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covid-safer-hotties · 1 month ago

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People don’t listen to warnings.

It’s a thing.

For a while I became obsessed by a video recorded on the day of the 2004 Southeast Asian tsunami. It shows an older white guy, probably a tourist, standing on the beach in Thailand watching as the water recedes and the tsunami comes into view. As people run, as the wave grows, he just stands there. People start shouting at him, desperately pointing to the wave, trying to warn him. The wave grows, rushing closer and closer. Even now when I watch this video I still think he’s going to move. Of course he never moves. He doesn’t move an inch. The wave comes ashore and swallows him. —Nate Bear, “Staring at The Tsunami”

Every time a hurricane hits, some people choose to stay even if they have the resources to leave. In fact, research indicates that 35-50 percent of residents leave during mandatory evacuation warnings. During Hurricane Ian in 2022, about 62 percent of residents evacuated. Evacuation orders only increase someone’s willingness to evacuate by about 4-6 percent. When governments aggressively enforce evacuation orders in dangerous areas, 90 percent comply.

The rest of them stay.

According to one study, about 60-70 percent of those who don’t evacuate have said it’s because they don’t have anywhere to go and can’t afford a hotel. That group includes the unemployed, the homeless, and the vulnerable. During Hurricane Helene, thousands of inmates have been left behind.

What about the ones who can leave?

These numbers line up with the rest of our problems. Time and again, about 60 percent of us listen to warnings. Many people want to listen but don’t have the resources to protect themselves. About 10-20 percent have the resources, but they refuse to take warnings seriously.

They’re the hurricane headbanger, but not as famous.

I’ve got a feeling that the hurricane headbanger can take care of himself, but there’s a large portion of the population who thinks they can take care of themselves when they can’t. This group routinely shrugs off warnings. When things get really bad, they soak up resources that should go to the ones who really need them, the ones who can’t evacuate, the ones who can’t protect themselves.

We’re not here to make light of natural disasters. We’re here to understand why, as we face an increasing number of devastating threats, a growing number of people don’t want to take them seriously. There’s a range of theories, including what Neil Weinstein called unrealistic optimism, the notion that people routinely believe bad things are more likely to happen to someone else.

Here’s another theory:

A psychologist at Duke University named Jack Brehm figured out this problem in the 1960s. He called it reactance. He published a handful of articles about it followed by a book titled A Theory of Psychological Reactance. His book inspired 60 years of research on the topic. It even informed the popular psychological trick known as reverse psychology. Brehm discovered something you've seen a lot over the last few years. When you try to influence someone's actions, they resist. When people feel a threat to their perceived independence, they get angry.

They try to restore their freedom.

They might ignore the warning. They might make fun of you. They might pitch a fit. They might punch you in the face.

It depends.

Reactance means that the ones who don’t listen to warnings perceive the loss of their freedom as the greatest threat of all.

They protect it at all costs.

Everyone has their own reactance scale. It lives on a spectrum. At one end, you have collectively minded people. They tend to focus on the greater good. They're more likely to give up certain freedoms if it means avoiding death and destruction. On the other end, you have rugged individualists who see almost every warning or suggestion as a threat to their personal freedom.

Here's the weird part:

An individualist will get angrier if a friend or relative tries to influence their behavior in a way that threatens their sense of personal freedom.

They're also more likely to resist advice or information coming to them through anyone promoted as an expert or authority figure. You'd think the opposite would be true, that individualists would be more inclined to listen to people among their ingroup. Nope, their thinking isn't rooted in logic.

It's rooted in narcissism.

The harder you try to influence them, the worse it gets.

They only become more aggressive.

Brehm found that you can't even do a favor for someone on the extreme end of the reactance spectrum. They feel pressure to return the favor.

They hate that.

People can also feel vicarious reactance.

In other words, they'll get angry if they see someone else getting angry about perceived losses to their personal freedom. They'll defend someone else's right to do something stupid, simply because it's their right.

Censoring or restricting someone's freedoms can often enhance the attractiveness of that freedom. It's the forbidden fruit at work. Take something away, and that's suddenly all they want to do. Tell them to wear a seatbelt. Tell them smoking is bad for them. Suddenly, it's the cool thing to do.

You can trigger someone's reactance overtly by using controlling language. But you can also trigger it indirectly, even accidentally. If someone happens to associate a request or a warning with something negative in their life, like a controlling spouse, then they're less likely to listen.

A lot of people get a real kick out of ignoring warnings. They enjoy disregarding advice from experts. They love harassing and ridiculing those of us who do take threats and warnings seriously.

It elevates them.

Individualists only tend to take warnings seriously when a threat becomes absolute. They wait until the volcano erupts. They wait until the waves crash ashore. They wait until the flames lick their skin. Only then do they react, and it's usually a panic-driven response to save themselves. They don't do anything to help anyone else, and their panic causes problems for everyone else.

There's a cultural component.

You see less reactance in more collectivist societies. You see more reactance in individualist societies. I think we can all agree that western countries, especially the U.S., pride themselves on their individual freedoms. Every single day, Americans celebrate their right to act stupid and do dangerous things.

It's getting to be a real pathology over here.

So, what can you do?

The research suggests you have to be as indirect and neutral as possible when trying to influence someone's behavior.

Even then, you might fail.

Again, it depends. You can be direct with some people. And with others, there's pretty much nothing you can do. You just have to leave them alone. We've seen how well neutral, indirect attempts work at getting individualists to change their behavior. Maybe you'll avoid making them angry, but they'll likely just ignore you, even laugh at you. So as we stare down more threats, along with all the other consequences of an overheated planet, don't be shocked at all the reactance you see. Don't be surprised when you see people wanting to cuddle with birds and drink unpasteurized milk, simply because someone told them it's a bad idea right now. By trying to help someone, you triggered their reactance. I wrote the first draft of this post a year ago. Since then, as predicted, sales of raw milk jumped 21 percent after reports of bird flu in milk samples earlier this year.

If there’s no hope of convincing some of these people, then we have to do the next best thing. We have to push back. We have to limit their influence on others, to try to contain the damage. We live in a society that spends far too much time platforming, rewarding, and catering to the reactance crowd. We give them too much credibility, which they’ve used to virtually destroy our institutions.

People don’t listen to warnings.

It’s a thing.

#mask up #covid #pandemic #covid 19 #wear a mask #coronavirus #public health #sars cov 2 #still coviding #wear a respirator

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batboyblog · 5 months ago

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A Tale of Two Judges

In federal court in Florida today a judge struck down a Florida law banning gender affirming care for minors as well as rules from the state's medical authority that set up barriers to trans adults seeking care

At the same time a federal court in Texas blocked guidance from the Biden Administration's Department of Education that Title IX should be understood as protecting trans students

And I think this is a great illustration that elections last LONG after they're finished, one judge blasted Florida's law as unconstitutional and quoted Dr. King in framing trans rights as the same as the struggle for racial equality and called on the courts to support them. The other gleefully sided with Republicans with Texas AG Ken Paxton declaring "“Joe Biden’s unlawful effort to weaponize Title IX for his extremist agenda has been stopped in its tracks"

The Judge in Florida was Senior Judge Robert Hinkle, he was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1996, Hinkle took the semi-retirement known as senior status in 2016, but still hears cases as he did here. Hinkle also ruled in 2014 that Florida's ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional.

