Walking through my comic shop Wednesday evening, I was in the mood for something new. Something I’d never read or had any particular interest in before. That’s when I saw the cover for the first issue of Lady Killer 2 #1. This cover is oddly charming, but in the most demented way, and when you open it, you’ll find that the book itself gives you the exact same feeling.
Set in the late 50s, maybe early 60s, the book opens up at a Tupperware party hosted by some well-off elderly sisters. The protagonist, Josie Schuller, is displaying the pieces of Tupperware, while the ladies gossip. The art style looks like 1950s housewife advertising, until the guests leave and Josie brutally murders the elderly sisters. One while she was sitting on the toilet. Then, like any other good “Stepford wife,” she meticulously cleans the crime scene.
Cover image via Dark Horse Comics, Inc.
The story plays out like a slasher film and a dark comedy. You know what’s going to happen next, but at the same time love to watch it unfold. The book is aware of itself, but in the best possible way. Joelle Jones and Jamie S. Rich have created a strong female character, in a setting where you might not expect to see one.
If you’re a fan of TV’s Mad Men, but thought, “There’s just not enough violence and murder in this show,” then this book is right up your alley. Joelle Jones’s artwork is stunning. The violence and gore is highlighted by the contrast of brightly colored 1950’s clothing and furniture. After an ordinary, humdrum workday, finding this delightfully brutal book made for a satisfying evening.
Everyone’s favorite big brother, the guy who feeds you ice cream and Whopperitos when mom and dad aren’t home, is at the center of a little mall drama in Florida. Joey “I’m not in a band anymore” Fatone, also known as the only NSYNC member who could pull off facial hair, launched a hot dog kiosk brilliantly named Fat One’s at The Florida Mall recently. And during a standard fire inspection on Thursday afternoon, several balloons were popped, scaring shoppers into thinking they were targets of a wayward gunman.
Even though an announcement was made on the PA system alerting everyone to the impending inspection, people still freaked out. (An alarm that sounded immediately after the popping sure didn’t help). And remember, it was a little more than two months ago that the Orlando nightclub massacre happened.
Shopper Mark Comer tells WFTV: “People were bumping into things, getting stepped on, falling, children getting dragged by their arms.”
Apple releases more and more emojis for which we can express ourselves and yet at times like this I can’t find any that properly capture my emotions. If you haven’t heard: According to TMZ, MTV will give Kanye West four minutes to do whatever he wants at the VMAs.
Currently, producers are completely unaware of what he might do. He could rap, he could debut new music, he could “rant,” he could reveal his 2020 presidential platform, he could just stand there in silence, staring directly into the camera, his expressionless face there to just deal with. That would be a very Kanye move.
Of course, the VMAs and Kanye have a tumultuous history. The VMAs boasts the dubious honors of hosting the infamous Kanye-Taylor Swift debacle, an incident producing ripple effects still. Last year, Ye received the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award and delivered a memorable speech/stream-of-consciousness waterfall that included the now indelible phrase, “Listen to the kids, bro!”
But focusing on those absurd moments belittle the possibilities of Yeezus; it’s a sentiment too interested in crafting Kanye as cartoon instead of artist. Because he’s had some breathtaking, musical moments as well. If you miss the old Kanye, the pink-polo Kanye, he performed a College Dropout medley in 2004, where he brought out the KWEEN, Ms. Chaka Khan, while the camera continuously cuts to Jay Z, a clearly proud big brother. It’s also the site when he introduced 808s & Heartbreak Ye, donning the iconic gray pinstripes, the beating heart pin, the Mohawk. It remains the best live rendition of “Love Lockdown,” including the album version (those drums kick like pure molten fire).
