Heartbreaking news from WWE this morning as Howard Finkel, unarguably the greatest ring announcer in the history of the company (and, slightly more arguably, the greatest ring announcer in the history of wrestling) has died. He was 69 years old.

Via WWE.com:

When considering the greatest ring announcers in the history of sports and sports-entertainment, you’d be hard-pressed to name one better than Howard Finkel. A native of Newark, NJ, “The Fink” — a label that had been attached affectionately to Howard over the years — made his ring announcing debut at Madison Square Garden in 1977 for WWE’s predecessor, WWWF.

By 1979, Finkel was the full-time ring announcer for WWWF, and when WWE was established in 1980, The Fink became the first — and eventually longest-serving — employee. Finkel’s distinctive voice was instantly recognizable, and for more than two decades Superstars such as The Ultimate Warrior, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and more would have a title victory marked by The Fink’s signature call, “and NNNEEEWWW World Champion!”

While no cause of death was announced, The Fink had been dealing with health issues that limited his public appearances for the past several years including a 2018 stroke. Even that couldn’t keep him away, however, as he visited Monday Night Raw in September of 2019. He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2009.

The role of Howard Finkel’s voice in our memories of the World Wrestling Federation of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s can’t be understated. Our love and condolences go out to his family, friends, and fans. Below are a few videos of his work, in case you’d like to hear it again. Rest in peace, Fink.

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Who knows exactly where Mindy Kaling finds the time for all the TV and film projects in her post-Office life, but we’re not complaining. Not too long after Four Weddings and a Funeral reboot on Hulu and her Late Night film with Emma Thompson, the Kaling-created Never Have I Ever series is coming to Netflix. The show’s semi-autobiographical and finds inspiration within Kaling’s own adolescence in Massachusetts (she was born in Cambridge). As the trailer shows (with big-bold captions), Kaling is promising to put a “nerdy, extra thirsty” spin on this coming-of-age story.

To no one’s surprise who knows Kaling’s work, the lead character is very much an overachiever like her inspiration, but social circles won’t be a smooth ride. After a casting call that drew 15,000 candidates, newcomer Maitreyi Ramakrishnan landed the role of Devi. The show’s synopsis promises to put an always-comedic spin on “the complicated life of a modern-day first-generation Indian American teenage girl… who has a short fuse that gets her into difficult situations.”

Kaling recently stressed to Variety that she was excited to make a show “about an Indian nerd who’s also badly behaved, to show that because I’m deeply familiar with it.” She stressed that nerds aren’t all quiet and unassuming wallflowers but can have “obnoxious personalities” and get in trouble like all the other teens. Sounds like a good kind of trouble? We’ll find out when Never Have I Ever arrives on Netflix on April 27.

Many of us have things from our childhoods we wish we could get back, but in many cases, that’s not possible. Time has a habit of making things disappear, and The Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney thought the same thing happened to a prized guitar he had growing up. It turns out, however, that wasn’t the case.

Carney, who turned 40 years old yesterday (April 15), told the story of how he was recently able to buy back a guitar from his childhood, even though it changed hands multiple times since he got rid of it in 1994. Carney bought his 1964 Daphne Blue Fender Mustang guitar because it was the guitar Kurt Cobain used, but Carney damaged his. He got rid of it, and miraculously, he managed to find and buy the exact same guitar online just a few weeks ago.

It’s a wild tale, so read Carney’s telling of it below.

“I was obsessed with Nirvana around 1993/1994. I wanted a fender mustang so badly because of course that was the guitar Cobain used. One day in March 1994 in the Akron Beacon Journal classified ads I saw a listing for a 1964 daphne blue Fender mustang for 175 bucks. Easily 400 bucks cheaper then what they were worth at the time. My dad drove me to this guys house and I bought the guitar. Cobain killed himself a few weeks later.

It was my prized possession.

A few years later I’m playing in my friend David’s garage and I drop the f*cking thing and smash the enamel and paint and dent the body. I was so f*cking bummed about it. The thing was mint and I just f*cked it up. I decided around this time to trade it for a Jazz bass and telecaster. I traded with my buddy Andy. He loved it but eventually needed money and sold it to his brother Matt who covered the f*cking thing in stickers and traded it ultimately for a NECK TATTOO.