The Judge in Texas is Judge Reed O'Connor, He was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2007. O'Connor is very active in the conservative Federalist Society, Conservative Lawyers and Texas Attorneys General try to file their insane, legally nonsense, show boat cases in his court because if they get him he'll rule for the Republican side and against the Democratic side no matter what. In 2016 he blocked Obama Admin rules that declared Title IX meant trans students should be allowed to use the bathroom of their choice. While the Obama team appealed, once Trump was elected the rule was pulled and the case died.... hm. O'Connor is best known as that crazy man who ruled the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional in 2018, he was reversed, he ruled the Indian Child Welfare Act was unconstitutional, he ruled in 2022 the US Navy couldn't require Navy SEALS get Covid vaccines.

all to say when you get into a voting booth remember one of the things you vote for is Judges, who have a huge amount of power, and you can either get cool progressive minded judges who will still be making ground breaking rulings to protect civil rights 28 years after being nominated, or you can get conservative hacks who rule whatever wing nut thing they see on Fox 18 years after being nominated. During his Presidency Trump got to nominate 234 federal judges (Biden is currently at 201) including 3 Supreme Court Justices (Biden has 1) And those judges will be with us for years not like 10 years, or even 20, or even 30, no no no, Judge Albert Branson Maris was nominated by FDR in 1936 and served till his death at age 95 in 1989, JFK's last nominee, William Joseph Nealon Jr., passed away still hearing cases at the age of 95 in 2018 (the second to last passed away the year before in 2017) LBJ's last judge, Jack B. Weinstein, only passed away in 2021, there are at least 7 Nixon judges still hearing cases, 50 years after Nixon Resigned from office in 1974. We will be dealing with Trump's Judges for 40-50 maybe more years. So keep that in mind when you vote.

#Judges #elections #American politics #history

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foxes-that-run · 4 months ago

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Sweeter Than Fiction

To celebrate Sweeter Than Fictions first ever live performance, mashed up with Holy Ground of all songs. (!!)

Taylor wrote Sweeter Than Fiction for the movie One Chance. The movie is about a winner of Britain's Got Talent going from an everyday person to a famous person -starring James Corden and produced by Simon Cowell. So a plot similar to Harry's life produced by his then boss and starring one of his closest friends. Taylor of course related to the protagonists wife and wrote a love song from her perspective which played in the closing credits.

Harvey Weinstein (I know gross) confirmed Taylor's involvement was via One Direction:

Weinstein has credited Simon Cowell for getting Swift involved in the soundtrack, telling Daily Mail, "Simon knows her through the One Direction connection and he thought she'd be touched by the film, and he was right because she was."

To Taste of Country Taylor said

this movie is, in a lot of ways, a love story, you're expecting to go in and see a movie of someone who makes his dreams come true, but what you don't realize is you're actually being told a story of the love his wife ... has for him. That was the story that hit me and really affected me. I wanted to tell a story musically from that perspective.

Taylor also so wanted to be involved in this project about the love the wife of a singing competition star come good, produced by Harry's boss and starring Harry's friend that she famously had to fight her label to release new music in the planned lull between Red and 1989:

"I had to fight to do this because I try to take a break in between albums and try and give people a minute to not hear me on the radio," she said. "I had to go around and ask people, 'Can I please, please put something out?' even though we're supposed to be going quiet." Taylor Swift released Red, her fifth studio album, in 2012 and is now on a worldwide arena tour. "My management, my label were like, 'No new music until the next album comes out.' "Then I saw the movie and I was like, 'I have to be a part of this.'"

When was it written

It is the first collaboration with Jack Antonoff, who she said in 2023 the song reminds her of now. She first met Jack 12 November 2012. Filming wrapped 4 December 2013, while Harry and Taylor were still dating. It is likely Simon Cowell approached Taylor before the end of 2012. They made OOTW in September 2013, Sweeter than Fiction was already mentioned in press and the movie was in previews, so it would have been made some months before, likely in the first months of 2013. Lena shared a photo of them making the song in Jack's living room in New York. Taylor was in New York 26 March, but is dressed warmly then and again 5 June 2013 to attend an event at the Met. I would guess that is when it was made, that also lines up with it being announced 30 August 2013. This places it just after I Wish you Would (2013 timeline)

youtube

#Youtube #Haylor #Taylor Swift #Sweeter than Fiction #Sweeter than Fiction (Taylor's Version)#1989 taylors version #The Eras Tour #song analysis #Lyric analysis

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originallandlockedmariner · 11 months ago

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2023

Pickleball. Generative AI. Lula takes office in Brazil, Amazon Rainforest throws a party. Prince Harry refusing to stop talking about his frozen penis no matter how many times society begged him to stop. UFOs are real. Viral cat dubbed ‘largest cat anyone has ever seen’ gets adopted. Pee-Wee’s big adventure ends. Musk & X. Turkey-Syria earthquake kills thousands. India surpasses China as ‘country squeezing in the most peeps’. Tucker Carlson ousted. Miss USA and her 30 lbs moon costume. Wildfires in Kelowna and Hawaii. Macron tinkers with retirement age of the French. Paltrow can’t ski. Big Red Boots. Bob Barker leaves us. Alabama mom delivers 2 babies from her 2 uteruses in 2 days. Charles III. Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russian forces as the war drags on. Taylor Swift is Time’s Person of the Year. African ‘coup belt’. Flo-Jo dies in her sleep. Chinese spy balloon shot down. Hollywood writers strike. Human ‘nice mugshot’ Shitstain and his 91 indictments. Highest interest rates in 2 decades. The Bear’s Christmas episode. War in Gaza. Shinzo Abe is assassinated. Alex Murdaugh. Ocean Cleanup removes 25 000 lbs of trash from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Vase purchased for $3.99 sells for $100 000 at auction. Barbenheimer. A third of Pakistan is flooded. Lionel Messi is the GOAT. Travis Kelce. The Sphere opens in Las Vegas. Regulators seized Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, resulting in two of the three largest bank failures in U.S. history. “The Woman In Me”. WHO declares COVID ain’t a thing no more. Titan sub sinks, rich people die. Matthew Perry drowns. Dumbledore Dies (again). Massive sales of ‘Fuck Trudeau’ flags for jacked-up micro-dick trucks. Everything Everywhere All At Once. June-August was the hottest three-month period in recorded history across the Earth. Tina Turner dies. And the Beatles release a new song?! Wow… You got big shoes to fill 2024.

Archives for context:

2020

Kobe. Pandemic. Lockdown. Koalas on fire. Harry and Meg retire. Toilet paper hoarding. Alcoholism. Impeach the f*cker. Parasite. Bonnie Henry. Tiger King. Working from home. Sourdough bread. Harvey Weinstein guilty. Zoom overdose. Dip your body in sanitizer. 6 feet. Quarantine. OK Boomer. Home schooling (everyone passes). Murder hornets. Dolly Parton. Don’t hug, kiss or see anybody, especially your family. Chris Evans’ junk. TikTok. Glory holes. Face masks. CERB. West Coast wildfires. Stay home. Small Businesses lose, big box stores win. F*ck Bozos. ‘Dreams’ and cranberry juice. Close yoga studios, but thumbs up to your local gym. Speak moistly to me. George Floyd. BLM. F*ck Trump. Phase 2, 3 and Summer. RBG. Baby Yoda. Biden wins. Bond and Black Panther die. No more lockdown. Back to school and work. Just kidding... giddy up round 2. Giuliani leaks shit from his head. Resurgence of chess. UFOs are real. Restrictions. Dave Grohl admits defeat. Monolith. “F*ck... forgot my mask in the car”. No Christmas shenanigans allowed. Bubbles. Alex Trebek. Use the term ‘dumpster fire’ one too many times. Jupiter and Saturn form 'Christmas Star'. Happy New Year Bitches!!!! 2021... you better not sh*t the bed!!

