-planned riffing for that long — on current events, on domestic abuse and football, on race relations, on Ferguson, on run-ins with OJ, on sex, on marriage, on fame and its perils — and actually, for the most part, hold an audience’s attention.
For all his sloppiness (the last half-hour or so was largely Chappelle realizing and vocalizing how badly he needed to pee), the man possesses a spark of something undeniably genius, and it’s most visible in his social commentary, when he lets himself get dark — like the running gag of him being a “quinoa-eating” black person, the kind that makes white people feel safe. Or when he unleashed a lucid torrent of facts about the shooting of unarmed young black men in the U.S. over the past three years, including the grossly under-publicized killing of 22-year-old John Crawford III by white cops in a Walmart in Chappelle’s home state of Ohio last week.
Crawford had picked up a BB gun inside the store — a gun that was for sale, naturally, at Walmart. “The store never closed, and they haven’t even shown the tapes,” Chappelle said incredulously. “And the worst part is that you’re allowed to carry a gun in Ohio! I’ve gone to Denny’s packing a gun. (Pause.) I’ve had a lot of cash on me at certain points in my life.”
At times you could almost see the sharpest version of him shining through the beer and weed haze, gauging the audience’s temperature, seeing how much more serious and guilt-inducing shit a mostly white audience would tolerate, before bringing everybody back in with his (still excellent) white suburban neighbor voice or a dick-joke punchline.
Around 4 am, after maybe half the audience had left (“What if I just wait all of you out? I’m going to be the last one standing”), Chappelle grew less and less articulate, and the pauses in his riffing got longer, as we all sat listening to the sound of cars driving through freshly rain-washed streets outside. Everybody had gotten their dumb questions out, or else had gotten too drunk and indiscriminately yelled for a while and then had their embarrassed friends drag them home. It was awkward the way any straggler-at-the-party-at-4 am interaction is awkward. A little bit like a hostage situation, but with an incredibly funny and intelligent albeit unfocused kidnapper.
“It will take you years to understand what happened here tonight,” he said with a self-deprecating laugh, as someone asked about his show tomorrow (tonight). “Oh yeah, it’ll be great,” he said. “You should come. Based on how it went tonight, you won’t hear this shit again.”
—
Q: “Bring back the show!” A: “Problem with that is, when you quit a show the way I did, networks don’t exactly trust you ever again. You realize I didn’t tell anyone I wasn’t coming in, I just left. So it’s like ‘Yeah, sure, I’ll see you Monday…'”
Q: “What’s the funniest insult you’ve ever heard?” A: “My 5-year-old kid told me that I had a vagina on my back, with a butt for a mouth, with a hot dog in it. Five years old! I was like, the force is strong with this one. My wife got mad at me for laughing, but come on…I wasn’t even gonna laugh until the hot dog bit. He got me with the hot dog.”
D’Angelo, whose progressive, eclectic blend of soul, funk and R&B owes a tremendous debt to Prince’s influence — he’s said as much in interviews for years — appeared on The Tonight Show on April 26 to pay tribute to the icon.
i wanna thank @FallonTonight staff for letting that happen. us fans are hurting because we didn't have a "goodbye" or a chance to mourn.
Performing a beautiful rendition of the Prince ballad “Sometimes It Snows In April,” D’Angelo had the support of Princess, the Prince tribute band comprised of comedian Maya Rudolph and singer-songwriter Gretchen Lieberum.
But aside from their voices, D’Angelo is alone in a spotlight at the piano, dressed in a vest that would have made his musical hero proud. So it’s all the more heartbreaking when his voice begins to crack with emotion near the end of the song.
One take-away: In case there was any doubt, real men definitely cry. And also: We’re really lucky to have D’Angelo.
Ed. note: Afeni Shakur, a onetime Black Panther, lifelong political activist, and the mother of famed rapper Tupac Shakur, died May 2 at her home in Sausalito. KQED Pop reached out to DJ, hip-hop historian and SFSU professor Davey D, who met with Shakur soon after Tupac died, for a personal remembrance.
“You can kill the revolutionary, but you can’t kill the revolution! All power to all the people.”
These were words uttered by Chairman Fred Hampton Sr., who in the late ’60s headed up the largest chapter of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense in Chicago, Illinois. They were profound words that resonated with party members, and which sadly took on greater and graver meaning when Hampton and his comrade Mark Clark were tragically gunned down on Dec. 4, 1969.