What will Kanye do? Rumors float it might involve Swift again, possibly a making-up of sorts. Perhaps he’ll just speak whatever’s on his mind. Personally, I hope it involves music. A “Champions” performance with the whole G.O.O.D. Music crew sans Gucci Mane (still on house arrest) would be more fun. Or perhaps an alternative version of something from Life of Pablo. Kanye started the Saint Pablo tour this month (and it looks bonkers), maybe give fans an appetizer of what’s to come. The music, the theatrical performances, that’s why we love Ye, not the controversies.
Whatever it is, Kanye will give us a moment. He always does.
Nature is freakin’ creepy. It’s full of things that could outrun, out-fly, or out-climb feeble humans. It makes weird noises at night. It has bats, and spiders, and big-ass fish. Those are all fine in their place, but do we have to intrude on them with our big dumb clumsy flesh-suits? And look, fish just shouldn’t be that big! Where does it end.
That’s not even counting what lies on the other side of this dimension, ya know? In addition to all of the biological “nopes” that exist in the world, there’s a slew of paranormal WTF stuff out there, waiting for us to park our campers and stumble into the unknown. To celebrate the National Park Service’s 100th birthday, let’s talk about it. Are you ready? *shines flashlight onto face* Here we go.
Photo by Flickr user allispossible.org.uk
If ghosts were real, Civil War battlegrounds would be brimming with these intangible assholes, and Gettysburg, PA would be their capital city. At Devil’s Den, tourists to the spot report seeing a rifle-carrying, barefoot ghost who whispers, “What you’re looking for is over there.” Nah dude.
Mammoth Cave National Park claims the titles of most haunted. It’s got stories about lovesick girls dying of tuberculosis, strange visions of people who aren’t really there, and sagas involving tragic feuds. One story told by a tour guide stands out:
When they reached a point on the trail called the “Methodist Church”, they usually turned out all of the lights so that visitors could experience what the cave was like in pitch blackness. She was standing at the back of the group when the lights went out and she could hear the lead ranger talking about the experience. Then, she felt a strong shove against her shoulder. The assault was hard enough that she had to step forward to keep from falling over. She turned to another ranger, who was supposed to be standing next to her and she whispered to him to stop clowning around. A moment later, the lead ranger ignited the wick on a lantern and she saw that the other ranger, she had thought was close to her, was actually about 70 feet away. There was no way that he could have shoved her and then walked so far in complete darkness. “There was no one near me,” she said, “but it was a playful shove. There are a number of us who feel things in various parts of the cave. It’s not frightening — but it’s something else.”
I’d call that frightening, but that’s just me.
As if water shooting up from the Earth at random isn’t scary enough, this Yellowstone ranger tells the tale of finding an eerie campsite:
Inside I found a cloth sleeping back, some dirty clothes, LOTS of food (Big cans of spaghetti-o’s, and what looked like some leftovers from a refried beans and rice dinner), and a teddy bear. Everything reeked of cigarette smoke. […] I spent some time poking around the area, but never saw any other sign. It was obviously someone who was not prepared for camping out in the backcountry, judging by the food and equipment, and the teddy bear….I just don’t know.
Finding a teddy bear in a place where teddy bears shouldn’t be ups the creepy factor by 10.
Someone claiming to be a Search and Rescue officer for the US Forest Service posted several of their own stories on Reddit’s No Sleep subreddit, so there’s a good chance they’re fake, but they’re creepy enough to go here, anyway. One describes finding a woman curled up under a rotted log:
Along the way, she kept looking behind us and asking us why ‘that big man with black eyes’ was following us. We couldn’t see anyone, so we just wrote it off as some weird symptom of shock. But the closer we got to base, the more agitated this woman got. She kept asking me to tell him to stop ‘making faces’ at her. At one point she stopped and turned around and started yelling into the forest, saying that she wanted him to leave her alone. She wasn’t going to go with him, she said, and she wouldn’t give us to him. We finally got her to keep moving, but we started hearing these weird noises coming from all around us. It was almost like coughing, but more rhythmic and deeper. It was almost insect-like, I don’t really know how else to describe it. When we were within site of base ops, the woman turns to me, and her eyes are about as wide as I can imagine a human could open them. She touches my shoulder and says ‘He says to tell you to speed up. He doesn’t like looking at the scar on your neck.’ I have a very small scar on the base of my neck, but it’s mostly hidden under my collar, and I have no idea how this woman saw it. Right after she says it, I hear that weird coughing right in my ear, and I just about jumped out of my skin. I hustled her to ops, trying not to show how freaked out I was, but I have to say I was really happy when we left the area that night.