2021

“We love you, you’re very special”. Failed coup attempt at the Capital. Twitter, FB and IG ban Donny. Hammerin’ Hank goes to the Field of Dreams. Bozo no longer richest man but still a twat. Leachman, Tyson, and Holbrook pass. The economy is worse than expected. Kim and Kanye split. Brood X cicadas. Dre has an aneurysm and nearly has his home broken into. Bridgerton. MyPillow CEO is a douche. Covid restrictions extended indefinitely. Captain Von Trapp dies. Proud Boys officially a Terrorist Organization. Richard Ramirez. Cancer takes Screech. Travel bans. Impeachment trial (again?… oh and this was barely February? WTF??!!) Suez Canal blockage. Myanmar protest. Kong dukes it out with Godzilla, while Raya watches. Olympics. Friends compare elective surgeries. F9. Canada Women’s Soccer Gold. Free Britney. Multiverses. Residential Schools in Canada unearth children’s bodies. Kate is Mare of Easttown. Cuomo resigns. Disney and Dwayne cruise together. Wildfires. Delta variants. Musk passes Bezos. Candyman x 5. Capt. Kirk goes to space. F*ck Kyle Rittenhouse. Astros didn’t win. Squid Game. Goodbye Bond. Dune is redone. Angelina is Eternal. Astroworld deaths. Meta. Omicron. Three Spidermen. Tornados in December? World Juniors cancelled. Pills against Covid. School opening delayed. And Betty White dies. 2022… my expectations are ridiculously low…

2022

Wow… eight billion people. Queen Elizabeth II passes away after ruling the Commonwealth before dirt was invented. The monkeypox. Russia plays the role of global a**hole. Wordle. Mother Nature rocks Afghanistan. Hover bike. Styles spits on Pine. Olivia Newton John, Kristie Alley, and Coolio leave us. Pele was traded to team Heaven. FTX implodes. Madonna and the 3-D model of her vagina. Pig gives his heart to a human. Beijing can brag that it is the first city ever to host both the Summer Olympics and Winter Olympics. Uvalde. $3 trillion Apple. Keith Raniere gets 120 years. The Whisky War ends with Canada and Denmark going halfsies. Mar-a-Lago. Nick Cannon brood hits a dozen. Shinzo Abe is assassinated. Inflation goes through the roof (if you can actually afford to put a roof over your head). Volodymyr Zelensky. European heat wave. Bennifer. Salman Rushdie is stabbed on stage, Dave Chappelle tackled, and Chris Rock is only slapped. Thích Nhất Hạnh. Heidi Klum goes full slug. Cuba knocked out by Ian. Liz Truss and 4.1 Scaramuccis. Taylor Swift breaks Ticketmaster. Human shitstain Elon Musk ignores helping mankind and buys Twitter instead. Riri becomes a mommy. NASA launches Artemis 1. Trump still a whiny little b*tch. Music lost Loretta Lynn, Christine McVie, and Meat Loaf. Democracy died at least three times. Pete Davidson continues to date hottest women on the planet (no one understands how?!) Microplastics in our blood. Alex Jones is a c*nt. So is DeSantis. Argentina wins the World Cup. Meghan and Harry. Eddie Munson rips Metallica in the Upside Down. tWitch. Roe vs Wade is overturned by the micro dick energy of the Supreme Court. CODA. James Corden shows he is a "tiny Cretin of a man". Amber (and the sh*t on the bed) Heard (round the world). Sebastian Bear-McClard proves he’s one of the f*cking dumbest men alive. Latin America's ‘pink tide’. Anti-Semitic rants by Ye. Bob Saget. A verified blue checkmark. Godmother of punk Vivienne dies. And, Tom Cruise feels the need for speed yet again. 2023… whatcha got for us?!? Nothing shocks me anymore.

@daily-esprit-descalier

#me #my words #doodles

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mattnben-bennmatt · 4 months ago

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Matt Damon (& Co.)'s interview w/ GQ (18 July 2016)

The Encyclopedia of Matt Damon

As Matt Damon returns to the Bourne franchise, we decided to assemble this handy guide to the habits, quirks, and inner life of an honest-to-God screen legend, as told by George Clooney, Martin Scorsese, Ben Affleck, and the other titans who know him best

By The Editors of GQ | Photography by Sebastian Kim | Illustration by Joe Mckendry

Matt Damon is, scientifically, the most liked man in Hollywood. He is serious, and he is funny. He is approachable-seeming and often jacked. He has been in six of your ten favorite movies in the past 20 years, and he's met a bunch of people along the way who like him a whole lot. But for all his familiarity, he's still elusive (which is how he likes it). So instead of asking Matt Damon dumb questions about the new Jason Bourne movie (out this month!), we got Damon and those people who like him a lot*—George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Tina Fey, Ben Affleck, Martin Scorsese, and Co.—to tell all the stories about him that you haven't heard.

Accent, Boston

Matt Damon: I was sitting at George Clooney's pool in Lake Como, and Brad Pitt walked in, sat down next to me, and said, “Do you want to do a Martin Scorsese movie in Boston?” [Brad] was a producer on The Departed, and he felt like he had gotten too old for those roles. It's one of the most absurd things that's ever happened in my life.

[Marty] said to me early on [in production], “I don't know Boston. This is your town.” So I would show up with stuff that I'd write and give it to Bill [Monahan, the screenwriter]. and say, "Do you like any of this?" The first time I rehearsed with Jack Nicholson, he went over to get some coffee, and he turned around [and said], “You know, I never would have made it this long if I wasn’t a great fucking writer.”

Martin Scorsese (director, ‘The Departed’): He comes from Boston; he's familiar with that world. When we were cutting The Departed, my editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, used a term to describe Matt's presence on-screen that's stayed with me: He's seated as an actor. He enters a movie grounded and at ease in his character and in the world of the story.

Bill Simmons (Bostonian; host, ‘Any Given Wednesday’): [Jimmy Kimmel] had this Super Bowl party, and Damon was there. He was like, “I'm readin' ya book! It's fahckin' ahsome.” [Matt's Good Will Hunting accent] is the greatest Boston accent that's ever been captured in a movie by an actual actor. The Departed is a catastrophe of bad Boston accents. Leo just gives up halfway through.

Sarah Silverman (co-star, “I'm Fucking Matt Damon”): We are all Boston-area people. I don't know how Matt talks so pretty.

Artist, The

Julia Stiles (co-star, ‘Bourne’ films): After The Bourne Ultimatum came out, there was a premiere in London. Prince actually came to it, then got tickets for the cast to come see him [perform]. We were summoned into a room to meet him [after the show]. Matt said, “So you live in Minnesota? I hear you live in Minnesota.”

Damon: Prince said, “I live inside my own heart, Matt Damon.”

Career Precedent

Damon: I always thought the goal was William Holden. To just be in a lot of good movies.

Harvey Weinstein (producer, ‘Good Will Hunting,’ ‘Dogma,’ ‘All the Pretty Horses,’ ‘The Talented Mr. Ripley,’ ‘Rounders,’ ‘Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back,’ ‘Project Greenlight,’ ‘The Brothers Grimm’): Matt Damon is the closest thing we have to James Stewart. Matt can be funny, Matt can be charming, but there's an idealism in Matt, like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington or It's a Wonderful Life. But Jimmy Stewart also did those very tough Westerns. He wasn't Bourne, but you get the idea he flew 40 missions over Germany as an Air Force commander. [He's] that kind of great man with tremendous integrity.

Michael Douglas (co-star, ‘Behind the Candelabra’): [Matt] reminds me of me a lot, in terms of the kind of range of parts and things that he does. He always looks to what's the best script, what's going to make the best movie, and what isn't. He has a real sense of what it takes to make a good movie. Having the best part in a bad movie doesn't help you.

Face, Matt's

Scarlett Johansson (co-star, ‘We Bought a Zoo’): The most amazing gift about Matt's physical appearance is that he can walk into the hair-and-makeup trailer looking like someone who slept directly on his face for seven hours and emerge a bona fide movie star. He has a great makeup artist.

George Clooney (co-star, ‘Ocean’s Eleven,’ ‘Twelve,’ and ‘Thirteen’; director, ‘Syriana,’ ‘Confessions of a Dangerous Mind,’ ‘The Monuments Men’): He looks swell in a Speedo.