Afeni Shakur with Black Panther leader Richard Moore. (Photo by Frank Hurley/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)
It’s important to keep in mind the mindset of those who joined the Black Panther Party. BPP members knew that many among them would be locked up. They knew many would lose their lives. They also knew that the tenacious, heartfelt commitments they made when joining the Black Panthers were to bring about a better world for their children and their children’s children. If they were to fall short or be compromised in any way, their children, Panther Cubs born and unborn, would take the seeds that had been planted and carry on.
Tupac and Afeni Shakur
You can’t talk about the late Afeni Shakur, nor her son, the late Tupac Shakur — who was one of the most prolific, impactful and admired artists to ever bless the mic — without referencing the Black Panthers who shaped their lives. I met Afeni almost a year to the day her son was taken from us. It was in Marin City, where she had raised Tupac. She wasn’t doing interviews, but had agreed to talk with us because we had known her son just as he was starting his career. We were there at the beginning, when Oakland’s Digital Underground was starting, and knew Tupac when he first linked up with the group. He was doing the Humpty Dance in their videos and basically being a roadie for them while he honed his emcee skills and built upon his writing — which was already on point.
While the world knew an in-your-face, bold, outspoken Tupac, we knew a Tupac who was well-read and had intellectual depth. We knew a Tupac who was well-versed in Panther history and at the end of the day, in spite of all his brashness, was about the community and seeing it uplifted. Pac often said he was trying to give voice to the young Black male, who he felt was systemically being demonized and made into a scapegoat for society’s deep-seated problems. Pac had his contradictions, but for those of us who knew him, the one thing you could say unequivocally was he was honest. Brutally honest. Honest when it was inconvenient, honest when it ruffled feathers.
Tupac’s business card.
The Tupac many of us came to know was also one who always referenced his mom. He always uplifted her — long before he released the song that immortalized her, “Dear Mama.” In the Digital Underground camp, we came to know of Afeni via the running barbs that Tupac and group member Money B would privately and publicly exchange with one another. Tupac might be on stage at a concert and, as the crowd gave him a standing ovation, he would sign off by clowning Money B’s mom — e.g. “Can we give it up for Money B’s mom, who will be outside the concert beatboxing for quarters?” The crowd would roar with laughter.
Days later, Money B might be doing a radio interview in New York and, before leaving, he would get back at Tupac: “I wanna thank Tupac’s mom Afeni for not stealing the dice at the dice game I just left.”
Her name was mentioned often — frequently in jest, but the jokes were never explicitly offensive. Even if we had not met her personally, we knew Afeni was a former Black Panther, and she had our reverence and respect. We knew she was part of the Panther 21, who were brought up on conspiracy charges in 1971. We knew that Afeni had represented herself during the trial while pregnant with Tupac. We knew that she and the other Panther members beat the case and were acquitted.
So when doing that interview with Afeni a year after Tupac’s passing, it was with a mixture of sadness and awe: This was the woman we had heard so much about. It became clear that day where Tupac got his strength. It was clear that day why Pac was so well-read, why he was so brutally honest. During our conversation, Afeni noted that she and her children lived in truth. There were no secrets, she said, and Tupac was truthful in the face of anything.
When asked to clear up any misconceptions about her son, Afeni noted that while most people saw him just as a rapper, he was in fact so much more than that. “Tupac was and remains in my mind a child of the Black Panther Party,” she said. “I always felt that Tupac was living witness to who we are and who we were. I think that his life spoke to every part of our development and the development of the Party, and the development in this country that I don’t think will die.”
Afeni and Tupac Shakur
During our conversation, Afeni talked at length about her own upbringing. She talked about joining the Black Panthers in 1968 and how, unlike many who came onboard via college, she came to the party out of a gang in the South Bronx called the Disciples Deads.
“What the Panther Party did for me? I used to always say it gave me home training,” she said. “The Party taught me things that were principles to living … principles I think most Panthers have tried to pass on to their children and to anybody else that would listen to them.
“…One of those principles was like, don’t steal a penny, needle or a simple piece of thread from the people. It’s just general basic things about how we as individuals treat a race of people, and how we treat each other as a people! And those are the things I think the people recognize in Tupac.”
During our interview, we were interrupted when former Black Panther and recently released political prisoner Geronimo Ji-Jaga Pratt came in to greet Afeni. I recall her smiling broadly and the two embracing. As we ended the interview, Afeni teared up a bit when she urged us to study Tupac’s music and read books like The Art of War by Son Zu, and The Prince by Machavelli, so that we “would have a better way of looking at things.”