Another details the experience of a man who’d fallen down a cliff and got trapped:
He kept talking about how he’d been doing fine, and when he’d gotten to the top, a man had been there. He said the guy had no climbing equipment, and he was wearing a parka and ski pants. He walked up to the guy, and when the guy turned around, he said he had no face. It was just blank. He freaked out, and ended up trying to get off the mountain too fast, which is why he’d fallen. He said he could hear the guy all night, climbing down the mountain and letting out these horrible muffled screams.
Yosemite’s another national park that’s hella haunted. The former operator of the Ahwahnee Hotel is supposedly still floating up and down hallways, “checking in” on guests like a major creeper and rocking in chairs that don’t exist.
Photo by Flickr user Jerald Jackson
Near Yosemite’s Grouse Lake, a boy reportedly wanders and wails to passers-by. The park’s first ranger, Galen Clark, went for a long walk when he heard “a distinct wailing cry, somewhat like a puppy when lost.” He asked a nearby Native American hunting camp what they thought of this:
“They replied that it was not a dog—that a long time ago an Indian boy had been drowned in the lake, and that every time anyone passed there he always cried after them, and no one dared go into the lake, for (the boy) would catch them by the legs and pull them down and they would be drowned.”
Finally, The Fresh Toast’s own photo editor Roslyn shares her tale of park-related weirdness:
“We were camping in a tent at Big Bend National Park, in Chisos Basin Campground and I heard noises in the middle of the night. I thought I could feel a little girl spirit standing right at the foot of my head but it felt more like an endless shadow. I brushed it off and tried to get back to sleep, assuming it was a mountain lion or bear because we were told those come into the camp grounds. But there were no tracks when we woke up. Later, someone told me a similar thing happened to them in that park a year before.“
Chisos, the name of the mountains where she was camping, is a Native American word meaning “ghost” or “spirit.” Yep, probably definitely haunted!
So there you have it. We have two choices. Stay indoors where there’s Wi-Fi, or at least near enough to civilization that you can tweet about the messed-up X-Files stuff happening to you. Or venture out into your nearest National Park with one of those flashlights that double as a club, and let’s be real, a change of underwear.
How much testicular fortitude do you require to attempt a stunt like this? A lot, right? By my calculations, Lance Armstrong (allegedly) couldn’t attempt a stunt like this because [This redaction brought to you by Livestrong] and we all know the effect (alleged) injections have down below.
Anyways, this guy is my 10-year-old self’s hero. I might buy a bike just to try this out (plus: I live in Austin; the bike thing was bound to happen eventually). That being said, my present self adores the frontman of the pack riding the scooter. Watch as he notices Cyclist Superman zoom past his left, and he goes “Look, ma, no-hands!” to capture a few snapshots of the moment. If he pulled out an iPhone and selfied, I might self-combust. It would be the end of content. How else would we go up from here?
Thank god he didn’t, though. If there’s one thing the world needs, it’s more content.
As long as we’ve studied the stars, humans have searched for the possibility of life on another planet, of another Earth. That quest by astronomers has yielded some candidates, like Gliese 667Cc and Kepler-452b, the most similar exoplanet to Earth. But all of these possibilities lie so far outside our reach and so many light years away, our current space travel capabilities fall short.