Face, Pitt's

Damon: I don't look like Marlon Brando. I remember Ben and I having a realization early on. Like, we were watching Brad [Pitt] in a movie, and one of us turned to the other and said, “I haven't heard a thing that guy said in five minutes. I'm just looking at him.” And we realized there's a good and a bad [that comes with that]. It'll mask one of your lesser performances, but it also detracts from your best performances. Because Brad has been legitimately brilliant in some of the things he's done, and he doesn't get the credit as an actor that I think he deserves. I never had to carry that water.

Friend, Best

Tina Fey (creator, ‘30 Rock’): People would be like, “[Matt and Ben] are so cute!” And I'd be like, “They're J.Crew sweaters. When you see all the colors next to each other, they look cute, but when you get one home, you're like, ‘Damn, I just got an orange sweater.’ ” But now that is withdrawn. In person, Matt holds up.

Damon: Ben is the orange sweater.

Ben Affleck (co-writer, ‘Good Will Hunting’; best friend): The quality that has allowed Matt to maintain the illusion that he is Mr. Nice Guy is that he found a young TV actor who was just a pretty face and made friends with him so he would always look good by comparison. Matt is very media-savvy and manipulative in that way. He's like a mix of [O. J. Simpson defense-team members] Bob Shapiro and Alan Dershowitz.

Kevin Smith (writer and director, ‘Dogma,’ ‘Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back’; co-executive producer, ‘Good Will Hunting’): Matt made pretty thoughtful choices about what roles he wanted to play and the directors he wanted to work with after Good Will Hunting, which made Ben's more commercial choices easier to put down for some folks. The assignation was that Matt chose to be a serious actor in films, while Ben chose to star in movies. That script flipped when Matt was Bourne and Ben became a filmmaker.

Friend, Brother of Best

Damon: Casey moved in with us [when he was 19]. He would walk in the room, and I'm like, “Is that my shirt?” It got so bad with the Affleck brothers that I was at the point where I wanted to label all of my stuff, 'cause it would just fucking show up in Casey's drawer. And if it's there long enough, then it's like some version of squatters' rights, where suddenly he's like, “No, dude, this is mine. You saw me. I've been wearing this since December.” Like, that doesn't mean it's yours! Just because you washed it doesn't mean it's yours.

Good Will

Billy Bob Thornton (director, ‘All the Pretty Horses’): I did Armageddon with Ben, and I knew 'em before they made Good Will Hunting. They talked to me about it: “Hey, we got this script.” And I'm like, “Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Wish I hadn't have said that.

Steven Soderbergh (director, ‘The Informant!’; ‘Ocean's Eleven,’ ‘Twelve,’ and ‘Thirteen’; ‘Contagion’; ‘Behind the Candelabra’): I was looking for rewrite work, and one of the open assignments was for Good Will Hunting. I said, “What's it about?” And they said, “Math.” And I said, “Well, I'm terrible at math, so I'm the wrong guy.” Let's put it this way: Word was out on Reservoir Dogs at the script stage—I remember hearing, “There's this fucking great script out there written by this guy.” There wasn't that kind of thing about [Good Will Hunting].

Damon: Harvey [Weinstein] hadn't seen it—somebody lower down the ladder [at Miramax] had passed. And we were fucked. We had made a deal with Castle Rock where we had to sell it for a million dollars and whoever we sold it to had to allow us to star in it. If we didn't, it was gonna go back to Castle Rock and we were out of the movie. We asked [Kevin Smith] to direct it, and Kevin wouldn't. He goes, “I'm not a good enough director.”

Smith: I asked Ben to FedEx a copy of the script and hit it in the bathroom, intending to read a few pages while on the bowl. Two hours later, I came out of the bathroom crying [because] it was so good. [Co-executive producer] Scott Mosier said, “You were in the bathroom for two hours, and now you're crying. Should I call an ambulance?” I said, “No. We gotta call Harvey.” And we gave it to Harvey and said, “Remember when you picked up the Pulp Fiction script from TriStar in turnaround? This is like that. Especially the Oscars part.”

Weinstein: Kevin Smith gave it to Jon Gordon in my office. Jon Gordon gave it to me. I loved it.

Damon: Every Oscar weekend, the three big agencies host parties. In 1998, [the year we won an Oscar for Good Will Hunting], the CAA party was given in our name. Like, “Ben Affleck and Matt Damon invite you to the CAA party.” We called it “our party.” It was incredible. I talked to Tom Cruise. Even a movie like Cocktail, which the critics didn't particularly dig, was a hit. An agent said to me, “There's no career that's ever been like this. Everyone has ups and downs. This guy's never had a down.” He was the movie star's movie star. And I remember the way he talked about the business: He was not owed anything or could count on anything. And I was like, “Oh, my God. It's an insecure business for Tom Cruise!”

Simmons: I was dating this girl who moved to Chicago, and I was living in Boston. I was making, like, $200 a week writing a column and bartending, and it cost somewhere between $300 and $450 to fly to Chicago. So I went to see Good Will Hunting in Cambridge by myself. And at the end, he goes to see about a girl, and I was like, “You know what? I like her, but I don't know if I'd go to see about a girl.” We broke up within 12 hours. And my next girlfriend was my wife. That's why I always defend Matt Damon.

Grimm, Brothers

Brian Koppelman (co-writer, ‘Rounders,’ ‘Ocean's Thirteen’): The nose [in Ocean's Thirteen] originated because we had heard this rumor that Matt had wanted to wear a weird nose in Brothers Grimm. He wasn't able to, so we decided we were going to give him an even bigger, uglier nose.

Terry Gilliam (director, ‘The Brothers Grimm,’ ‘The Zero Theorem’): He's got that cute little retroussé nose and a big bony head, and I thought his head needed something stronger. So we put the bump on, and he suddenly became like Marlon Brando—he was sexy, he walked different. And then we had a huge fight with the Weinsteins and they threatened to close the movie down if I put that bump on his nose.

Weinstein: Oh, my God. Matt and Heath Ledger, may he rest in peace, just on bended knees said, “Can you finance this movie?” And my brother said, “It's Terry Gilliam—let's just do it.”

Damon: I remember the night that Terry shattered a wineglass in his hand because he was in an argument with one of the producers. He said, “I'm not gonna fucking…,” and snapped the wineglass in his hand, and then went storming out. And Heath [Ledger] and I just immediately got up to follow our fearless leader. Terry goes, “I think that went well! Where are we going for dinner?”

He was deciding whether to refuse to shoot over the nose issue. And he came into the makeup room at five in the morning and said, “They gave me the money that I need to make the movie, but we have to not do the nose. What do you think?” And Chrissie Beveridge, who still does my makeup, pulled out the nose and put it on the table. And we literally looked at it and just started laughing.

Chrissie Beveridge (makeup artist): Terry [said], “Would you talk to Bob Weinstein?” I didn't.

Damon: It was a $3 million nose.

Weinstein: Ironically, it's Terry Gilliam's highest-grossing movie he ever had in the United States. [Editors' note: Actually, ‘12 Monkeys’ is.]

Soderbergh: So on [Ocean's Thirteen], I was like, “Dude, we can do it. Like, we can give you the nose.”

Damon: And in Invictus, I ended up wearing the actual [Brothers Grimm] nose.

Beveridge: It was a slightly different nose.

Ledger, Heath

Gilliam: Matt is mathematical at times, and that's both a strength and sometimes… I think that's what it maybe was between him and Heath. Because [Heath's] heart was on his sleeve, and that opened up a lot in Matt.

Damon: He was too bright for this world. Coming off [The Brothers Grimm, I was] telling everybody that I just worked with the best actor I've ever seen. And people were like, “What are you talking about? The guy from A Knight's Tale?” And I was like, “You just wait. And wait until you see what kind of a director he's gonna be.”

There were things that he did where I couldn't have got there in three lifetimes. And there were ways in which he was like a puppy dog. You wanted to protect him.

[His death was] just fucking pointless. I called Terry when I found out, and he was like, “I'm sitting here in Vancouver. I'm looking out the window, and it's a beautiful sunny day, and the lights are turning red, and the lights are turning green, and cars are stopping, and cars are driving. I am surrounded by mediocrity. And he's gone.”