As for her son’s killers, she noted: “Not only will they have to live with it, but so will their children and their children’s children. I would not want to stand before God and say that I’m the one who took Tupac’s life. So what I have to say is more power to them.”
Afeni’s words were in sharp contrast to those who, at that time, were insisting that Tupac had faked his death and was still alive. It was clear that she knew the grave truth and was facing it while so many had not.
Afeni Shakur speaks to a crowd at the center named for her son in 2005. (Renee’ Hannans Henry)
Years later, I got to see Afeni for a second time. I was with Chuck D of Public Enemy and then-Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. We went to the [now defunct] Tupac Amaru Shakur Center for the Arts, which Afeni had founded just outside Atlanta. She spoke to us about the work of the education and performing arts foundation and the peace garden she had set up. The center’s purpose was not only to preserve Tupac’s legacy but to carry out Pac’s vision of reaching the youth.
Pac never got $10 million from the OPD. In an out-of-court settlement, he barely got enough to pay for his lawyer, but in his death his mother had carried out much of that vision with the center. She talked earnestly about the peace garden and her hopes for many to heal. Whereas the Black Panthers’ plan was for their children (Panther Cubs) to carry out the vision of the Panthers, here we saw Afeni the Black Panther carrying out the vision of her child.
Afeni Shakur is escorted from a police station in New York in1969 after her arrest. (AP)
Afeni also went to great lengths to educate herself and get her son’s music affairs in order. She gained control of his unreleased music. She set up a record label, Amuru Records, and accomplished the Herculean task of getting the his assets under one roof, preventing them from exploitation by an often unforgiving and cannibalistic music industry. Afeni Shakur became a sharp businesswoman and, in doing so, prevented the silencing of her son’s voice and nefarious distortions of his legacy.
The last time I saw Afeni was in Memphis in 2008, during the Dream Reborn conference, a civil rights gathering organized by former White House adviser and longtime organizer Van Jones. Afeni gave a keynote address for the ages: she talked about the importance of folks being spiritually grounded, owning land and being self-sufficient.
On the surface, it may have appeared Afeni was headed in a different direction and no longer saw herself as a revolutionary or militant. The truth of the matter was that Afeni was talking about setting up survival programs. She was talking about making sure we as a people would be able to take care of one another, and would not have to be dependent upon a system that did not fully care for far too many of us. That message was an extension of what the Panthers were about, and in many ways, what was core to their existence. People hear “Black Panthers” and think guns and berets, but many people will tell you that what J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI feared most were the party’s survival programs. Afeni was speaking to the party’s legacy, a message she had committed herself to back in 1968.
Afeni Shakur visits Roses in Concrete Community School in Oakland. (Photos from Mic.com courtesy of Reena Valvani)
In September of 2015, Afeni Shakur came to Oakland and paid a surprise visit to a new school called Roses In Concrete, an elementary school with a social justice emphasis, named in honor of her son’s poem and book of the same title. Afeni visited the kindergarten class that my wife teaches, and was touched to discover, on the wall of the classroom, a picture of her son and a copy of his poem.
Tupac’s poem in his own handwriting.
She was impressed, and promised to support the school however she could. The kids were excited, as well as the staff. She had lifted up their spirits. After learning of her death this week, they held a drumming circle and tears were shed.
Afeni Shakur joins her son and is now amongst the ancestors. She was a force to be reckoned with, and a person who honored that commitment made in 1968 to plant seeds and make a difference. She touched many, and through her son she touched even more. Left to carry the torch is her daughter Sekyiwa. Our heartfelt condolences to her. May we remember Afeni Shakur and honor her memory by keeping the revolutionary spirit and values that she embodied alive.
Of all the sickening details that have emerged in the days following the horrific hate crime in Orlando on June 12, one sound bite, perhaps the most simplistic — and most simply infuriating — tells us that shooter Omar Mateen’s homophobic rage was provoked, in part, when he witnessed “two men kissing” in public a few weeks earlier.
As SFist reported today, local author Karl (or K.M.) Soehnlein responded to that tidbit with an equally simple yet extremely powerful image: Him and his husband kissing.
Since that tweet, thousands have followed suit, using the hashtag #TwoMenKissing as a signal boost and a statement: This is what love looks like, and we’re sure as hell not going to hide it.