A new hope has emerged, though. The Pale Red Project and European Southern Observatory recently announced the discovery of a potentially habitable planet. Its name: Proxima b. (If that name doesn’t get the juices flowing…) The planet revolves around Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the sun, and exists within the star’s Habitable Zone, which means temperatures are neither too hot nor too cold to sustain liquid water. That doesn’t mean Proxima b does have flowing water (which is necessary for life as we know it), just that it’s possible.
All of this is wonderful news. While at 4.2 light years away, scientists don’t believe Proxima b is outside our realm of future space travel. It’s a possibility at least. As astronomy professor Ignas Snellen told the Guardian says, “This is the discovery of the year and possibly of the decade.”
Now why does this search for other habitable exoplanets outside of Earth persist so? A scientist would likely reason our journey through the stars helps explain our story within the known universe — how we came to be, and also how we could come to pass. That latter is rather haunting as we all (kind of) believe we’re gonna ruin Earth, right?
Infographic by ESO/Pale Red Dot via NASA
It all leads to a personal, deeper fear. Say we discover that Proxima b lends itself to hospitable life conditions: flowing water, a good-enough atmosphere, some intense-looking animals. A fixer-upper will do. Send in the planet version of the Property Brothers, and it’ll be looking like that new home planet away from our home planet we always wanted!
But here’s my worry that I secretly believe others share: How are we going to fuck this up? A new planet sounds great, but the old one’s got some problems, too. This isn’t like college, where you can jump from relationship to relationship without leaving a wake of destruction and broken homes (planets) in your path. We got to make it work.
First worry: We’re space-traveling, traversing the light years, because we’re awesome and figured out speedy navigation through the stars. Perhaps the Em Drive turned into a fruitful and worthwhile discovery. So we send out a small team—comprised of, I don’t know, Matt Damon, Matthew McConaughey, Zoe Saldana, George Takei, HAL 9000, and Louis Gosset Jr.’s alien son that Dennis Quad raised—and either during the landing, or as they’re exploring the planet, they introduce an alien element or disease into the planet’s atmosphere.
Like, after testing the atmosphere, realizing the air is breathable, an astronaut gets ballsy and takes off their helmet to test it. Forgoing all scientific processes and procedures, this astronaut takes matters into their own hands (the likely candidate: Damon, obviously). But it works! They’re breathing and soon everyone’s removing their helmets, breathing and if it were a movie, maybe “Here Comes The Sun” would play, or maybe “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy.” Either works for this scene. Even HAL’s laughing, joyous, rapturous in delight.
Then someone sneezes. Or coughs. And we introduce foreign illnesses into the atmosphere and the flora and fauna do not possess the antibodies necessary to combat our Earth diseases. Half the species die out overnight and the plants wither away. The chain reaction irreparably damages the fragile atmosphere, disrupting oxygen and carbon levels, and boom, planet ruined. Ask the Native Americans how likely this can happen.
Too many What Ifs there, dude, you’re likely thinking. And I get it. Most dismiss this kind of anxious paranoia style of thought. Most humans are optimistic creatures, which is fine. But that kind of optimism led millions of people to dismiss global warming for decades, and some still rationalize it away, so…
Speaking of which, how incredibly likely is it we discover some type of valuable resource deep beneath the planet’s core? This type of fuel could open further space travel capabilities or revolutionize human life as we know it. We’ll call this the Avatar predicament, for lack of a better term. All the sudden we’re sending space drills and excavating the crust exterior of Earth 2.0. Or some cowboy hat-wearing “entrepreneur” introduces some novel concept he terms as “bracking.”
How many negative outcomes could happen? I’ll wait…(still waiting)…A million! You can’t count them. Dig too deep and hit a core we didn’t know expanded far beyond our own. Molten lava erupts, turning us into white ash Pompeii-style, and encrusts the planet with inhabitable terrain. It will take like hundred-thousands of years for the planet’s atmosphere to reset to its natural equilibrium. And by then, we’ve surely destroyed Earth and the human race become another lost story in the universe.
