In Britain and Ireland, a large number of enterprising early birds made a living waking people for work.
A knocker-up would be paid a few pence a week to make the rounds and rouse workers, banging on their doors with a short stick or rapping on upper windows with a long pole. The knocker-up would not move on until he received confirmation that his drowsy client was up and moving.
The profession died out in the 1920s as alarm clocks became cheaper and more reliable, but a few specialized knockers-up — such as Doris Weigand, employed by a railway depot to summon workers for short-notice shifts — survived for a few decades more.
Just in case your newsfeed doesn't look like mine and you aren't fully satisfied with the amount of horror in the world, there are currently small concentration camps for gays in Chechnya!
by Dan Savage
Katie Couric asked a Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman about the torture and killing of gay men in Chechnya.
Gay men have never had an easy life in Chechnya. But the targeted, collective punishment of gays that began last month under its pro-Kremlin leader, Ramzan A. Kadyrov, is a new turn in the region’s long history of rights abuses. Novaya Gazeta, an opposition newspaper, first reported the pogrom, saying that at least 100 gay men had been arrested and three killed in the roundup. Human Rights Watch corroborated those findings.... The men were held for as little as a day or as long as several weeks, according to Human Rights Watch and to interviews with gay men who later escaped the region. Some “returned to their families barely alive from beatings,” said Tanya Lokshina, Russia program director for Human Rights Watch. Among the fatalities documented by the organization were one man who succumbed during torture and two others who died in “honor killings” by relatives after the police released them.
Chechnya's leader—an appointee and puppet of Vladimir Putin's—has pledged to cleanse Chechnya of gay men by Ramadan while spokespersons for his government deny that there are any gay men in Chechnya at all:
In a telephone interview, Mr. Kadyrov’s spokesman, Alvi Karimov, said the reports of an anti-gay pogrom had to be false because such men did not exist in Chechnya. “In Grozny, have you ever noticed people who, by their appearance or manners, resemble people who are oriented in the wrong way?” Mr. Karimov asked. “A policy is developed for a problem,” he said, referring to a report that said the arrests were official policy. “I can officially say there is no policy because there is no problem. If there were a problem, there would be a policy.”
Chechnya is a Russian federal Republic, it's a part of Russia proper, the leader of Chechnya was appointed by Putin, he serves at Putin's pleasure, and nothing happens in Chechnya without Putin's approval. Putin is responsible. Thank you, Katie Couric, for pressing Putin's mouthpiece to address this issue.
did anyone see that video of the guy who was like “im really good at finding moles” and hes saying that hes gonna pull a mole right out of the ground and for a few seconds youre like ok whats the joke and then he just squats down to the grass and and jams his fist into the ground and pulls a mole up
Now let me say this: I like to think I have a pretty eclectic sense of humor. I can go high or low, folksy or surreal, G-rated puns or X-rated filth. But some of you… let’s just say a few of you surprised me with some of this. This is some seriously weird shit.
NOTE: To narrow things down, I knocked out anything that didn’t resemble a story. I knocked out videos and focused on text. People who suggested comedy specials on Netflix — I didn’t watch those. I eliminated anything that seemed downright stupid, mean, or just not funny. And I probably dropped a few other links here and there because I closed the tab instead of saving it, or some other reason. This isn’t a scientific survey; this is a blog.
“So You’ve Decided To Drink More Water,” by Mallory Ortberg. This is pre-Toast Mallory, and it has everything that made her a huge star in the years that followed. (Well, at least a huge star for us.)
“Downton Abbey With Cats,” by John Hodgman. It’s not a laugh a minute, but this story has a core of melancholy that just makes it deeper and funnier over time.
“Everything That’s Wrong of Raccoons,” by Mallory Ortberg. This is right at the end of The Toast’s run, and it’s a treat. “I can’t be in trustment of a beast that clambers and waddles both.” Nor should you, Mallory.
“The Wisdom of Children,” by Simon Rich. I think the best part of this is the adults’ table conversation as imagined by the kids’ table, but opinions may differ.