Meanwhile, an event billed as the “Spread Love Kiss-In” will take place tonight at 6pm at Harvey Milk Plaza in the Castro. The Facebook invite reads, in part:
Help Spread Love! Come get your picture taken while you kiss a friend. If a same sex kiss prompted the heinous event in Orlando, then let’s flood the internet with positive displays of love. Love, in all its beautiful forms, is not to be feared.
If you can’t make it, you can still participate on ye olde social media — which, for all its problems and contradictions, has undeniably served as a source of comfort and support for many over the past four days.
“The massacre at the Pulse nightclub felt very far away,” Soehnlein told the BBC yesterday. “Posting an image of love felt like a way for me to support all those suffering in Orlando. And it connects someone like me — who has been out since the 1980s — with gay youth today, who are an inspiration and the future of our movement and community.”
The Internet: Sometimes it’s a cesspool. And sometimes it’s a hug and a hand squeeze felt around the world — or, if you prefer, a really good kiss.
In case you’re living under an asteroid, Britain has voted to leave the E.U, shocking the world and themselves. Prime Minister David Cameron has announced his resignation. The pound has taken a dramatic nose-dive. Leave voters are coming forward to say they didn’t realize their votes counted and are now full of regret. British Millennials are livid that their futures have largely been decided by Boomers. Basically, both sides of the issue are freaking out. Here’s a live feed of Britain today:
If you’re like me, the urge to read every editorial about the situation is strong. Being informed is important, but self-care is also important so take a break from the doom and gloom for a few minutes and have a laugh:
First, a confession: I love Ludacris. I love Ludacris to a degree I cannot really defend, other than to say I am the right age for loving Ludacris, which is to say I was 16 years old when the song “Area Codes” dropped, which is to say I will likely always find both it and him brilliant and hilarious. (Also, this map.)
I even went out of my way to see Ludacris perform at SXSW’s Interactive closing party in 2015, an event at which I was more visibly excited and engaged than maybe 98 percent of attendees, which is not actually saying that much if you have ever been to a private but admission-free rager overwhelmingly populated by tech dudes.
All of which leaves me curious as to the vibe, so to speak, at a rather different upcoming Ludacris performance. The Miami Herald reported today that the overgrown class clown of a rapper has been chosen to headline the annual Fourth of July “Freedom Festival” at Guantanamo Bay, a free event thrown for the less than 6,000 residents of the Navy base there. The Herald notes that this population is made up of “troops, Department of Defense contractors, Navy families and the last [79] war-on-terror detainees.” (The original Herald story misidentified that number as 89.)
President Obama, you may recall, has been pledging to close the now 14-year-old military prison since before he was elected president, noting its well-documented history of detaining suspected terrorists indefinitely, without trial. As recently as February of this year, he presented Congress with a plan for transferring the remaining prisoners away from the facility, noting that the prison “is viewed as a stain on our broader record of upholding the highest standards of rule of law. This is about closing a chapter in our history.”
That plan was met with near-instantaneous rejection by Republican members of Congress. In the waning months of the Obama administration, it seems likely that the complex issues surrounding the detention center and its closure will be passed on to the next inhabitant of the Oval Office, not unlike some sort of pesky, Rumsfeld-era STD.
For the time being, then, there remain more than 5,000 people residing at Guantanamo Bay — and I’m certainly not here to say they don’t deserve entertainment. On the contrary, if your work involves daily interaction with an institution the president actively refers to as a “stain,” you should get all the free concerts you can take. Calling the annual taxpayer-funded Fourth of July event at a military prison Amnesty International once referred to as the Gulag of our times a “Freedom Festival,” on the other hand, involves a degree of questionable judgment I can’t really wrap my head around.
In any event, Ludacris is apparently the biggest name to visit said festival in over a decade: “Base residents couldn’t recall a show of this magnitude since Jimmy Buffett played the open-air Lyceum movie theater in December 2002,” reports the Herald. Recent years have instead seen performances by smaller, pop-punkier fish like the Plain White Ts [insert your own offensive joke about cruel and unusual punishment here].
To summarize: If you are a person who loves fireworks and comical hip-hop songs about women’s body parts and your area code is 21 (shout out Guantanamo Bay, Cuba), this year’s Fourth of July just might be the free-est you’ve ever felt!
Unless, of course, you’re a detainee: Organizers have assured the press that Windward Ferry Landing, the glorified parking lot from whence said freedom will be ringing, is too far away from the detention center for the prisoners to hear it.
