HOT: Gene Does the Pentagon
KISS’s Gene Simmons is so sleazy and unlikeable he was banned from Fox News’ headquarters. But apparently he’s perfectly fine for the Pentagon. Following in the footsteps of recent upstanding governmental hobnobbers like Ted Nugent and Kid Rock, Simmons has delivered a Pentagon press briefing. (Insert KISS Army joke here.) Maybe it’s not surprising considering the current administration’s deep hatred for journalists. What better way to punish the “enemy of the people” than to inflict on them the “enemy of human decency”? Pentagon press briefings are even more rare than ones from the White House — the last time a spokesperson stood at the podium for a Pentagon briefing reportedly was almost a year ago and it was delivered by actor Gerard Butler, who was using the appearance to promote a movie.
WARM: Break From Drake
Ride-or-die Toronto Raptors superfan Drake won’t be able to hear any of his own music on the radio if he’s following his favorite basketball team to Milwaukee for the Eastern Conference Finals. At least on one radio station. The playlists of 103.7 KISS FM will be Drake-free throughout the Raptors’ playoff series with the hometown Bucks. It’s an effort to avoid Drake’s voodoo casting a curse on the Bucks; one of the station’s hosts tweeted, “Oh – its a song that features Drake? Nope. Sorry. Byeee. We can’t take that chance.”
COLD: Punk Water
Not-a-lost-SNL-sketch alert: In a week that also saw the introduction of the instantly mockable bro-makeup line called War Paint, the world also got its first look at the unnecessarily edgy, unnecessarily packaged new “beverage” called Liquid Death. Emblematic of the faction of startups offering something “new” that basically already exists, Liquid Death is literally just water in a tallboy-beer can. Former Punk and Metal drummer (and onetime Netflix creative director) Mike Cessario created the “beverage,” which he says is being marketed to teens and 20something fans of the kind of music he used to play who are also hip to irony. The water concept (and some fairly noble attention to environmental concerns; cans are better than plastic bottles and they’ll reportedly donate money to charity) attracted more than $1.5 million from investors. The tagline is, of course, “Murder Your Thirst.”
This article appears in May 15-22, 2019.