Pop Culture
Los Angeles’ STAPLES Center to Be Renamed Crypto.com Arena
Los Angeles’ STAPLES Center is getting a new name. Effective December 25th, the multi-purpose sports and entertainment venue will be known as the Crypto.com Arena. The arena had been known as the STAPLES Center since its opening in 1997. It is the current home of NBA franchises the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers, as well as of the Los Angeles Kings of the NHL and Los Angeles Sparks of the WNBA. In between sporting events, the STAPLES Center hosts many concerts, with Tyler the Creator, Kacey Musgraves, Journey, and The Weeknd among the bevy of artists who are set to play at the arena in the coming months. According to the Los Angeles Times, the Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com is paying $700 million to AEG, the owner and operator of the arena, for the 20-year ...
Los Angeles’ STAPLES Center to Be Renamed Crypto.com Arena
Los Angeles’ STAPLES Center is getting a new name. Effective December 25th, the multi-purpose sports and entertainment venue will be known as the Crypto.com Arena. The arena had been known as the STAPLES Center since its opening in 1997. It is the current home of NBA franchises the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers, as well as of the Los Angeles Kings of the NHL and Los Angeles Sparks of the WNBA. In between sporting events, the STAPLES Center hosts many concerts, with Tyler the Creator, Kacey Musgraves, Journey, and The Weeknd among the bevy of artists who are set to play at the arena in the coming months. According to the Los Angeles Times, the Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com is paying $700 million to AEG, the owner and operator of the arena, for the 20-year ...
Former Punk Rocker Beto O’Rourke Running for Texas Governor
Next year, civilians of Texas will decide whether or not they want to re-elect an anti-abortion troll as their state’s governor. While we don’t want to speak too soon, it appears that the chances of incumbent Greg Abbott winning are getting slimmer and slimmer, especially now that famous former punk Beto O’Rourke has officially joined the gubernatorial race for the 2022 election. O’Rourke, a former Texas congressman, is a man of the people. The Democratic candidate earned the hearts of liberal music geeks nationwide during his 2018 Texas Senate run when word got out that he used to play in punk bands — though noted tone-deaf coward Ted Cruz was not amused. Before he began breaking a sweat on the campaign trail, he was cutting his teeth in El Paso’s DIY rock scene, eventually meeting C...
Pee-wee Herman to Host Radio Show on KCRW
More than 40 years after Paul Reubens debuted the zany character on The Dating Game, Pee-wee Herman has landed his own radio show. The program will air on KCRW, the popular NPR affiliate based in Santa Monica, California. For now, it is limited to one episode on Friday, November 26th at 6 p.m. PST. To hear Pee-wee tell it, he landed the show after tagging KCRW on Twitter when the station didn’t respond to a letter he had mailed them. An overwhelming response from his fans sealed the deal. Joining him to play “some of the greatest music ever recorded” will be Pee-wee Herman Show mainstays Chairry, Magic Screen, and Miss Yvonne, as well as some “super famous” surprise special guests. “Thank you fans because they are going to get me some donuts and leave me the keys to the studio wh...
Joe Rogan on Sucking His Own Dick: “I’ve Put it Around My Face Just to Know I Could”
Joe Rogan says he’s in charge of his own body, and this time it has nothing to do with the COVID-19 vaccine. In a recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, the comedian and podcast host claimed he could perform oral sex on himself. Rogan had been explaining how he goes about shaving his own asshole, saying, “I spread my legs apart and I go head between the legs.” His interlocutors Ari Shaffir, Mark Normand, and Shane Gillis expressed doubt, to which Rogan replied, “I could suck my own dick if I wanted to.” Rogan added, “I’m super flexible. I’ve never done it but I’ve put it around my face just to know I could do it.” As the three other men howled in protest, Rogan insisted. “I can flatten my body out. You know I can. You remember that time when Burt said ‘can you do a split’ an...
The Simpsons’ House Valued at $450,000 on Today’s Market
Driving the point home that the middle class lifestyle depicted on The Simpsons is no longer attainable, a real estate company has shared a tongue-in-cheek listing of their house at 742 Evergreen Terrace. Taking a look at indicators like floor plan, nearby attractions, and location, Garretts Real Estate Group evaluated how much it would be worth in today’s market. Based on their calculations, the four-bed, two-and-a-half-bath home clocks in at 2,200 square feet. Combined with the other factors, the pre-1989 house was thus appraised at $449,900. “Beautiful two-story home with basement. Through the arched, front door you are welcomed into the foyer,” they wrote in description. “To the left is a cozy sitting room with a bay window, and to the right, is the dining room that also feat...
