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This week People’s Party with Talib Kweli has special guest Ron Funches on deck. Funches is comedian, writer, and voice actor who we’ve all seen (or heard) in shows and movies like Portlandia, Bojack Horseman, Adventure Time, Harley Quinn, Drunk History, and many more. Giggle Fit is his latest comedy special and he, Kweli, and co-host Jasmin Leigh have amazing discussions about his career-long journey toward that project.

The trio also discusses the tragic loss of Jak Knight, who passed away recently by suicide. In a somber moment, Funches reflected on the loss the LA comedy community suffered and reflected on how many comedians and people, in general, are suffering in silence.

“When I was 28 I was on the road in Oregon struggling,” he notes, comparing himself to Knight. “This guy had TV credits and writing skills. To see him not be able to enjoy his 30s and 40s feels like such a big loss to me. A good evolution in the voice of Black comedy…I would have never guessed that he was struggling.”

Co-host and comedian Jasmin Leigh was also close to him and noted:

“Mental health is just such a problem in comedy. Your life is in shambles but yet your job is to get on stage and make people laugh. Those other people don’t know to take the time to realize that you are not laughing at yourself. There are so many people hurting right now.”

For more real wisdom from one of the fastest rising comedic minds, peep Ron Funches on People’s Party with Talib Kweli and co-cost Jasmin Leigh on YouTube and listen on Luminary.

As the Republican Party comes to grips with the midterm election results that failed to produce a “red wave,” Meghan McCain has joined the chorus of GOP members who are putting the blame squarely on Donald Trump. The former co-host of The View blasted Trump in her latest Daily Mail column where she highlighted that his MAGA acolytes like Dr. Oz suffered stunning defeats while more moderate Republicans like Ron DeSantis and Brian Kemp sailed to victory.

“Nearly every major MAGA candidate and Trump-disciple lost or is likely to lose, with the exception of JD Vance in the Ohio Senate race,” McCain wrote before going hard on Trump for being an albatross around the GOP’s neck:

There is a simple and easy conclusion to draw from this. Trump’s MAGA is cancer and it is killing my party. And this should be the final nail in his coffin. President Trump is no kingmaker, in fact, he is the opposite. He seems to have a knack for picking losing candidates. That may be because it is more important to Trump, the narcissist, that candidates suck up to him, kiss his ring and vomit up his talking points, instead of running sincere campaigns that connect with voters in an authentic way.

Adding insult to injury, McCain backed DeSantis as the future of the Republican Party and joined others in saying the midterm elections will only boost his chances of beating Trump in the 2024 primary.

“It has poured rocket fuel on his presidential ambitions,” McCain wrote. “But as of Wednesday morning, President Trump is mere days away from an expected announcement of his third run for the White House. We can see two clear pathways ahead. One leads to success and the other to failure for the GOP.”

(Via Daily Mail)

We’re living in the golden age of artist-led music festivals. Regardless of what you’re music stylings tend to favor, there’s now something for every palette on the music festival circuit. In the past 3o days alone, we’ve seen Deftones put on another edition of their rock and rap Dia De Los Deftones in San Diego, Lil Wayne made sure that Lil Weezyana came back to his hometown of New Orleans, and Porter Robinson’s Second Sky dreamworld fest went down in Oakland for the second time. Now Snail Mail is scoring one for the indie rock heads with Valentine Fest coming to Lindsey Jordan’s hometown of Baltimore next year.

Named after Snail Mail’s latest album, Valentine (and the wildly popular self-titled lead single), Valentine Fest is happening across five nights from February 10th through February 14th. The lineup will be different each night, with Jordan bringing on surprise acts to each bill. Baltimore’s Ottobar is a 350-capacity venue, so the handful of shows will be an intimate affair.

“It’s been almost five years since I’ve played my hometown,” Jordan said in a statement, “So we’re playing five nights of shows, leading up to Valentine’s Day, with a surprise band (or two) every night, curated by me. We tried to do this last year, but had to cancel for surgery! Feels worth the wait 🙂 I’ll see you at the Ottobar :)”

Tickets for Valentine Fest go on sale Friday, November 11th at 10 a.m. ET here. Also check out Snail Mail’s remaining tour dates with Turnstile here.

Earlier this week, Dwight Howard announced he is joining Taiwan’s Taoyuan Leopards after spending 18 years in the NBA. Most recently, he made 60 appearances with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2021-22, marking his third stint with the franchise. In 2019-20, he played a role in Los Angeles winning its first title since 2010. As free agency came and went, Howard remained unsigned, leading to his decision to venture overseas for the next step of his playing career.