Do you hear that dull roar in the distance? That’s the sound of Serial fans — myself included — losing their minds over the news that, after a long legal process and 16 years behind bars, a Baltimore judge has just vacated the murder conviction of Adnan Syed and granted him a new trial.
This new ruling is the indirect result of Sarah Koenig’s Serial podcast and the direct result of a recent hearing, which involved testimony from a new alibi, Asia McClain, as well as new cell phone tower information not used during the original trial.
In the last 48 hours, two different black men in two different American cities have been shot to death by police officers, with both killings captured on horrifying, heart-wrenching video. Their names were Alton Sterling and Philando Castile.
Institutional racism in this country is nothing new, of course. The presence of easily accessible hand-held recording devices and the reach of social media, in the grand scheme of things, are. It’s only the shock waves that feel bigger. I’m trying to keep that close to the surface. No black person in America is actually surprised right now.
It makes sense, then, that a combination of deeply justified fury and resignation permeates “6 Shots,” a new track that Bay Area hip-hop legend (and unofficial mayor of North Oakland) Mistah F.A.B. dropped this morning.
Oakland based hip-hop artist Mistah F.A.B. a/k/a Fabby Davis, Jr. is Freestyle King, Platinum & Gold Songwriter, Philanthropist, & Entertainer. His electric energy is felt in crowds large and smal
Its lyrics are unambiguous — referencing Alton Sterling being killed while selling CDs in front of a corner store, his son crying on TV, Jesse Williams’ recent speech at the BET Awards, as well as Freddie Gray, Sandra Bland and Oscar Grant — with an especially raw plea to black people working in law enforcement.
“What got me hot is there ain’t no black cops speakin’ out/coulda been your son, coulda been your daughter out there bleedin’ out/tell me what good is having arms if you ain’t reachin’ out/tell me what good is having a tongue if you ain’t speakin’ out/you see there’s power in the people they don’t speak about/you see the power in the people is what I speak about.”
In other local rap news, E-40 posted this on Instagram this morning:
Elsewhere, Solange posted this video:
And Drake put this up yesterday:
That being the case, it’s interesting how, as of this writing, the only “trending” story Facebook is showing me that’s related to these shootings is this:
The past three days have been brutal ones in the United States of America, and it’s no secret that people are hurting. We want action, visible change, in times like these — and if we can’t take to the streets ourselves, we want to see people we respect and look up to taking a stance, using their platforms to voice protest in a way that feels like they’re speaking on our behalf.
For better or worse, for many people, the public figures hitting those marks this week are entertainers. Here are a few of their responses.
Snoop Dogg and The Game did actually take to the streets this morning, leading what the LA Times called a “unification march for men of color” to LAPD’s graduation ceremony for its newest officers. On Instagram, The Game called it an attempt to “make the Californian government and it’s law branches aware that from today forward, we will be UNIFIED as minorities & we will no longer allow them to hunt us or be hunted by us !!!”
It culminated in a press conference with city government and LAPD Police Chief Charlie Beck, which you should watch below.
The rappers join a growing legion of music’s heavy-hitters who responded to the week’s violence on social media and through song.
Queen Beyoncé posted a powerful missive to her website July 7, reading, in part, “We don’t need sympathy. We need everyone to respect our lives.” The message encouraged readers to click through to contact their representatives in Congress to protest the killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile.
She also paused her show in Glasgow that night to ask for a moment of silence, during which the names of victims of police brutality were displayed on her giant LED screen.
Jay Z, meanwhile, the other half of music’s biggest power couple, released a new song called “Spiritual” on Tidal today, July 8. It features lyrics referencing police violence and the pain of trying to raise a young black daughter in an unjust world, with an accompanying note that reads, in part, “I’m saddened and disappointed in THIS America – we should be further along. WE ARE NOT.” Read and listen here.
Miguel also chose to express himself musically, releasing a track called “How Many,” with lyrics like “How many black lives / how many heartbeats turned into flatlines / how many black lives does it take to wake a change…we can’t let them die in vain.” Listen below.
This version was started (written/recorded) here in London in my hotel room between the hours of 4am and around 7am when i passed out. ill update this song every week until its complete. Please feel free to share. #blacklivesmatter
Oakland based hip-hop artist Mistah F.A.B. a/k/a Fabby Davis, Jr. is Freestyle King, Platinum & Gold Songwriter, Philanthropist, & Entertainer. His electric energy is felt in crowds large and smal
We’ll update this post as more songs and responses roll in.