The neck tattoo artist took it to a friend of ours in town (Dan Johnson who is now Dan’s guitar tech) to sell it for him. He posted it on EBay and it sold to someone.

So a few weeks with my 40th birthday approaching I thought I should get myself a 1964 daphne blue mustang. I found one listed on Reverb that has been refinished by Lay’s guitar shop in Akron Ohio and it’s daphne blue the seller is in Texas…. I bought it. I just thought there is a chance some how this is mine. The photos didn’t show the area where I dropped it but I thought hey there is a chance.

I got the guitar a few weeks ago and it has the same damage to the body. I got my guitar back for my 40th birthday.”

During this weekend’s virtual taping of Saturday Night Live, Weekend Update co-host and writer Michael Che revealed that his grandmother Martha had recently passed away after being diagnosed with COVID-19. “As you know Colin, I lost my grandmother this week, and coming back to work really made me feel better — especially with you,” he told Colin Jost before guilting him into telling a racially-charged joke during the recurring “Joke Swap” segment. Che called it his grandmother’s “favorite part of the show” before later disclosing that she never watched SNL, “I just wanted you to do that.”

To honor his late grandmother, Che is paying one month’s rent for all 160 residents of her New York City public housing complex.

“It’s crazy to me that residents of public housing are still expected to pay their rent when so many New Yorkers can’t even work,” Che wrote on Instagram on Wednesday (there are over 111,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus in New York City alone, with nearly 7,000 deaths). “Obviously I can’t offer much help by myself. But in the spirit and memory of my late grandmother, I’m paying one month’s rent for all 160 apartments in the New York Housing Dept. building she lived in. I know that’s just a drop in the bucket, so I really hope the city has a better plan for debt forgiveness for all the people in public housing, at the very least.” He then asked the three titans of New York City politics — Bill de Blasio, Andrew Cuomo, and Diddy — to “fix this.” You can read the message below.

Will Toledo previously teased that his upcoming Car Seat Headrest album, Making A Door Less Open, would be more diverse than previous efforts. With a new mindset, he has so far shared diverse songs like “Can’t Cool Me Down” and “Martin.” Now he has further teased the record with a song called “Hollywood,” which isn’t exactly laudatory about its namesake place.

The lyrics come from a point of view that is not a fan of show business, as Toledo sings, “You got a face that you think / Will last as long as sphinx / But the poster’s painted over in a week if it stinks.” He sums up his feelings on the chorus: “Hollywood makes me wanna puke.”

Toledo previously said of his upcoming album, “I wanted to make something that was different from my previous records, and I struggled to figure out how to do that. I realized that because the way I listened to music had changed, I had to change the way I wrote music, as well. I was listening less and less to albums and more and more to individual songs, songs from all over the place, every few days finding a new one that seemed to have a special energy. I thought that if I could make an album full of songs that had a special energy, each one unique and different in its vision, then that would be a good thing.”

Watch the “Hollywood” video above.

Making A Door Less Open is out 5/1 via Matador. Pre-order it here.

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People across the country and the world have been in self-isolation for weeks now as the coronavirus pandemic rolls on, and folks are starting to wonder when large gatherings (like concerts) might start to come back. Yesterday, the mayors of New York City and Los Angeles spoke to that, saying they don’t think big concerts will return to their cities in 2020.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on The Situation Room, “It’s difficult to imagine us getting together in the thousands anytime soon, so I think we should be prepared for that this year. I think we all have never wanted science to work so quickly, but until there’s either a vaccine, some sort of pharmaceutical intervention, or herd immunity, the science is the science. And public health officials have made very clear we have miles and miles to walk before we can be back in those environments.”

Meanwhile, New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio also told CNN yesterday, “I’ve got to see in my city real steady progress, even to start to think about relaxing some of those social distancing standards even a little bit. I want to get people back to work, of course. I want to get kids back to school. But I think it will take months to go through that whole sequence. And the last thing I want to do is gather 10,000, 20,000, 50,000 people in one place. That’s like the exact opposite of social distancing.”

This comes shortly after California Governor Gavin Newsom predicted that large-scale events wouldn’t return to California before a coronavirus vaccine becomes available.

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Clever solutions to life’s smaller problems.

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