JAY-Z on Dave Chappelle: “Great Art is Divisive”
JAY-Z weighed in on the controversy surrounding Dave Chappelle’s latest special, The Closer, arguing that “great art is divisive.” During a Twitter Spaces Q&A promoting new Netflix movie The Harder They Fall (of which JAY-Z is a producer), New York’s Craig Jenkins asked the hip-hop mogul if he had seen The Closer. (The question was especially relevant given that Chappelle helped induct JAY-Z into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last week.) JAY-Z acknowledged that he had seen it and proceeded to call Chappelle “super brave and super genius. If you spend time with him, he’s brilliant.” Advertisement Related Video “I think he pushed a lot of buttons,” JAY acknowledged, adding that he himself felt uncomfortable at times watching The Closer. “But I think what happens with true art is that it...
Notoriously Trustworthy “Papa” John Schnatter Says He’s Had 800 Pizzas in Last 18 Months
Disgraced pizza tycoon “Papa” John Schnatter has retreated to his gilded Louisville mansion, reminiscing on his glory days and screaming about how much pizza he’s eating to anyone who’ll listen. In a new interview with Bloomberg, he said he’d tasted over 800 pizzas in the last 18 months. Schnatter has made similarly voluminous claims before. In a notoriously sweaty 2019 interview, he boasted of consuming 40 pizzas in 30 days — although that turned out to be an exaggeration. More careful with his wording this time, he alleges that he’s merely nibbled from 800 pizzas, which in some ways is even more strange. Almost all of those greasy pies came from Papa John’s, from which he was fired in 2018 after using a racial slur in a conference call. In other words, he’s giving thousands of dollars to...
Steve Buscemi Dresses As “How Do You Do, Fellow Kids?” Meme for Halloween
“How do you do, fellow kids?” is how Steve Buscemi greeted trick or treaters who stopped by his Park Slope, Brooklyn home on Halloween. In what is without a doubt the year’s best Halloween costume, Buscemi donned the infamous outfit that inspired one of the Internet’s famous memes. On an episode of 30 Rock aired in 2012, Buscemi cameoed as a private detective named Lenny Wosniak. In one especially memorable scene, Buscemi’s recounts the time he infiltrated a high school by donning a backward red baseball cap, red hoodie, “music band” t-shirt, and skateboard and greeting students by saying, “How do you do, fellow kids?” The scene quickly became a viral sensation and remains an extremely popular meme nearly a decade later. Wearing that very same outfit (skateboard included!), Buscemi handed ...
The Mountain Goats’ Divorce Anthem “No Children” Becomes TikTok Sensation
Nearly two decades after it was first released, The Mountain Goats’ divorce anthem “No Children” has given the prolific indie rock veterans a whole new audience after recently going viral on TikTok. Much of the fascination surrounding the song centers around its dark lyrics, offering new fans an unlikely entryway into the group’s formidable discography, which boasts an impressive 20 albums in total. As Vox reports, “No Children” first gained a modest following at the top of 2021 and once again this summer. In early October, however, The Mountain Goats truly became TikTok famous after @jamesryanb shared a reaction video to the 2002 song’s lyrics. “This song is way too depressing,” he opined. “It sounds like a middle aged man crying over a girl he met in high school. Like get over it du...
Dave Chappelle Calls Controversy Over Transgender Comments “Nonsense”
Dave Chappelle has addressed the ongoing controversy surrounding his latest Netflix special, The Closer. In the special, the veteran comedian makes several jokes about transgendered people, defends J.K. Rowlings’ anti-trans comments, and goes as far to declare himself “Team TERF” (TERF is the acronym for a trans-exclusionary radical feminist). Chappelle’s comments were met with immense criticism and last week, members of Netflix’s LGBTQ+ community staged a walkout in protest of the streamer’s decision to stand behind the comedian. Over the weekend, Chappelle spoke about at the controversy at the end of his standup show in Nashville, and he has now uploaded video of his remarks to Instagram. Advertisement Related Video Chappelle began by disputing the claim that he declined an invitation to...
Ricky Gervais: “The Younger Generation” Will “Not Be Woke Enough for the Next Generation”
Ricky Gervais believes that many of the debates around cancel culture are really a conflict between generations. In a new interview on neuroscientist Sam Harris’ Absolutely Mental podcast (via NME), the creator of The Office said, “I want to live long enough to see the younger generation not be woke enough for the next generation. It’s going to happen.” The episode is titled “Why do we laugh?” and also covers topics such as the science behind tickling and the mechanics of standup comedy. When it came to political correctness, Gervais said of his generation, “We kicked out the old guard. We did it. There’s only so woke and liberal you can get and then you start going the other way. But it’s inevitable.” As for younger people, he said, “Don’t they realize t...