Then there’s the whole starting-another-civilization on another planet angle to consider. Miraculously, everything goes (mostly) according to plan, and we manage life on Proxima b. Incredible. But who leaves, who stays behind on Earth? Is it a lottery system? Or does it become a class system? Does a social media campaign begin to include certain people? Is it a Snowpiercer-style train we all climb aboard, escaping a nuclear winter, hoping those who made it either don’t cannibalize or murder or whatever one another before reaching Proxima b? What corporations sponsor the voyage? Does Proxima b turn into Proxima Wally World? What if other hominid life forms exist on this planet already? Do we attempt to co-habit, because we’re like really bad at that.
Anyways, the real news here is simple: We discovered something really, really exciting. Let’s not screw it up.
A teen fish whisperer made the catch of a lifetime this week when he reeled in a legendary 650-pound sturgeon named Pig Nose that has haunted the waters of British Columbia for decades.
Nick McCabe, a 19-year-old guide with River Monster Adventures, caught the fish Tuesday night in the Fraser River. He released it after taking several photos to document the historic catch.
According to McCabe’s coworker Jeff Grimolfson, Pig Nose earned his distinctive nickname 40 years ago, when he damaged his nose in an accident.
“This fish has been the talk of fishing and sporting goods shops for years,” he told Global News. “As the legend lives on, you’d be in a sporting goods shop and you’d hear, ‘My buddy was sure he had Pig Nose on the line.’”
Pig Nose measured 10 feet and two inches long and five-and-a-half feet around. He’s believed to be around 80 years-old.
The largest sturgeon on record was a beluga female captured in the Volga Delta in 1827, measuring 7.2 m (23 ft 7 in) long and weighing 1,571 kg (3,463 lb). Most sturgeons are anadromous bottom-feeders, migrating upstream to spawn but spending most of their lives feeding in river deltas and estuaries.
So how did McCabe manage to catch such a big-ass fish? “He is the sturgeon whisperer,” Grimolfson said.
This week in “I Can’t Believe We Still Deal With This Sh*t,” Leslie Jones’ fellow actors are tweeting their #StandWithLeslie support following outrageous acts of hateful misogynoir.
Someone hacked her iCloud Tuesday night and released purported nude photos of the actress, which follows a year marked by an onslaught of hate toward her role in Ghostbusters and bullying on Twitter.
Jones tearfully left Twitter last month, but returned with a vengeance. As the Olympics in Rio began, she posted videos while losing her damn mind during the coverage from home. Eventually, NBC took notice, and invited her to the games as a corespondent:
Jones turned a bleak situation into explosive, contagious joy and a dream-come-true opportunity.
Now that she’s facing a new level of horrible with the hack, her celebrity peers are showing public support and encouraging her to stay strong. Ghostbusters director Paul Feig, Katy Perry, Questlove and many more joined the cry to #StandWithLeslie. Politicians pitched in for the flood of support, too: The First Lady of NYC Chirlane McCray denounced the bullying, as did her sorta-famous husband Bill, and the Lieutenant Governor of California Gavin Newsom.
Here are a handful of the best celebrity tweets standing with her and denouncing hate:
What's happening to @Lesdoggg is an absolute outrage. Alt right, haters, trolls, "comedians," whoever the fuck you all are, you're just sad.
If you’re in the mood for a marijuana road trip, Colorado and Washington are the two top destinations. I know. Shocker.
But California, the first state to allow for legal medical marijuana in 1996, is only No. 8, according to Estately, a Seattle-based real estate website. Of course, full legalization is on the November ballot in the Golden State so expect a bump in the ratings next year.