“TIME FOR SOME STORIES,” by davesecretaryatwork. This is one of those “maybe you had to be there” things, but these set of stories were lovingly carried over from the VivaVinyl.org message board to an Angelfire site that then went down, and finally found a home at somebody’s tilde.club page. Also, two different people nominated it. Who are we to judge what cracked people up in the days before YouTube?
“An Insider’s Report on the Death of ‘Wilton North’,” by Paul Krassner. This seems like something somebody could have made up, Spinal Tap-style, but in the very early days of the Fox Network, there really was a short-lived late night TV show called The Wilton North Report. Conan O’Brien, Greg Daniels, Alex Sokolow, and other future luminaries wrote for it. I swear to god.
“The Pitch Meeting for Animaniacs,” by Abbey Fenbert. “EXEC #1: How will kids feel when they watch this show? THE ANIMATOR: Disconcerted. Unmoored. Hyper-stimulated. Amused to the point of terror.” This is so good.
“The Alameda-Weehauken Burrito Tunnel,” by Maciej Ceglowski. This was 2007, but I say if we’re not building hyperloops to send authentic California burritos across the country, then I don’t see the goddamned point.
“Anecdotal Leads for News Stories Reporting the End of the World,” by Hart Seely. Newly timely! When a friend recently passed this along again, I reached the end and laughed out loud for a full minute like, well, someone who’s facing the end of the world.
There’s still something to be said about the kind of humor that the web makes possible, or at least rewards disproportionately to other kinds of media. There’s definitely more short-form, densely-referential bits that somehow fuse tweeness and gallows humor than you see on television, or even in magazines, which might be their nearest successor. Some savage blend of The New Yorker and underground zines.
It’s a little like what happened to television comedy after The Simpsons showed up. Animation opened up the possibility space for other kinds of comedy, found a way for the weirdest bits of Get Smart and Monty Python to exist in their own separate universe.
The web had a similar effect. You could write anything. You could do anything. No sets to build, no pages that had to be filled. You had endless reflections by comics on podcasts and interviews and their own blogs and social media feeds about what made the funniest things funny. There were all sorts of new media genres you could lampoon, pillory, and steal from on the sly. You had greater collisions than ever before of different people from all over the world and every walk of life who brought their own traditions of humor and storytelling. Amateur and up-and-coming jokesters desperate to connect with friends and strangers. And an audience chained to their desks or stuck on a train or a doctor’s office looking to laugh. That’s just good gumbo.
One Direction singer Harry Styles released his first single last night and it’s an ethereal pop/rock track that’s drawing comparisons to David Bowie.
Styles did an interview with Radio 1’s Nick Grimshaw before the track’s debut.
“In the least weird way possible, it’s my favourite album to listen to at the moment, he told Grimshaw. “I think if you put out something that you don’t stand behind and really love, then if it doesn’t go well then you could regret not doing what you wanted to do.”
Of recording the album, Styles said: “I think we wrote about 70 songs. We did 50 songs and ideas in Jamaica and that’s including like little ideas … full songs, I say there are 30 songs probably. I just wanted to not be somewhere that I’d get distracted. It was 360 of writing, you’d go home for dinner, write at the house then go back to the studio. I liked being away from everything and doing it like that.”
Styles also talked about his dating life: “I haven’t dated in a long time really because I went away to do the movie then did the album so I haven’t in a while. I have a couple of candles left still though. I used to (research dates), then I said I’m not going to do that anymore, it’s impossible to go in without a perception of someone and you’ve never met them and I started feeling like that was wrong and weird.”
Listen to “Sign of the Times”:
And another interview with Grimshaw:
Lyrics:
Just stop your crying
It’s a sign of the times
Welcome to the final show
Hope you’re wearing your best clothes
You can’t bribe the door on your way to the sky
You look pretty good down here
But you ain’t really good
[Pre-Chorus]
If we never learn, we been here before
Why are we always stuck and running from
The bullets?
The bullets
We never learn, we been here before
Why are we always stuck and running from
The bullets?