Speaking with Shannon Sharpe on Sharpe’s show, “Club Shay Shay,” Howard made clear he was interested in re-signing with Los Angeles, though it obviously never manifested.

“I woulda been willing to go back to the Lakers,” Howard said. “I’ve been willing to go back. They told me, every time, we’re not gonna give nobody over 30 a contract, a multiple-year contract. So I’m like, dang, I just helped y’all win an NBA championship. Y’all could give your boy a mil or two, give me a mil. I don’t want a whole bunch of minutes, give me 20 minutes, let me ball out.”

The Lakers elected to sign Damian Jones and Thomas Bryant to support Anthony Davis at the center spot. They also inked Wenyen Gabriel to a deal last spring and picked up his 2022-23 team option. Gabriel has largely held down the backup five minutes this season, especially as of late. Bryant underwent thumb surgery in mid-October and has yet to suit up for Los Angeles.

Ahead of his hotly-anticipated major label debut album, Real Cultural Sh*t, Channel Tres has shared a groovy new single, “6am.” On the song, Tres finds a moment of joy and holds onto it, as life bears its many stresses.

“We ain’t leavin’ / Kick in the door / You won’t get answers / Too late to board / This plane doesn’t land / take off your coat / take off your mask / We gon’ take what we want / ’cause this shit never lasts,” he raps softly over a psychedelic, electronic beat.

In the song’s accompanying visual, directed by Tajana Williams, Tres is seen with a group of friends dressed to the nines, dancing their way through Los Angeles.

“‘6am’ is a happy song, and I never really let myself make happy songs,” he said in a statement. “For me right now, this song represents the grind, and sometimes when things get hard you just gotta dance your way through it. I wanted to create a song for people to come together and dance. Some people get off work at 6am, some people leave the club at 6am and this can be the soundtrack to it all.”

Check out the video for “6am” above.

Real Cultural Sh*t is out 12/8 via RCA.

The fifth season of The Crown, Netflix’s show that is inspired by true events but should definitely be taken with a grain of salt, just landed on Netflix this week, and a lot of people have a lot to say, and as many as five eggs to throw at King Charles.

Imelda Staunton portrays the Queen in season five of the hit series, which chronicles the Royals from 1991 to 1997, a time when the family was under intense scrutiny. (Not that it’s gotten much easier since then, as Netflix’s portrayal of the family has also been bashed over the years.) But Staunton says that hesitation is expected. “I feel it’s understandable that people are feeling sensitive because of recent events. There’s no doubt about it,” Staunton told EW. Even though season five wrapped in the spring, the cast has been working on the upcoming sixth season, which has been heavily criticized since the Queen’s death.

Staunton continued, “We finished filming this season six months ago. If this was coming out two years ago, there wouldn’t be all of this going on. So I think there’s a sensitivity and there’s not a lot we can do about that. I think one would like to feel that people would recognize over all the seasons that Peter Morgan has written, the amount of respect he has for this family, and the amount of integrity he uses in order to write these, yes, imagined scenes that are hung around real events. I don’t think there’s a lot we can do or say.”

Staunton isn’t the first actress to portray the queen and certainly won’t be the last. Peter Morgan, the show’s creator, confirmed that Helen Mirren was the top pick for Elizabeth after her award-winning portrayal in The Queen. After Mirren turned it down, Staunton stepped in to play the historical figure, who passed away in September.

The criticism from both viewers and the Royals had been bubbling for months, and the backlash got so bad that Netflix added a warning before the season five trailer. Other cast members, like Jonathan Pryce, who portrays Prince Philip in the series, don’t seem to care what people think.

“I just find it very disappointing that a handful of people, and it is a handful of people, are being critical of this,” Pryce told EW. “I mean, they say it’s hurtful, unjust dangerous, none of those things I see in this production. It’s certainly been one of the best working experiences of a 50-year career, and I’m so proud of it, and the episodes I’ve seen are joyful, and I’m looking forward to filming the rest of season 6.”

On the other hand, Prince Harry seems to enjoy the show a lot, so there’s that!

Season five of The Crown is now streaming on Netflix.

(Via Entertainment Weekly)

House of the Dragon takes place approximately 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones, making it tough for Ned Stark and Daenerys Targaryen to appear on the prequel series considering they, uh, aren’t alive yet. But one Thrones character could drop by — at a youthful 200 years old.