Estately gave each state a score from 1 to 100 for the following criteria:
The percentage of residents who reported smoking at least once in the last month. (Source: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration)
The average cost of high- and low-quality marijuana. (Source: PriceofWeed.com)
The Google searches related to marijuana. (Source: Google Trends)
The legality of recreational or medicinal marijuana. (Source: Drug Policy Alliance)
The publicly expressed interested in marijuana-themed publications, (Source: Facebook user data)
Based on these data points, here are the five top states:
Colorado The Rocky Mountain high is an actual thing. The state was the first to sell recreational marijuana and is No. 1 in terms of percentage of residents who have used marijuana in the past month (11.5 percent) and in weed-related Google searches. The state ranks third in marijuana affordability. Aspen, Denver and Boulder are wonderful year-round destinations for weed lovers.
Washington Along with Colorado, Washington was the first state to vote for full legalization. Marijuana prices are the second cheapest in the country and it has the fifth highest percentage of pot smokers (10 percent). Seattle, of course, is marijuana mecca. But Bellingham, about a two-hour drive north, has a lively cannabis scene.
Oregon Marijuana is ubiquitous in Oregon. It’s also home of the most affordable bud in the nation. Cannabis enthusiasts smokers make up 9.8 percent of the population.
New Mexico Medical marijuana is legal in the state and the price of cannabis is fifth lowest in the nation. About 7 percent of state residents are cannabis enthusiasts. New Mexico citizens are No. 1 when it comes to reading marijuana-related publications, which helped boost the state’s ranking.
Maine This one is a bit of a surprise. Medical marijuana is available to residents here, although it’s a bit pricey (17th). More than 10 percent of Maine residents admit to using cannabis in the past moth, which ranks third nationally.
By now it’s all but written in stone: 2016 has been Chance the Rapper’s year. It might even be written in stone, too. No other rapper, no other artist, has ascended from beloved talent to bona fide star as quickly or as assuredly as Chance has this year.
His national rise began last year, though, when Chance and friends performed on Saturday Night Live last December. He looked, well, calm rapping, crooning, and dancing, like he wasn’t the first independent artist to ever play SNL (which he was). Instead it was more akin to a show you’d see popping in to a random hole in the wall on a Tuesday night, where the act has been playing for years. So relaxed, he was.
Then the stupefying, spoken-gospel “This is my part, nobody else speak” moment from Kanye West’s Life of Pablo opening track “Ultralight Beams.” He stole the show on a Kanye record, of all places. But really it was a preview for Chance’s Coloring Book, a kaleidoscopic hymn and one of the best albums of the year. Party jams, late-night introspective joints, trap records. The best rap in 2016 has to offer siphoned and tinged with Chance’s hard-earned hope and belief.
Add in his Muhammad Ali tribute at the ESPYs and the original track dedicated to Team USA basketball, a.k.a. our new national anthem, and it’s obvious this is Chance’s moment. Nobody else speak. (Note: Butterflies roller coaster my soul every time Chance belts “Oh say!” then drops an octave to rap “Can you see America face?”)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DFLoN3JosA
Most artists would just perform an old song, and ESPN apparently asked him to do just that as revealed in GQ’s excellent profile of Chance. They approached him to do “Blessings,” that effervescent, spiritual track that anchors Coloring Book, but Chance instead proposed writing an original tune.
But as Chance tells it, all his blessings stem from his grandmother, who “cursed” him. Either before or during recording his breakthrough mixtape Acid Rap, Chance “was just doing a lot of drugs, just hanging out. I was gone all the time,” he says.
So he visited his grandmother’s one day, and she decided to pray for him.
As he told GQ:
“And she looked me in the eyes and she said, ‘I don’t like what’s going on.’ She said, ‘I can see it in your eyes. I don’t like this.’ And she says, ‘We’re gonna pray.’ And she prayed for me all the time. Like, very positive things. But this time, she said, ‘Lord, I pray that all things that are not like You, You take away from Chance. Make sure that he fails at everything that is not like You. Take it away. Turn it into dust.’ ”
The GQ piece is full of excellent gems like that, explaining how Chance become the star he is now. There’s also a delightful anecdote about the time Frank Ocean, genius extraordinaire, played wingman on a date for Chance.
