Cards Against Humanity Saves America
Earlier this year, naughty party game Cards Against Humanity released a special expansion pack “For Her,” which besides mocking unnecessary women-targeted products helped raise money for EMILY’s list, an organization that works to get pro-choice Democratic women elected to office (and judging by the recent election results across the country, it seems to be working). Ahead of Black Friday, CAH announced its latest promotion, which aims to prevent Donald Trump from building The Wall. The game company bought up land along the U.S.-Mexico border and hired lawyers to protect it in the event of the controversial wall’s construction. For $15, people could buy a piece of that land and get a number of “America-saving surprises” mailed to them in December, including a map of the land, some new cards and a statement of the company’s promise to fight the border wall. It sold out the first day of the promotion. They should seriously change their name to Cards For Humanity, because these people may be our last hope, especially as Trump renews calls for the wall after a U.S. border patrol agent died in Texas.
R.I.P. Warped Tour
Summer Rock festival and rite of passage for many a teen music lover, the Warped Tour will take its final run in 2018. Founder Kevin Lyman announced this week that the fest, launched in 1995 with bands including No Doubt and Sublime, will make one last cross-country tour ahead of its 25th anniversary, hinting that there will be some kind of smaller-scale celebration in 2019. Local fans can enjoy the final Cincinnati stop on July 18. Warped Tour ignited the rise of Pop-Punk and Emo bands, highlighted extreme sports like BMX and skateboarding and served as a sort of musical summer camp for misfit kids. Because if you didn’t sneak cigarettes and break in your Converse skanking to Reel Big Fish at Warped Tour, were you ever even 15?
Manson Out
And in actual death news, infamous killer and cult leader Charles Manson died Sunday of natural causes. Manson was serving a life sentence at California State Prison and had been pretty sick for about a year. Despite the gruesome murders he orchestrated, the countless other lives he ruined and that unfortunate swastika face tat, Manson remained a pop culture demigod. He inspired music, movies and other art, including this season of American Horror Story. Followers and fans wrote to and visited him in prison throughout his sentence. He was engaged to a 26-year-old just back in 2014, but it turned out she just wanted to exhibit his body as a tourist attraction after his death, so they never made it official. He lived to be 83 years old and would probably be absolutely tickled by the amount of media coverage his sick ass is getting beyond the grave, including in this column. Sorry!
Serena Williams’ Rich Person Wedding
Tennis champion and overall icon Serena Williams married Reddit co-founder and baby daddy Alexis Ohanian in New Orleans this week in what was truly a convention for beautiful, successful people. The event had a Beauty and the Beast theme (do adults who are really into Disney freak anyone else out?) and was held in NOLA’s Contemporary Arts Center. In lieu of cheap centerpieces for guests to smuggle, each table came with a replica trophy from one of Williams’ many championship titles. Boom, bitch. Her dress and bouquet alone clocked in at an estimated $3.5 million. Guests included Beyoncé, Vogue editor Anna Wintour, Ciara, Kim Kardashian West, New Edition and Bell Biv DeVoe. Can you imagine being one of the five normals in attendance? It’s bad enough to be single at a fabulous wedding, but to be reminded that you’re a mere mortal among gods would be overwhelming.
American Music Awards
Every year I have to be reminded that the American Music Awards are a thing, and that happened Sunday night when the show aired. Here are the highlights:
• Christina Aguilera performed a tribute to The Bodyguard for the 25th anniversary of the film… complete with an interactive Whitney Houston hologram.
• Fellow queen Diana Ross was honored with a lifetime achievement award, joined by her famous family including daughter, actress and AMAs host Tracee Ellis Ross and her grandchildren. Barack and Michelle Obama even sent a sweet message for the Supreme.
• P!nk sang R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts” with Kelly Clarkson and rappelled down the facade of L.A.’s JW Marriott Hotel alongside aerial dancers.
• Selena Gomez’s performance had her looking like a car crash victim in lingerie, which is edgy I guess?
• Fellow Disney alumna Demi Lovato performed “Sorry Not Sorry” as mean tweets from her haters scrolled across the screen.
• Nick Jonas performed among groping, disembodied hands, which might be a little tone deaf?
• For some reason, Shark Tank stars Mark Cuban, Kevin O’Leary and Daymond John announced the Alternative Rock award, which went to Linkin Park (whose frontman, Chester Bennington, died earlier this year). What could have been a sweet and somber moment was interrupted by a chatty Cuban who wouldn’t let the group speak as it accepted the trophy.
• And while it seemed like a girl power-y night, only nine of 28 artist categories included women nominees, and three of those were women-centered categories. The show tried to divert from that fact by having everyone talk about how women RAWK, but it was the men who swept the awards in the end.
This Week in Questionable Decisions…
1. Conservative group Turning Point USA shared a poster addressing “liberal snowflakes” with an image of the most triggered snowflake of them all, Tomi Lahren.
2. Donald Trump tweeted his condolences for the wrong mass shooting in an apparent copy-paste situation gone wrong.
3. Problematic movie alert! Brie Larson stars as a white savior in India in a film that’s seriously called Basmati Blues.
4. Jordan Peele’s terrific and terrifying film on race, Get Out, is in the running for the Golden Globes, but it has been placed in the Best Comedy or Musical category.
5. A city outside Atlanta Thursday hosted a networking event called, “Come Meet a Black Person.”
6. Blake Shelton is People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive. The world begs to differ.
7. A fake reporter going by the possibly racist moniker Bernie Bernstein and claiming to be with the Washington Post was supposedly calling people in Alabama offering to pay in exchange for dirt on Roy Moore.
8. Want to give up entirely this Thanksgiving? Try Pringles’ turkey dinner-flavored chips, now in mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, creamed corn, green bean casserole, macaroni and cheese, pumpkin pie and, of course, turkey flavors.
9. Macklemore said he uses a naked Justin Bieber painting to “delay” his orgasms.
10. Lena Dunham, who recently tweeted about how women don’t lie about rape, dismissed the rape allegations against a Girls writer, saying it must be “one of the 3 percent of assault cases that are misreported every year.”
Contact T.C. Britton: letters@citybeat.com
This article appears in Nov 15-22, 2017.