Carice van Houten, who played the magical Melisandre, told Digital Spy that she “wouldn’t say no” to a comeback for her character. “Would I [return]? If the storyline was good – yes, why not? I think it would be more fun to show a young Melisandre, or a child Melisandre – to really go deep into her slave routes,” she said, adding, “But there is an interesting sort of storyline there, and I think it’s a bit boring to then drag me out again. I think it’s nicer to have another actor do it. But, you know, I wouldn’t say no.”

The Red Woman’s age is never given on Thrones, but co-creator David Benioff said that the character is “several centuries” old. Vanity Fair also notes that “the actor who played Maester Cressen, Oliver Ford Davies, told journalists in 2013 that, according to van Houten, Melisandre is ‘400 years old.’ She offered that fact up by way of explaining why her character survived poison in season two, episode one, and his character croaked.”

If Melisandre looked this good at 400…

… imagine what she looks like at 230. Yowza.

(Via Digital Spy)

Jeopardy! has officially entered the post-Alex Trebek era with two permanent hosts splitting duties behind the podium for the biggest trivia game show on the planet. But Trebek’s impact on the show remains, and two years after his death the syndicated show paid tribute to the longtime host on Tuesday.

The moment came not during actual play, but as a warmup game of sorts between Matt Amodio, Mattea Roach, and Amy Schneider. As a bit of an interlude to the Tournament of Champions, three of Season 38’s biggest winners played each other to keep their skills sharp despite all getting automatic byes into the tournament’s semifinals.

It also, smartly, meant that any election coverage cutting into syndicated airings would not have viewers missing action crucial to the tournament’s results. That lack of stakes meant the game had a bit looser of a feel, and the trivia for some categories was more, well, trivial, than is often the case. Which is why the show had an entire category about Trebek’s life.

Some of the questions were pretty standard: about his hometown (Sudbury, ON) and where he attended university. But one question actually stumped the trio, probably because it was about obscure tools called woodruff keys. That’s OK, though, as host Ken Jennings pointed out Trebek apparently didn’t know what they did, either.

Regardless, it was a nice tribute to the man who largely made Jeopardy! what it is today, and it was nice to see that — woodruff keys aside — some of the biggest stars of the show today certainly know its roots.

The Boys continues to be ridiculously popular and endlessly raunchy, so of course Amazon has been cranking out spinoffs. That includes the animated Diabolical, which mostly fills in some gaps in the canon and provides standalone stories. The real treat should be Gen V, the college-set spinoff full of young Supes who will undoubtedly be unable to contain their own sh*t. The series stars Patrick Schwarzenegger (The Staircase), who previously revealed that his dad (Arnold!) couldn’t believe what he saw in set photos.

“What the f*ck are you filming?” is precisely what the Commando star, who acted out slaughtering an entire army without reloading, said to Patrick. This also appears to be the same reaction that Seth Rogen, one of the Gen V executive producers, also had to offer in a conversation with Collider:

“I’ve been starting to see episodes of, and it’s completely insane. Just like the combination of superheroes in a college setting, in an incredibly subversive R-rated world is, yeah. There are parts of that show where me and Evan [Goldberg] are watching the cuts of the sequences that were just like, “Dear God, what are they doing over there?’”

Gen V has hit the post-production phase, so hopefully, we’ll see a teaser or hear about a release date soon. Can we hold out hope for a Homelander cameo? This seems slightly safer than inviting The Deep to a frat party. Hell, bring Soldier Boy back as a Supe adjunct professor. And for no reason at all (other than I want to watch this again), please enjoy Soldier Boy doing Blondie on Solid Gold.

(Via Collider)

Tierra Whack has been quiet on the music front lately, but that hasn’t stopped her from receiving attention thanks to a shout out from Beyoncé. However, her latest headline is for a different reason entirely. According to ABC Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love rapper was arrested Tuesday (November 8) for bringing a loaded gun to the Philadelphia International Airport checkpoint. Whack (her real name) was charged with disorderly conduct, according to District Attorney Larry Krasner. Fortunately, she is licensed to own and carry the weapon, which should reduce penalties for what is likely an oversight.

Whack’s most recent music release came in December of 2021 with the video for “Heaven” from her R&B? EP. R&B? was one of three EPs she released in 2021, each named for a different genre. Rap? featured the songs “Meagan Good,” “Millions,” and “Stand Up,” while Pop? contained “Body Of Water,” “Dolly,” and “Lazy.” The three EPs constituted Whack’s first multi-song releases since her breakout 2018 album Whack World, which is described as her debut studio album despite only being 15 minutes long.

“Dolly” got renewed attention earlier this year when indie artist Kevin Morby covered it for SiriusXM radio. Whack herself took her first tentative steps into acting this year, appearing in the Adam Sandler NBA drama Hustle. She should