The bullets
[Chorus]
Just stop your crying
It’s a sign of the times
We gotta get away from here
We gotta get away from here
Just stop your crying
It will be alright
They told me that the end is near
We gotta get away from here
[Verse 2]
Just stop crying
Have the time of your life
Breaking through the atmosphere
And things are pretty good from here
Remember everything will be alright
We can meet again somewhere
Somewhere far away from here
[Pre-Chorus]
If we never learn, we been here before
Why are we always stuck and running from
The bullets?
The bullets
We never learn, we been here before
Why are we always stuck and running from
The bullets?
The bullets
[Chorus]
Just stop your crying
It’s a sign of the times
We gotta get away from here
We gotta get away from here
Just stop your crying
Baby it will be alright
They told me that the end is near
We gotta get away from here
[Pre-Chorus]
If we never learn, we been here before
Why are we always stuck and running from
The bullets?
The bullets
We never learn, we been here before
Why are we always stuck and running from
The bullets?
The bullets
[Bridge]
We don’t talk enough
We should open up
Before it’s all too much
Will we ever learn?
We’ve been here before
It’s just what we know
[Outro]
Stop your crying baby
It’s a sign of the times
We gotta get away
We got to get away
We got to get away
We got to get away
We got to get away
We got to, we got to
We got to, we got to
We got to, we got to
this is fascinating and also a professional sports team is publicly traded? that seems weird
German police arrested a man on Friday suspected of detonating three bombs that targeted the Borussia Dortmund soccer team bus in the hope of sending the club’s shares plummeting and making a profit on an investment, prosecutors said.
In a statement, the federal chief prosecutor said the 28-year old man, a dual German and Russian national identified as Sergei V., had bought options on Borussia Dortmund’s stock before the attack.
The team bus was heading to the club’s stadium for a Champions League match against AS Monaco on April 11 when the explosions went off, wounding Spanish defender Marc Bartra and delaying the match by a day.
Prosecutors last week expressed doubts about the authenticity of three letters left at the site of the attack that suggested that Islamist militants had carried it out.
The prosecutor’s office said the suspect had bought 15,000 put options, or contracts giving him the right to sell Borussia Dortmund’s shares at a pre-determined price, on the day of the attack, using a consumer loan he had signed a week earlier.
a scene showing Mr. Pratt’s bare backside was removed
THIS IS AN AWFUL PHENOMENON
Two years later, the quota of imported movies permitted into China was raised to 34 from 20 in a deal negotiated between then-Vice President Joe Biden and then-Vice President Xi. The deal all but guaranteed that most big-budget Hollywood features—except those with content deemed objectionable—would be shown in China.
“I prefer to watch Hollywood films because the chance of a domestic film being crappy is much bigger than a Hollywood film,” said Liu Jing, a 25-year-old postgraduate student studying finance policy in Beijing.
Ms. Jing said she became a fan of superhero films from Marvel Studios as a high-school student and now goes to movie theaters at least once a month.
Hollywood executives can rattle off the rules for getting a movie approved by Chinese censors: no sex (too unseemly); no ghosts (too spiritual). Among 10 prohibited plot elements are “disrupts the social order” and “jeopardizes social morality.” Time travel is frowned upon because of its premise that individuals can change history.
U.S. filmmakers sometimes anticipate Chinese censors and alter movies before their release. The Oscar-winning alien-invasion drama “Arrival” was edited to make a Chinese general appear less antagonistic before the film’s debut in China this year.
The superhero hit “Logan” was 14 minutes shorter in China after Chinese censors cut scenes of beheading and impalement.
For “Passengers,” the space adventure starring Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence, a scene showing Mr. Pratt’s bare backside was removed, and a scene of Mr. Pratt chatting in Mandarin with a robot bartender was added.
IVANKA has always wanted to be a Russian oligarch, and now that she is the President’s daughter she has begun actualizing her dream, a London-style subterranean house under her brand new D.C. house. When he is not running errands for Gary Cohn, JARED oversees the construction. Today he phones a REPORTER while checking in on some new fixtures downstairs.
JARED [walking briskly past the general contractor, who is actually in charge of the construction, and speaking into his phone]: I want to leak something to you.
