LIFE

Michelle Wolf Roasts Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ ‘Ugly Personality’ in Netflix Premiere

Published

4 years ago

October 26, 2020

When Netflix announced earlier this year that they had tapped comedian Michelle Wolf for a new weekly series, even they probably had no idea what they had on their hands.

At that point, Wolf, a former contributor on both Late Night with Seth Meyers and The Daily Show, had received rave reviews for her debut HBO stand-up specialNice Lady, but she was hardly a household name.

Three months later, everything has changed.

A fiery, no-holds-barred set at the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner in April thrust Wolf into the center of the political media conversation, with journalists like The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman condemning her for going too far in her criticism of Trump press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and comedians like Judd Apatow and Jimmy Kimmel coming to her vigorous defense.

On the first episode of her new weekly show, titled The Break, Wolf seemed ready to move past the controversy, but also evidently felt she had no choice but to address it as well—on her own terms.

“Do women have to support other women?” Wolf asked midway through the show during a segment ironically titled “Sports Smash.” “No, of course not. If we did, Hillary would be president and I don’t think she is.”

For another example, Wolf turned to the nomination of Gina Haspel as the first female CIA director. “Who knew you could waterboard a glass ceiling until it broke?” she joked. Then she shared a tweet about Haspel from her “best friend,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who labeled any Democrat who supports “women’s empowerment” but opposed Haspel a “hypocrite.”

“Well if anyone’s an expert on hypocrites, it’s Sarah Huckabee Sanders,” Wolf said. “And for the record, that was not a looks-based joke,” she added, referencing the main complaint against her WHCD speech. “That was about her ugly personality.” To hammer the point home, Wolf added, “She has the Mario Batali of personalities.”

“Look, there’s nothing anti-feminist about not supporting certain women,” Wolf said, before listing, in ESPN fashion, the top five women she’s not supporting right now, including MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle, who she called out for rolling her eyes too much, as well as Camille Cosby for standing by her husband. Coming in at number two was NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch. “The only adult I’ve seen this humiliated by teenagers is me on the subway,” she joked. In conclusion, Wolf cracked that criticizing women doesn’t make her anti-feminist, it just makes her a “b—-”

In the 10-minute stand-up set that opened the show, Wolf also defended her right to make jokes about whatever she wants, telling her audience, “The point is, we’re all going to die. So until then, we might as well laugh. And laugh at everything and everyone.”

To make her point, Wolf took on some new high profile targets. “Oprah, you’re not so special,” she said. “I always eat bread everyday.” To Elon Musk, she joked, “You call yourself an inventor? Then invent yourself a girlfriend closer to your own age.”

From there, Wolf moved on to talk about issues like the NFL’s new rule that says players can only protest the National Anthem from the locker room. “I believe it was Martin Luther King Jr. who said, ‘The best protests are the ones no one can see,’” she joked. Wolf added that addressing the National Anthem issue while ignoring everything else that plagues professional football “is like making sure JFK was wearing his seatbelt.”

And despite being the first “late-night” show to air since Harvey Weinstein was finally arrested on Friday, Wolf declined to comment on his creepy, smiling perp walk, instead dedicating a few minutes to the NYPD’s latest investigation into chef Mario Batali, which she joked was “mostly to find his neck.” The final third of this week’s premiere found Wolf reuniting with her former Late Night colleague Amber Ruffin to talk frankly and hilariously about why they don’t want to have kids.

During a recent appearance on The View, Wolf vowed that she would not be shying away from political comedy on her new show and would continue to “make fun of people” in the Trump administration as she did during the WHCD. “I’m never going to do like a deep dive on net neutrality or anything like that,” she added, a light dig at another Daily Show alum who hosts his own weekly show on HBO.

Wolf reiterated this intention in her monologue, stressing that she wants The Break to be a literal “break” from the news. “I’m not going to try to teach you anything or discuss political policy with you,” she said. “I guess I’m sort of like a cable news show in that way.”

Instead, with a mix of stand-up, sketches and sharp political commentary, The Break feels like a smarter version of Comedy Central’s Inside Amy Schumer, which has now been off the air for almost two years.

The Break also represents a huge leap forward for Netflix’s ongoing struggle to compete in the “late-night” space. The platform’s first attempt at the genre with Chelsea Handler had its moments, but never really found its voice and was ultimately canceled after two seasons. A reboot (in all but title) of Joel McHale’s The Soup, just renewed for another six episodes, has been even less of a critical success.

Though viewers can stream episodes of The Break whenever they want, Netflix clearly wants Wolf’s show to have the same timely cultural impact that hosts like Oliver, Stephen Colbert, Samantha Bee and others have managed to make on a consistent basis during the first half of Trump’s presidential term. They have landed the right host in Michelle Wolf.

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LIFE

conic Smiths bassist dies aged 59

Published

12 months ago

May 21, 2023

The San Francisco Telegraph

The bassist with legendary English rock band The Smiths, Andy Rourke, has died at the age of 59, the group’s former guitarist Johnny Marr has announced.

“It is with deep sadness that we announce the passing of Andy Rourke after a lengthy illness with pancreatic cancer,” Marr wrote on Twitter on Friday.

