I’m seeing The Killers tonight, in UT’s new basketball arena (and the Spurs’ new Austin outpost, technically), and since one of our first posts back at All Things NIT involved my realization that The Killers were the greatest band of all time, I thought it bore mentioning. It was January of 2018, I saw them in St. Paul, and it was a rock and roll show. I know tonight’s won’t shock me like that one did, but my expectations remain high.
I recognize The Killers aren’t really the greatest band of all time, and to be clear, my claim isn’t that they’re my favorite. There are a few other artists I like more. The Killers are, though, the greatest rock band of our generation, and while the playing field is narrower than it was a generation ago, that doesn’t mean they aren’t the leaders in the clubhouse. If you find yourself driving Uber Eats in some half-grown Texas suburb long past dark on a Friday night as part of your tangled, snarled effort to get the world to pay you to be yourself, put on the A-side of Hot Fuss. Sometimes, you need to get through.
Memes
My 34-year-old brother texted me yesterday and asked me to include a section in this post called “Explaining memes to my 34 year old brother,” then listed four Internet things he would like explained. He described himself as “young enough that he sees the memes but…too old to know what the fuck they’re referencing,” but that’s all of us, really. If you know the reference for every single meme…I don’t know, your choice, I guess. Someone made fun of a member of our household last weekend for not having heard of Corn Kid earlier, but I don’t think the one making fun had really thought through what it says about them that they knew so immediately. You spend a lot of time on TikTok. Congratulations?
Anyway, the four things:
1. Corn Kid
This one’s worth knowing. You do not need to hear the remix, you don’t need to follow all the spin-off jokes, but I think everyone on earth will enjoy this video. It’s cute, it’s silly, it’s happy. It’s ridiculous in the same way the “tape a cheetah to her back” kid was. The way all kids should be. Enjoy.
2. Harry Styles and Chris Pine
Ok, the summary here is that Olivia Wilde (that woman who left Jason Sudeikis for Harry Styles), Harry Styles (that man for whom Olivia Wilde left Jason Sudeikis), Chris Pine (I don’t really know who this guy is but he’s evidently an actor, he kind of looks like if Harry Styles and Leonardo DiCaprio procreated, in case you see him on the street), Florence Pugh (from Little Women if you’re wholesome and Midsommar if you have a messed-up soul), and Nick Kroll (he’s not involved in any of this and if you don’t know who he is move along but if you do know who he is, it’s funny that he’s a bystander) are in a movie Wilde directed called Don’t Worry Darling. Shia LeBouf (yeah, the Even Stevens guy) was originally supposed to play Styles’s part, but LeBouf ended up leaving the film (may have been fired), and the tea (that’s Gen Z for rumor) is that LeBouf and Pugh had some conflict.
This is a long way of saying that a video message from Wilde to LeBouf leaked in which it sure seemed like Wilde was criticizing Pugh, calling her “Miss Flo” in a demeaning voice (which is weird, because Wilde is dating someone roughly Pugh’s age, but on we go). Which is an even longer way of explaining why when Pugh started playing coy around promotional events for the movie (showing up late or not coming), everyone was tuned in, which is an even longer way of explaining why everyone noticed an incident at some film festival in Venice (evidently this has been happening for years but this week was the first I heard of it) where Styles appeared to spit on Pine. It really doesn’t sound like Styles did spit on Pine—it was just a weird head motion by Styles—but with so much attention on the cast already, it was noticed, to say the least. Then Harry Styles flew back to America to resume his concert series at Madison Square Garden (that’s where they used to hold the NIT Final Four before the NIT became too big for New York) and reportedly said, “This is our tenth show at Madison Square Garden. It’s wonderful, wonderful, wonderful to be back in New York. I just popped very quickly to Venice to spit on Chris Pine, but fret not, we’re back!”
The summary, from my vantage point, is that Styles is instigating and seems to be enjoying the mayhem; Pine is trying to calm everything down so he can focus on his craft without the drama (even though his craft, by one definition of the word, is drama); Wilde is trying to calm everything down so people don’t think she’s even further out there than we all already think she is; and Pugh is keeping her mouth shut, keeping her distance from Wilde, and thereby both drumming up a ton of interest in the movie and also making herself look like the one who was right in all of this. I don’t know what Shia LeBouf is doing. Hopefully working on an Even Stevens reboot. Nick Kroll seems to be having fun.
3. “My money don’t jiggle jiggle, it folds”
I have no idea what this is, and I’m going to try not to find out.
4. The song Narco
We more or less covered this already, it’s mostly a baseball thing right now, the only other thing to know is that in addition to being Edwin Díaz’s entrance music, for the Mets, it’s William Contreras’s walk-up music for Atlanta, and Atlanta likes to play it at Stepford Stadium when bad things happen to the Mets, which is a good bit. Whoever lasts longer in the playoffs will get to blast this to their heart’s content, which probably means the Dodgers and Cardinals are going to play in the NLCS after calamitous losses for both NL East parties.
Texas/Bama
We’ve got a Bevo’s Fake Nuts out where I open my heart about how I can’t help but love the Texas Longhorns, even if I usually just want to make fun of them. It’s kind of the opposite of yesterday’s notes on the Vikings and kind of the exact same thing applied to my current home rather than my former home. Please read it. We get more money in the long run if you read things, which lets us make more content in the short and long run.
Burnley: Back Sooner Than We Thought
Burnley’s game today was postponed, as expected, but the word is that they’ll resume on Tuesday. So, just one pending makeup, and that’s the case for everyone.
Housekeeping
Some minor housekeeping: We should be beefing back up the content again soon, with Joe in the process of wrapping up the college football model. That means more Fargo Friday, License Plate Bracket III, a potential return to TikTok (congratulations?), and other good things. So tell your friends. If you have them. No shame if you don’t.
**
Viewing schedule for the three days:
Sunday, 4:25 PM EDT: Packers @ Vikings (FOX)
As we’ve made clear, we would like the Packers to beat the Vikings on Sunday.
12:00 PM EDT: Alabama @ Texas (FOX)
4:00 PM EDT: Iowa State @ Iowa (BTN)
7:30 PM EDT: Arizona State @ Oklahoma State (ESPN2)
10:15 PM EDT: Baylor @ BYU (ESPN)
Existential dread for Texas, existential conflict for Iowa State, high chaos potential in the Big 12 late slate. Good Saturday ahead.
Friday, 9:40 PM EDT: White Sox @ A’s (MLB TV)
Saturday, 4:07 PM EDT: White Sox @ A’s (MLB TV, second screen)
Sunday, 4:07 PM EDT: White Sox @ A’s (MLB TV, second screen)
Joe Kelly’s gonna save the White Sox season so many times this weekend.
Sunday, 9:00 AM EDT: F1 Italian Grand Prix (ESPN)
Sunday, 2:40 PM EDT: IndyCar – Grand Prix of Monterey (NBC, third screen)
Sunday, 3:00 PM EDT: Hollywood Casino 400 (USA, fourth screen if we can find one, someone let me run a bar)
Some great high-stakes racing on Sunday afternoon. Evidently the F1 cars are going to go fast on Sunday morning. I’ll take fast. If it isn’t going to be fun, at least make it fast.
Friday, 4:05 PM EDT: Giants @ Cubs (MLB TV)
Saturday, 2:20 PM EDT: Giants @ Cubs (MLB TV, third screen)
Sunday, 8:00 PM EDT: Giants @ Cubs (ESPN)
And finally: Let’s petition to not let ESPN show the standings on Sunday night. Let’s all agree to enter that world of denial together.