Maaaaaatt Daaaaamon

Damon: The most common head shot that I'm asked to sign is pictures of that fucking puppet [from Team America: World Police]. And they always say, “Will you write ‘Maaaaaatt Daaaaamon’?” I'm like, “Okay. Matt, with, like, 16 *a'*s in it.” [Trey Parker and Matt Stone] are legitimate geniuses. But when that came out, I thought, Wow, is that what people think of me? That I'm really dumb? So I remember asking friends of mine, and they all told me that it didn't really make sense that I was dumb. I was like, “Are you just saying that?” And then [my wife] Lucy heard an interview with [Matt and Trey] where they said the puppet showed up the day before they were supposed to shoot with it, and it looked like it had special needs, and they didn't have time to change it with the budget. I don't know if they made that up subsequently.

“Matt Damon, I'm F#©%ing”

In 2008, Sarah Silverman and Damon starred in a music video called “I'm Fucking Matt Damon” to “inform” Silverman's then boyfriend, Jimmy Kimmel, that she was “sleeping with” Damon.

Jimmy Kimmel (host, ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’; nemesis): [The video “I'm Fucking Matt Damon”] was supposed to be a present for my 40th birthday. Just to make sure the punch in the stomach hit a kidney.

Silverman: [When the show premiered,] Jimmy was literally getting guests like the man with the longest arm hair. So as a joke, he would say at the end of the night, “Sorry, Matt Damon. We ran out of time,” because Matt Damon was the biggest movie star he could think of.

Damon: We had done The Bourne Ultimatum [spoof] with [Kimmel sidekick] Guillermo [as Jason Bourne]. Like, now Jimmy's kicking me out of my own movies? And we all were just like, “How do we keep this thing alive?” And the guy who directed that called with this idea that Sarah had given him.

Silverman: Matt came in, learned the song in a closet of the hotel we had, and then we had three hours with him to shoot because he had his daughter's Halloween pageant at noon.

Damon: It happened really fast, and then suddenly I was in the car. I was like, “Holy fuck, I'm going to a parent-teacher conference. I can't do shit like this anymore.”

Ben Affleck: As soon as I saw “I'm Fucking Matt Damon,” I knew I would be doing “I'm Fucking Ben Affleck.” So I called Jimmy, and they were already putting it together. Having Josh Groban yelling out, “I'm fucking Beeeeen. I'm fucking Ben Affleck!” remains a high point of my career and life.

Mojo

Soderbergh: When [Matt] hit us on the Ocean's set, he said, “I really feel like I've kind of lost my mojo.” He'd just come off a couple movies that didn't work commercially [All the Pretty Horses and The Legend of Bagger Vance], and they were not finished with Bourne—they were gonna go back and reshoot more after we wrapped. And I remember George [Clooney] and I saying, “We can do that with this. You're going to have a blast.”

Damon: I showed up like a drowned rat and just stumbled into the room [with Steven] and George. Steven says, “This is the movie where you're gonna get your mojo back.” And they had a big party because it was the “We have arrived in Chicago” party. They rented out a bar with the whole crew. And then we shot the next day, and then they rented out a bar and had a huge “We're leaving Chicago” party. And I'm like, “Wow, maybe I am gonna get my mojo back on this shoot.”

Parenting, Matt's

Fey: Some people are lying when they say they want to go be with their families, but I think Matt actually really does like his family—his lovely wife and his 26 daughters.

Parenting, Matt's Mother's

Soderbergh: One of the first thoughts I had when I met Matt was, Okay. This guy was very well raised. I don't mean that in a pejorative sense. I was just like, “He's a good kid.” Like, “They raised a good kid.” Which is what you would want anybody to say about your child.

Julia Roberts (co-star, ‘Ocean's Eleven’ and ‘Twelve’): Matty's a good boy.

Pilot, Carol the

In 2010, Damon began a four-episode guest arc on the NBC sitcom ‘30 Rock’ as Liz Lemon's boyfriend, pilot Carol Burnett.

Damon: Lucy and I started watching on the first episode and were like, “This is our favorite thing.” I literally went up to [Tina Fey] at the SAG Awards and said, “Look, your show is so great, and if you ever have anything on it, I would love to do a guest spot.”

Fey: [Matt] was like, “I wanna be on the show! I wanna be on the show!” We immediately flew back the next day and called WME, and the agent was like, “He's not doing this!” And we're like, “No, no, he told us he wanted to do it.” And you could tell his agent was like, “Faaaaaaahhhhhhck. He's too good for this!”

Damon: Yeah, that was one that Patrick was like, “What the fuck? What are you doing?”

Patrick Whitesell (Matt's agent): I wasn't opposed to Matt doing it. I thought it would be a fun thing. The only thing was I wanted it limited in the number of episodes.

Scheduling Conflict

Douglas: [When I first heard about Behind the Candelabra,] I was recovering from a Stage IV cancer bout and was so unbelievably fortunate to look at this Richard LaGravenese script and go, “My God.” And Soderbergh's involved, and then Matt, who wanted to do the other part. And then when we were getting ready to go do it, both of them—both Steven and Matt individually—said, “You know, we've got conflicting schedules right now. So let's put this off for a year.” And my heart sunk. I thought, Oh shit, it ain't ever going to happen. The truth be told, I was so happy to be alive that I didn't recognize the fact of just how underweight I was. And I think both of them looked at me and said, “He's not ready to do Liberace.” And rather than in any way make me feel like it was a problem, they simply lied and said, “We have other projects,” and waited a year, until I got back on my feet and my strength was there.

Damon: I'll take it, but I did have a scheduling conflict. I think that Steven certainly knew that more time on the mend would not hurt at all. They replaced Michael from the neck down with a concert pianist, but Michael's arms had to be at the right place at all times or it didn't work. The amount of hours [that took], I don't even know. It was this virtuoso performance. And he said to me the last night [of shooting], “I couldn't have done this last year.”

Sweating

Koppelman: We write [Rounders] on spec, and Harvey Weinstein buys it. Then we get a call that he wants to show us ten minutes of this film [Good Will Hunting] with this guy Matt Damon, who [they thought] should star in [our movie]. We immediately love the idea.

So we happened to be down at [the L.A. casino] Hollywood Park, and we started talking to these guys and mentioned that we'd written this poker movie. They go, “Matt Damon's our best friend.” And I said, “Oh, really? Matt Damon's your best friend?” Twenty-five minutes later, Matt and Ben come storming in. Neither guy had played casino poker. Matt was immediately like, “Tell me stuff I need to know.” So we got a table and [co-writer] David [Levien] showed Matt how to riffle chips. Within 10, 15 minutes, he's sitting at the table riffling like he's an old pro.

David Levien (co-writer, ‘Rounders,’ ‘Ocean's Thirteen’): He took poker very, very seriously then, and obviously Ben got bit by the bug. We said, “If you really want to learn about this, come to New York.”

Damon: I started getting in and sweating the games, which means sitting behind a player who agrees to show you their hole cards so you can watch how they play the hand. And these were rounders, the people who were making basically ten bucks an hour sitting there with no health benefits, just hoping that somebody new would come in so they could chop him up.

Edward Norton (co-star, ‘Rounders’): Matt and I got coaching from top poker pros, but also from some guys in the underground poker scene who were experts in working a game as partners with coded signals, because that was something our characters did in the film. We decided we'd see if we could actually pull it off in a game, and we cut it apart. Then we walked down Sixth Avenue a few blocks and chopped up our collective winnings. We agreed that our commitment to the craft of acting justifiably forced our ethical standards into the backseat. And most of the money we clipped came off Harvey and Bob Weinstein, so we agreed that was good for humanity.