I’m not sure if you guys have heard about this — it seems like maybe it’s been covered a few other places? — but there’s a game that many people are currently playing called Pokémon Go.
Most of these people are having a very nice time. As Gabe Meline explored yesterday, players are leaving the house at times when they might not otherwise, meeting new friends, and exploring their neighborhoods. And some people are acting like goddamn idiots.
In an attempt to stave off said idiocy (and perhaps limit the number of Pokémon related injuries and accidents to which they must respond), the San Francisco Police Department issued some official safety guidelines this week for Pokémon enthusiasts, as shared by the Bayview Station’s social media accounts.
As the Pokemon Go fever hits the Streets of San Francisco, I wanted to take a few minutes to remind you/your kids of some simple safety tips. So as you battle, train, and capture your Pokemon – just remember you’re still in the real world! Other law enforcement agencies throughout the world have already reported accidents, injuries, and string of robberies where suspects have set up fake ‘Poke-spots’.
Know your surroundings and pay attention to where you are going/who is around you. Slow car paralleling a person on foot, might be a sign it’s a get-away car. If you get the sense you are being followed or set-up for a robbery, head to a lighted area with people around.
Watch where you are going, please don’t look down at your phone while crossing streets, getting off buses, or even while walking. Obey traffic laws, please.
Do not run into trees, meters, and things that are attached to the sidewalk; they hurt.
Do not drive or ride your bike / skateboard / hipster techie device while interacting with the app.
Know where your kids are going when playing with the app, set limits on where they can go, so they don’t keep going trying to get that Pokemon.
Tell your kids about stranger-danger because the app may bring strangers together in real life at ‘pokestops’.
Do not go onto private property, dark alleys, or areas that you usually would not go if you weren’t playing the game.
Be Safe, Enjoy!
Captain Vaswani
Bayview Police Station, San Francisco Police
And there you have it, folks. You might note that most of these tips are in fact just basic common sense for continuing to be an alive person in a city, but it sure is fun to reframe them as safety tips for Pokémon Go!
Have fun out there, and remember: You’re still in the real world. Whatever that means anymore.
In the days since last week’s horrific violence, we’ve seen many celebrities speak out to express anger, solidarity, or prayers for peace.
Now, a who’s-who of A-listers have come together for a video in partnership with Mic.com, titled “23 Ways You Could Be Killed If You Are Black in America.” In it, Beyoncé, Pink, Chris Rock, Janelle Monae, Rihanna, and other stars solemnly read off the commonplace activities in which black victims of police violence were partaking when they were shot — followed by a photo of the victim and their name. Oakland’s own Oscar Grant III, in case you’ve forgotten, was simply “taking a commuter train.” The sheer volume of names and smiling faces, paired with activities like “laughing,” is nothing short of chilling by the video’s end.
The list ends with a plea from Keys to make your voice heard to President Obama and Congress by clicking over to the website of Keys’ nonprofit, weareheremovement.com.
Are you a person who is currently one age, but used to be a different age? Do you remember things that happened when you were different ages, like maybe, say, those years in which getting on the internet involved tying up a landline (ha! so crazy!), or a serial rapist got million-dollar contracts for advertising snack foods to children? Oh man! Previous decades were just nutso!
This combination of wistfulness and whimsy we feel at the inexorable march of time is, aside from being the bulk of Buzzfeed’s editorial strategy, a reliably bankable force in a #Millennial-driven consumer marketplace.
The NES is coming back to stores! Pick up the new mini NES Classic Edition on 11/11 w/ 30 included games! pic.twitter.com/wFDw7lHWb7
— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) July 14, 2016
Yes, the company announced a new yet familiar-looking product today that they’re calling the NES Classic Edition. The miniature entertainment system will hit stores Nov. 11, loaded with 30 classic games like Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong, Final Fantasy, and more.
If you are a person who played these games when you were younger, the thinking goes, maybe you’d like to play them again, even though you are in fact now older, and games and their respective systems have advanced along with your age? Perhaps you even have children who are now around the same age you were when you first played these games, and it will give you some type of feeling to show this console to said children and tell them about how you used to be their age, which is actually a very weird and disturbing thing to think about when you are a young child, so maybe don’t be surprised if they just look at you funny and then go back to playing with their Apple Watches?
It’s complicated stuff — and, as a person without a business degree, I don’t pretend to understand it entirely. But hey, I’m also one of those poor saps who never had video games as a kid anyway. If anyone needs me I’ll just be over here watching the Clarissa Explains It All intro on repeat.