REPORTER [gesturing to his colleagues to come over for this]: Again? Great. Let me begin recording.
JARED [stepping over another contractor, this one gluing expensive, garish tiles onto a wall]: Remember when you said Bannon is the President? [JARED flicks one of the tiles with his free hand but he doesn’t know why.] Can you write in your next article that it’s really me who is the President?
REPORTER [skeptically]: Hmm, how do I say this? We think of you more as someone who has the President’s ear, like a moderating influence maybe, but not as someone per se in charge. Someone else does that part. Like one of the generals, who suggest bombing places to make the cranky baby happy.
JARED [lying]: Yes, yes. Those are all my ideas. To be a war president is my idea. So can you please call me President Kushner next?
REPORTER [brainstorming aloud the first draft of history]: I’m writing about how deeply incompetent the President is, on a structural level, but also how, in the long run, he is absolutely fine. And that’s because every day presents a new opportunity for him to become President. “One hundred days of becoming President Trump.” That’s the pitch at least. Can you tell me more about how you fit into this narrative?
JARED [triggered by REPORTER’s use of the word “pitch”]: Sure thing. [JARED straightens his back.] It’s an app the President can use when he is doing war and diplomacy. You just type in the name of a country, or like a zip code, and the product will tell him which political candidate in those places is the quote unquote Trump. Like all those House races or whatever, the ones they are constantly having. He can use the app for that. And then the Europe ones.
REPORTER [honestly]: I like that. So the app will tell him that Marine Le Pen is France’s Trump. That’s good.
[JARED jots down “Marine La ???” directly onto his hand, even though he knows IVANKA will question why there’s ink on his skin.]
JARED [shimmying past two carpenters building a sturdy and beautiful table that will rarely be used]: Right now I have a team of programmers coming up with all the different spellings the President might use. They’re writing an algorithm based off all his Twitter typos.
[Meanwhile it sounds like a literal earthquake upstairs. BANNON is back, and he is moving furniture around. The walls are quite thin, especially for an old home, and JARED can hear most of what BANNON is screaming.]
JARED [wondering whether he asked REPORTER to sign a non-disclosure agreement]: This is all anonymous, right? No one will know I am the one who says it’s President Kushner now?
REPORTER: It would help support the claim if we could source it.
JARED [genuinely curious]: Can you say Bannon said it?
REPORTER [frustrated because he just answered this question yesterday]: It doesn’t work like that.
JARED [emboldened]: Can you say that he is breaking into my house? We just changed the locks and I can hear him dragging Ivanka’s fainting couch across the first floor.
REPORTER [putting JARED on speaker so the newsroom can hear]: I can say that if it’s happening. Bannon lives with you?
JARED: He was supposed to move out and squat in his office. He is pushing the couch and he is screaming about how the furniture business used to thrive in great American cities like Jamestown and Roanoke before the globalists took over. He is screaming that he is driving the couch to the White House and he and Ted Nugent and Sarah Palin are going to chop it up with Kid Rock’s weapons and have a giant bonfire. All fucking night long. It’s Sarah Palin’s couch now. We’re white trash monsters and we love bonfires, he is screaming.
REPORTER [fishing]: He said he loves bonfires?
JARED [energized that he is leaking correctly]: Wait. He’s adding that maybe Palin will want the bonfire at the creek. The Potomac creek. He calls it a creek to get a rise out of the Democrats, my mother says. [JARED whispers.] She means me.
REPORTER [desperate for JARED to keep talking]: What else you got?
JARED: He can’t get the couch through the doorway. He is yelling that it’s stuck. Good fucking luck getting it back into your living room, he’s saying. He’s leaving, it sounds like. Next time you change your locks, he is screaming, don’t give a spare key to the support staff. Support staffs always like me because I negatively bond with them over the minority group they most fear is infringing on their economic progress.
REPORTER [fishing again]: Do you think that’s true?
JARED [stepping over an electrician who is wiring the fourth of four subterranean bathrooms]: Of course not. We’re very good to our help.