Alicia Vikander (co-star, ‘Jason Bourne’): We were shooting [Jason Bourne] in Vegas, and I learned to play craps [the night we wrapped]. I asked Matt [for advice] because of course he and Ben are kind of known for that. I said that I was going to bed, and then I said that I was just going to have one drink. It happened to be quite a few.

Sweating (More)

Damon: I've sweat some great directors for the last 20 years. When Ben was doing Gone Girl, I went over and visited the set and sat behind David [Fincher] while he was directing. There was a scene where Ben and Rosamund [Pike] walk into a bookstore and end up coming towards the camera through one of the aisles and kissing each other. So before the door opens and they come in, an extra walks by at the end of the line of books. David instantly starts monologuing: “Who fucking walks like that? Are you fucking… Am I wrong? Like, who fucking walks like that? It's ridiculous. I mean, he fucking looks like an extra in a movie. What the fuck?” Meanwhile, Ben and Rosamund are acting their hearts out, and I know they're gonna go again, no matter what they do, because this person fucking blew it. So David goes over and gives them notes, and they get ready to do it again, and Rosamund's makeup artist comes walking in to touch her up. David's looking at his monitor, and he goes, “Now, that's how you walk.”

Joshua Donen (David Fincher's manager): David denies that this ever took place, but out of respect for the talents of Mr. Damon, he has decided not to take legal action.

Teeth

Roberts: He does have nice teeth.

Kimmel: I mean, they can't be real, right? They're so perfect. They're obviously something that some Hollywood witch doctor put into his head somewhere along the line, possibly on one of his jaunts to China where he disappears for six months and suddenly has a whole new look. One day he's Jason Bourne. The next day he's Liberace's fiancé.

Damon: True.

Larry Rosenthal, D.D.S., declined to respond to multiple requests for comment.

Thing, Best I've Ever Been a Part Of

Damon: [The 2000 Cormac McCarthy novel adaptation All the Pretty Horses] failed the critics and failed to find the audience. I'm not over it 18 years later or whatever it is, so I'm just clearly never gonna get over it. It really fucking depresses me. I only saw Billy [Bob Thornton]'s cut once, and I just remember feeling like, “Oh, my God, this is the best thing I've ever been a part of.” It was Daniel Lanois's music that did it—it was all Daniel on this old guitar.

Thornton: The studio made us take Dan's score out.

Weinstein: It's great, but there were studio executives who fell asleep during the screening. The movie cost $48 million. You [ask], “Am I going to put a four-hour movie out?”

Damon: I was in Paris working on The Bourne Identity, and every night after work, I'd come home and I'd have a conference call with Harvey and Billy Bob. I would pace in this living room in this apartment I'd rented as I was talking to them. Billy's heart was fucking breaking. [When] he relented, he said, “Harvey, I have a chance to do four, maybe five great things before I die. And what I'm hearing you say to me is this isn't gonna be one of them.” And my knees literally buckled.

Thornton: You live with it. They did offer us the opportunity to put [my cut] out on DVD with the original music. But Dan felt like, “If my music wasn't good enough for them to put in the movie, then I don't know if I wanna put it in there on the DVD,” so I stood by him. I'm not gonna ever go side against an artist.

Weinstein: I've said to Matt, “I'll put up a million dollars any day of the week to restore it. I don't even care if I get the money back.” And I'm happy to sit down with Matt and Billy and do that. We've tried to resurrect that on a number of occasions, but the composer didn't want to let us do it, and he has strong rights. I understand. But time softens everyone. It's time to re-approach him.

Thornton: I think maybe one of these days I'm gonna just have a party over at my house to show it to 20 or 30 people.

Damon: I would love it if he did.

Wife, Krasinski's

John Krasinski (co-writer, ‘Promised Land’): The day I met him was the scene in The Adjustment Bureau where he kisses my wife [Emily Blunt] in a very big way. And so when I went up to him, he turned to me, and the first thing he ever said to me was, “Hey, man. I was just totally tonguing your girl.” And I went, “Oh, okay. Cool.” And he saw my face and he just cratered. He said, “Oh, my God. I am so sorry. I am so sorry.”

Damon: A reason to do that movie was to meet those two. They're just the best.

Emily Blunt : I have never played a board game with the Damons. The four of us hang out constantly and drink way too much together. Red wine for the three of us, and John's allergic to red wine, so he has to take down the bottle of white by himself. Which is not an issue.

Damon: That allergy is recent. He used to not be allergic to red wine, so we were perfect dinner companions. Now everything is off.

Worship

Chris Hemsworth (friend; Norse god): [I was going to be on the cover of GQ, and] I was like, “Shit, what do we do [for the story]?” Matt goes, “You should go bike riding! You can use mine.” So the next morning, I didn't want to bring the writer [into Matt's home because] I didn't want Matt to be uncomfortable. And Matt was like, “No, bring him in!” Matt's cooking pancakes and telling all kinds of interesting stories and quoting all sorts of interesting people. And I was sitting there going, “I just lost myself the cover. I can just see the cover turning into Matt's cover. This is the worst thing I could have done with this thing, introduce the writer to Matt.” I felt like I had a new girlfriend and I had introduced her to my cooler friend or something.

Blunt: It's almost sickening, actually. He's like the most universally loved person I've ever met.

Jessica Chastain (co-star, ‘Interstellar,’ ‘The Martian’): When I was going to go work on The Martian, everyone was going on and on about what a great person he was. You always wonder, like, “Okay, is the reputation accurate?” And with him, it was.

Jeff Schaffer (executive producer, ‘Seinfeld,’ ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’; co-creator, ‘The League’; Harvard classmate): “Great” gets thrown around a lot. Like, if you hate a movie, you go, “It was great!” In L.A., “great” means it's shit. So I have to drop down one to “good.” He's a good man.

Matthew McConaughey (co-star, ‘Interstellar’): I remember a late night in Laurel Canyon after A Time to Kill came out. Matt shared a genuine excitement for the success the film and I were having. He's always been like that, as far as I know—confident and self-assured enough to appreciate a peer's success while still paving his own path.

Krasinski: You look at him and think, Wow. You've maintained staying grounded with a career like this. For people who don't have even half the career of you, if we're not as grounded as you, we're just jackasses.

Paul Greengrass (director, ‘The Bourne Supremacy,’ ‘The Bourne Ultimatum’; director and co-writer, ‘Jason Bourne’): He is a really superb, aggressive, fast driver. Somewhere deep in that soul there must be a Jason Bourne lurking.

Simmons: If you're at a party and somebody's like, “You know who I fucking hate? Matt Damon,” people would be like, “What? Why do you hate Matt Damon? Did he fuck your girlfriend?”

Kimmel: He had sex with my girlfriend and then made a song about it. I think he's more devious than [his character in The Talented Mr. Ripley]. More diabolical. Matt Damon in real life is more of a pure evil.

Soderbergh: You could walk around town with a checkbook offering to pay people a million dollars to say something bad about Matt, feeling secure you'd never have to write a check.

Reported by Zach Baron, Lauren Larson, Anna Peele, Clay Skipper, and Caity Weaver.

#matt damon #good will hunting #all the pretty horses #30 rock #behind the candelabra #the brothers grimm #ocean's eleven #the adjustment bureau #interstellar #rounders #GQ #interview #photo #2016 #originals

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rabbitechoes · 5 months ago

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𝐃𝐑𝐀𝐊𝐄 𝐕𝐒. 𝐊𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐑𝐈𝐂𝐊 𝐋𝐀𝐌𝐀𝐑

this post will be a spin-off of my May 2024 Month in Review where i cover the wild rollercoaster that was the Drake/Kendrick Lamar beef that may or may not be still ongoing idk!

After some relatively petty back-and-forth's from Kendrick Lamar and Drake over the last two months, things did seem to get pretty heated between the two over the last few weeks or so. Lamar's response to Drake's poking and prodding by way of "Push Ups" and the "Taylor Made Freestyle" on the track "euphoria" seemed to push this in a direction no one was expecting. It wasn't just light jabs at Drake's artistry, it was a light dissection of his character. It was clear that Lamar wasn't here to play games and he really did harbor some resentment towards Drake. That was the tail-end of April and only a few days into May, Lamar released yet another diss track entitled ...