“Andy will be remembered as a kind and beautiful soul by those who knew him and as a supremely gifted musician by music fans,” he added.

Mike Joyce, who was drummer for The Smiths, described Rourke as “not only the most talented bass player I’ve ever had the privilege to play with but the sweetest, funniest lad I’ve ever met.” The musical legacy of his former bandmate is “perpetual,” Joyce said in a tweet.

ABBA guitarist dies

Rourke was with The Smiths from 1982 to 1987, performing on all four of the band’s studio albums: ‘The Smiths’ (1984), ‘Meat Is Murder’ (1985), ‘The Queen Is Dead’ (1986), and ‘Strangeways, Here We Come’ (1987).

He also had an impressive career after the group split up, playing with Smiths’ frontman Morrissey on his solo projects and with the likes of Sinead O’Connor, The Pretenders, Dolores O’Riordan, Badly Drawn Boy, Killing Joke, and guitarist Aziz Ibrahim.

In 2005, Rourke put together a supergroup called Freebass with fellow bassists Peter Hook, who previously played with New Order and Joy Division, and Gary “Mani” Mounfield of the Stone Roses and Primal Scream. Among other things, he also worked as a DJ on the popular British rock radio station XFM, now known as Radio X.

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LIFE

Village People demand Trump stop using their music

Published

1 year ago

May 17, 2023

The San Francisco Telegraph

A viral video emerged last week of Donald Trump dancing to a Village People song at his Florida estate

Village People, the disco act best known for 1970s hits like ‘YMCA’ and ‘Macho Man,’ has issued Donald Trump with a cease and desist order to stop using the band’s music at political events without express permission, according to a legal filing. The former US president has frequently played Village People songs at campaign rallies throughout his political career.

Last week, a video emerged online showing Trump dancing to a Village People tribute act during a poolside dinner at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida – leading to the band’s management issuing Trump with a legal request to abstain from using Village People intellectual property at any future events.

“The performance [in the viral video] has, and continues to cause public confusion as to why Village People would engage in such a performance. We did not,” wrote the band’s manager Karen Willis, the wife of singer Victor Willis.

Willis added that Trump’s use of Village People music was previously “tolerated” by the band but that it has decided to issue legal proceedings to prevent further use of its popular songs, for fear that it could be construed as an “endorsement” of Trump’s political ambitions. She also explained that the video had created confusion among fans who mistakenly thought that the real Village People had performed at Trump’s Florida estate.

Trump unveils new Biden nickname

Trump’s legal team has issued a withering response to the band’s cease and desist request. Attorney Joe Tacopinca told TMZ on Monday that, “I will only deal with the attorney of the Village People, if they have one, not the wife of one of the members. But they should be thankful that President Trump allowed them to get their name back in the press. I haven’t heard their name in decades. Glad to hear they are still around.”

Village People music, particularly the song ‘Macho Man’, has been a regular soundtrack to Donald Trump’s political rallies in recent years.

Singer Victor Willis indicated in a post on social media two years ago that while Village People music is intended to be “all-inclusive,” its use by Trump has been problematic. “We’d prefer our music be kept out of politics,” he wrote in February 2020. Willis later requested that Trump stop using his band’s music in June 2020, following reports that then-President Trump intended to use the US military to stamp out Black Lives Matter demonstrations across the United States.

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LIFE

Hollywood star pulls out of hosting awards show amid strike

Published

1 year ago

May 5, 2023

The San Francisco Telegraph

Drew Barrymore is stepping down as host of this year’s MTV Movie & Music Awards, due to be held on Sunday, in solidarity with the ongoing strike by the Writers Guild of America (WGA). The actress has agreed to host the ceremony next year instead, Variety reported.

Although the MTV awards are set to go ahead without a host, Variety said that arrangements for the show are in constant flux as producers are unsure which of the presenters, nominees, and guests will be willing to appear.

Organizers have already scrapped the red carpet as well as interviews that were supposed to take place before the ceremony.

In a statement quoted by Variety, Barrymore said she had “listened to the writers, and in order to truly respect them, I will pivot from hosting the MTV Movie & TV Awards live in solidarity with the strike.”

The actress added that “everything we celebrate and honor about movies and television is born out of their [writers’] creation,” and revealed that she is “choosing to wait” until a solution is reached on fairly compensating writers for their craft.

Although Barrymore will not be present at the live event in Santa Monica, California on Sunday, she is likely to appear in several pre-recorded short films created for the telecast.

Unions representing writers working in Hollywood and beyond officially began a strike on Tuesday. The move comes amid a dispute with major studios such as Paramount and Universal over working conditions and the shift brought about by the rise of streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon.

Hollywood writers go on strike

The WGA has complained that its members are being “devalued” and have received reduced pay despite significantly more movies and TV shows being in production than ever before thanks to streaming.

Aside from increased pay, the WGA has issued a list of demands to the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), which represents Hollywood’s major studios. Among them is a request for guarantees that scripts would not be generated using Artificial Intelligence, and that writers would not be asked to edit or rewrite screenplays generated by such technology.

The current strike is the first work stoppage in the US entertainment industry in 15 years. The previous writers’ strike in 2007 lasted for 100 days and ultimately cost Hollywood an estimated $2.1 billion.

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