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"6:16 in L.A." - Kendrick Lamar

Seemingly in response to Drake's alleging that Lamar relies on Taylor Swift features for relevancy, Lamar slides on a beat with production credits from Jack Antonoff, Taylor's longtime producer, and sort of baits Drake into a response. It's just a bit more prodding, this time with Lamar taking aim at some of Drake's associates like DJ Akademiks and the rest of the OVO crew. The former currently being sued for rape and defamation as well, which ties into the themes of later diss tracks to come.

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"Family Matters" - Drake

This is where things really got messy. Drake fires back at Kendrick with a multi-part diss filled with a bunch of pretty weak jabs, like when he says "K-Dot shit is only hittin' hard when Baby Keem put his pen to it" which is just ... like ok. He also pokes at Lamar's critical success with the bar "Kendrick just opened his mouth, someone go hand him a Grammy right now" which is such a weak diss. J. Cole tried to attack from a similar angle and it didn't work. The most damning thing to come out of this diss was Drake insinuating that Lamar and the mother of his children have a strained relationship. He even accuses Lamar of domestic violence ("When you put your hands on your girl, is it self-defense 'cause she bigger than you?"). Ok, that's .... not good. This might be getting a little bit too messy, let's hope it ends so-

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"meet the grahams" - Kendrick Lamar

Not even an hour after Drake dropped "Family Matters," Kendrick fires back with the sinister, absolutely devastating "meet the grahams" diss track. Kendrick talks directly to Drake's family in this cut with bars directed at various different family members. The song opens with this almost villainous Alchemist beat and his first words are "Dear Adonis / I'm sorry that that man is your father, let me be honest" so ... we already knew this was going to get even messier. He claims Drake is a deadbeat dad and that his son deserves a better role model. In the second verse he takes aim at Drake's parents, "Dear Sandra / Your son got some habits, I hope you don't undermine them / Especially with all the girls that's hurt inside this climate / You a woman, so you know how it feels to be in alignment / With emotion, hopin' a man can see you and not be blinded." Those bars are important to Kendrick's thesis going forward. He levies some serious, albeit vague, accusations that Drake mistreats women on the regular. The second verse also addresses his father and Lamar blames him for Drake's gambling addiction (he streams on Kick gambling live). The second verse enters its home-stretch as Lamar gets absolutely venomous, "Your son's a sick man with sick thoughts, I think *** like him should die / Him and Weinstein should get fucked up in a cell for the rest their life / He hates Black women, hypersexualizes 'em with kinks of a nympho fetish / Grew facial hair because he understood bein' a beard just fit him better / He got sex offenders on ho-VO that he keep on a monthly allowance." Ouch.

As if this couldn't get any wilder, Lamar alleges in the third verse that Drake has yet ANOTHER hidden child. This one older than his son who was pushed into the limelight on Pusha T's infamous, pretty legendary "The Story of Adidon" diss. That diss changed Drake's public perception forever and I think this track might do the same once again. Kendrick closes the song with the chilling bar "Fuck a rap battle, this a long life battle with yourself." This is getting ugly and, when you're not swept up in the excitement of two of the biggest stars in music currently fighting out in public, you just feel dirty.

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"Not Like Us" - Kendrick Lamar

After that incredibly eventful Friday night, Lamar fires back with this track not even 24 hours later. A big part of the narrative against Kendrick in these disses has been that he makes "boring music." So, Kendrick slides on a DJ Mustard beat to get his message across. The result is the biggest hit to come out of this diss battle, hitting number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. It's a very catchy song and it shows that Kendrick CAN make a club banger. It's just a club banger that calls Drake a pedophile. The line "Certified Lover Boy? Certified pedophiles" has been ringing in my head over the last month. It's important to point out that Drake's uncomfortable behavior towards young and/or underage girls has long been a point of contention. From his flirting with a 17 year old on stage, to his weird friendship with Millie Bobby Brown where she said he "gives [her] advice about boys," this has kind of been an open secret almost. Anyways, this was brutal. Kendrick beat Drake at his own game, gaining the chart success in the process. Maybe it's over now.

It does make me a little uncomfortable that Lamar hasn't commented on the domestic violence allegations at all, especially on this track since I believe it was recorded after the "Family Matters" diss. Maybe he will sometime this month (spoiler alert: he did not).

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QUICK BBL DRIZZY DETOUR

Amidst the chaos, Metro Boomin made the "BBL Drizzy" beat giveaway. Allowing people to do their best Drake disses over it. The track samples the song "BBL Drizzy" from King Willonius released a month prior. I detest the use of AI in music, but I would be lying if I said I wasn't singing "BBL DRIZZY!" around the house for the past month. Anyways, besides some troubling old tweets that surfaced from Metro Boomin after his re-involvement in the conflict, this was a fun detour.

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"THE HEART PART 6" - Drake

A day later, Drake responded with "THE HEART PART 6" diss which is one of the biggest fumbles in rap beef history. Drake, in what might be a Freudian slip, mentions Millie Bobby Brown by name in response to Lamar's pedophile allegations against him. He says that his team fed Kendrick the lie that he had a secret daughter, which makes absolutely no sense if you think about it for longer than 30 seconds. He continues insinuating that Lamar's kids aren't his. It's just like ... dude. Come on. The song starts with a sample of Aretha Franklin singing "Now let me see you prove it" which, is kind of a good point, but it hurts both men involved. Both have brought damning allegations against one another, but no proof has been provided.

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CONCLUSION MAYBE? FOR NOW!!!

Now that the smoke has cleared a bit, this whole thing is just ... sad. Two of the biggest stars in music today leveled serious allegations against one another with no concrete proof provided by either party. These aren't victimless allegations. Pedophilia and domestic abuse have consequences, they're traumatizing. Using them as one-ups in a rap beef seems a bit careless. Using potential victims as ammunition. I don't know, it all just seems a bit gross to me.

Alphonse Pierre, for Pitchfork, wrote a very compelling article about the beef entitled Drake and Kendrick’s Beef Is the Most Miserable Spectacle in Rap History. I encourage everyone to read it as it gives a very nice and level-headed analysis of this conflict and its consequences.

Besides that, there's been a cryptic Twitter account that popped up that seemingly has proof for some pretty damning allegations towards Drake and posts videos in the same style as The Riddler from The Batman film. DJ Akademiks, one of Drake's biggest supporters during this beef, has been sued for rape and defamation. Drake has had violent incidents at his Toronto mansion throughout the month, although they aren't confirmed to be directly related to this beef. And it's all been relatively quiet from the Kendrick camp. Who knows where this goes from here, but this was as bowling shoe ugly as it was exciting.

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#month in review #music #2024 #rateyourmusic #music review #drake #kendrick lamar #kendrick vs drake #metro boomin

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fierceawakening · 5 months ago

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So @ceanothusspinosis really likes to use replies not reblogs, even when they’re posting multiple paragraphs and even when they’re including links, which makes giving the whole context really rough when I’m on mobile. So my apologies for pulling this out like it’s everything they said but I only have so much patience for shit I can’t cut and paste.

But this is the core of the issue right here. The quote is saying that the number of people who pose an immediate risk is small, and suggests basically methods of deescalation plus some supervision to make sure the person has fully calmed.

That’s… not bad advice, if the issue is that someone is highly emotional and behaving irrationally as a result.

But there’s a lot of crime that is not that, and I think it’s a mistake to say those crimes or the people who commit crimes that are not that are “very small in number.”

Which is to me the heart of what’s going on. I think there are a lot of middle class (using the term very broadly) leftists for whom experiencing crime is very rare, the kind of thing that only comes up once or twice in their life, probably when the one family member they have with serious behavioral issues isn’t adequately supervised.

It’s very easy, if this is what you’re working from, to think that crime really isn’t much of a problem. You and your family can usually handle Cousin Jack, it’s just you thought Maude was watching him when she thought Vernon was. And anyway PRISON?! Would he even understand being there? He doesn’t hurt people, he just forgets things don’t belong to him sometimes.

This is an understandable thing to think! It’s a lot of people’s experience.

This is not the experience of a LOT of people, though. I’m going to talk about two different things in depth here and each may take a while

My major concern, as I e mentioned before, is powerful people who repeatedly harm or exploit others. I’m leery of the idea that such people will respond to “short term intensive supervision in the community,” or to “active therapeutic intervention.” I’m not a licensed mental health professional, just a case worker of various sorts over many years, but I shudder to think of the poor “therapeutic intervener” assigned to a Trump or a Nassar or a Weinstein.

So my strong suspicion is that people like this who have a vision of mutual aid and community support are compartmentalizing and don’t even see that they’re doing it. They have petty crimes in mind, perpetrated by young poor people, possibly with mild behavioral issues. Since there are good ways to solve those without prison, prison bad!

But you’ve put aside a whole massive category of crimes and of people who commit them, and aren’t realizing it because it’s not who you aim to protect.

There’s another group too though: people who aren’t powerful, but are recidivists. This can be anyone, but I have child abusers and rapists I. Mind specifically, because those are people whose crimes tend to hook into their belief system. Very often these are people who are taught that what they’re doing is right, or at least necessary. That people who say they’re being harsh or cruel are naive or silly or poisoned by liberal squishiness.

Which I don’t think is completely immune in all cases to “therapeutic intervention,” but once again I think we need a failsafe. What if the best damn social worker in the syndicate just can’t convince old Bob to put down his belt?

So again, I think the issue is likely one of compartmentalization. People aren’t sitting down and listing every bad action that falls under the category of crime, and thinking about how effective they expect health care providers in the community to reasonably be.

The existence of prison, as awful as it is, at least means society recognizes that there are some people it doesn’t know how to change.

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boricuacherry-blog · 1 month ago

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I sought out Grier because I wondered, with all the testimony emerging from actresses about sexual harassment and assault incidents they had suffered in silence for so long, what must Hollywood have been like for Grier during the alpha male chauvinist '70s culture, when she was one of the few actresses of color playing the heroine in movies like Foxy Brown and Coffy.

Her path has led her to interact with some recently fallen figures - Harvey Weinstein made the Quentin Tarantino-directed Jackie Brown, which reignited Grier's career - and even more recently, Grier said she had been set to star in the Amazon Studios series that David O. Russell was directing with Robert De Niro and Julianne Moore. That series imploded directly because of the Weinstein scandal, but she still is hopeful it will come back around as the Weinstein Company is about to be resuscitated by a female-led board and leadership. I was surprised to hear that Grier experienced relatively little sexual harassment during her rise.

There is a disturbing tale in her book about a time she was invited to Sammy Davis Jr's house where, in front of his wife Altovise, the singer became so aggressive in his attempt to bed Grier that she had to enlist Liza Minnelli and her husband Jack Haley Jr to drive her away from the estate while she hid in the back seat. "It's true. Altovise and Liza helped me. I hid in the bathroom, and Sammy came out looking for me. Liza and her husband pulled up their burgundy Rolls-Royce, where they would signal for me to run out and jump into the back seat of the car, and she'd hide me with her fur, and they'd drive me out of there." But most of the pain caused by men took place far from Hollywood.

Grier said that her saving grace during her rise was signing with APA agent John Gaines, who repped her since she moved from receptionist at AIP to a star.

You read the stories about actresses whose reps didn't have the foresight to accompany them to clandestine meetings in hotel suites, and Grier acknowledges that hers could have been a much different story if she didn't have Gaines, an agent who made sure that she didn't find herself in potentially dangerous situations when she went up for roles. Gaines, who died in 1992, also repped Steve Martin, John Candy, Tamara Dobson (Cleopatra Jones), Shaft star Richard Roundtree and Oscar-winning Shaft singer-songwriter Isaac Hayes. She was able to create a circle of trust within that group.

harassment you might think. I wonder if they saw my films and thought that I could probably beat them up. And you know, I could, because I studied enough martial arts seriously that I probably could have really hurt someone."

She has good memories of Harvey Weinstein, who with brother Bob responded to a fundraising effort to feed the homeless on Thanksgiving, by matching the entire donation, allowing for 20,000 extra dinners. "I don't mean to soften anything he might have done or who he might have hurt, but they matched that money in my honor and they didn't have to."

Grier had sympathy for each woman who swallowed the shame for decades but finally spoke out. Her own decision to disclose the rapes in her life came, she said, from counsel by Gloria Steinem and in observing Maya Angelou's experience in divulging the trauma of a childhood sexual assault. In that case, Angelou was raped by her mother's boyfriend, and she told a family member. Her attacker subsequently was killed, possibly by her uncle - an incident that so upset the future poet that she didn't speak for the next five years.

Grier kept her assaults secret for similar fears. Said Grier: "My grandfather Daddy Ray taught all us girls to hunt, fish, shoot and drive the boat and a tractor. ...If I had told my family, especially what happened when I was 6? The men in my family would have hunted those boys down, for hurting me. It would have destroyed my family, and I decided to stay quiet and see how long I can go and how much stronger I can be with this energy inside me."

Grier hopes that the women who've relived horrible memories in this #MeToo movement felt the relief she did after taking advice that Steinem gave her back when Grier became the first African-American actor to grace the Ms. magazine cover, long before Grier was ready to talk about her sexual assaults.

Grier had a romantic life where she fell in love with Abdul-Jabbar, Prinze and Pryor but stopped short of marriage to all of them because she would have had to become something she wasn't.

That began when she fell in love with UCLA basketball star Lew Alcindor. After he changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and converted to a Muslim, he pressed her to marry. But the required submissiveness was just too much for her. One fateful morning he told her that an arranged marriage was set for him for 2pm that day, with a woman who was a converted Muslim. He would keep the date unless Grier agreed to marry him and embrace his religion. Unwilling to live a subservient life where everything but her hands would be covered when seen in public, Grier basically told him, congratulations on your big day. "Without all of that, he was the perfect man. He loved jazz. He loved sports. He was an academic. He could have been that first love," Grier says.

lost too much.' I think, 'How do I help this man who is so despondent, and who has a gun?' Grier got him money that she hoped would not go to drugs. "I was so compelled to just run over there, but I just didn't feel I could," she said. "I felt there's danger that I can't control. Days later, a friend told her Prinze had succumbed to his demons and killed himself. "I didn't know how to stop him, and I didn't know if I would have survived trying."

Her relationship with Pryor also disintegrated over his drug problem. This after they had a long romantic relationship in which she helped Pryor overcome insecurities that included illiteracy - she helped him learn to read, and they settled into a real home life that settled a comic who'd famously grown up in a brothel. But the bad influences around Pryor, and drugs, got the best of him. She received a similar crisis call as she got from Prinze, only this one came from Sidney Poitier, who was directing Pryor and Gene Wilder in 1980's Stir Crazy.

'" Pam, Richard's high, and we're like 10 weeks behind and they're going to pull the plug on the movie,' Sidney says. 'Gene Wilder...everybody's mad. Everybody's upset. Everyone's afraid they're going to lose their jobs. Can you come down here and talk to Richard? I think you're the only person who can reach him.'

"Just as I couldn't change the attacks or the people who attacked me. I couldn't change Richard. I couldn't change Freddie or Kareem. And I realized it's not about changing other people, it's about changing myself. And that is what I want to tell people with this, that there will be pain in life, but you can survive it and it will make you stronger and protect you from other instances. I wanted to save their lives, but I had to save my own."

#pam grier #article #gloria steinem #maya angelou #kareem abdul jabbar #freddie prinze #richard pryor #2018

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