[The REPORTER is getting another call. He shushes the newsroom, and takes them off speaker.]
REPORTER: It’s your wife. Should I conference her in?
[JARED hears footsteps. It’s IVANKA. She has entered the subterranean part of the house. She evaluates the construction as she moves toward her husband.]
IVANKA [to JARED, via the conference call, but also in person]: I know you’re leaking to the press.
JARED [shamefully]: Did I break your heart?
IVANKA [bored]: What. No. [IVANKA directs a contractor to remove all the tile he has plastered to the walls. She pulls out a sample from her enormous bag and hands it to him. Then she addresses the REPORTER.] Hello, reporter. What did Jared tell you?
REPORTER: That’s not ethical for me to say.
IVANKA [while directing her lawyer via text to sue the contractors]: Ethics are for people whose income is derived primarily from a salary.
REPORTER: Can I quote you?
IVANKA: Of course not. That’s on deep background. So was whatever Jared told you, especially if it involved how our furniture blocked our doorway.
[IVANKA ends the call with the REPORTER. Then she lifts a Camelbak bladder bag she found on the sidewalk outside. The bladder bag is full of vodka and ground up painkillers.]
IVANKA [calmly]: Phone your mother and let her know we received the U.S. Treasury bonds she sent the children for the holiday.
JARED: That was kind of her.
IVANKA: She’s trolling us, Jared. She knows the bonds will be worthless by the time they mature. Please also tell her if she passive aggressively conveys she voted for her one more time that the kids and I are leaving you.
[JARED, desperate for validation, demonstrates his War and Diplomacy app to IVANKA who is now eating cashews, even though JARED is allergic.]
IVANKA: Tell her, Jared. [IVANKA finishing her cashews.] Steve also ignited a paper bag full of what I assume is dog excrement and left it in our doorway, alongside this. [IVANKA shoves the bladder bag at her husband.] Please resolve immediately.
[JARED nods pliantly, and writes down “Spotify but for fire departments,” on his arm. An electrician walks by, points to JARED’s note and says he thinks he means Seamless, not Spotify.]
The seven entertainment winners of this year’s Peabody Awards were announced today, and the list is dominated by comedy series. Donald Glover’s FX series Atlanta was named a winner alongside HBO’s Veep and two Louis C.K. projects (Horace and Pete and Pamela Adlon’s Better Things). Here’s the full rundown: Atlanta FX Productions (FX Networks) Donald Glover’s enchanting series on the struggles […]
One of the most lavishly funded gadget startups in Silicon Valley last year was Juicero Inc. It makes a juice machine. The product was an unlikely pick for top technology investors, but they were drawn to the idea of an internet-connected device that transforms single-serving packets of chopped fruits and vegetables into a refreshing and healthy beverage.
Doug Evans, the company’s founder, would compare himself with Steve Jobs in his pursuit of juicing perfection. He declared that his juice press wields four tons of force—“enough to lift two Teslas,” he said. Google’s venture capital arm and other backers poured about $120 million into the startup. Juicero sells the machine for $400, plus the cost of individual juice packs delivered weekly. Tech blogs have dubbed it a “Keurig for juice.”
But after the product hit the market, some investors were surprised to discover a much cheaper alternative: You can squeeze the Juicero bags with your bare hands. Two backers said the final device was bulkier than what was originally pitched and that they were puzzled to find that customers could achieve similar results without it. Bloomberg performed its own press test, pitting a Juicero machine against a reporter’s grip. The experiment found that squeezing the bag yields nearly the same amount of juice just as quickly—and in some cases, faster—than using the device.
Do You Need a $400 Juicer?
Juicero declined to comment. A person close to the company said Juicero is aware the packs can be squeezed by hand but that most people would prefer to use the machine because the process is more consistent and less messy. The device also reads a QR code printed on the back of each produce pack and checks the source against an online database to ensure the contents haven’t expired or been recalled, the person said. The expiration date is also printed on the pack.
The creator of Juicero is something of a luminary in the world of juicing. In 2002, Evans helped start Organic Avenue, a chain of juice bars selling cold-press concoctions in glass jars. The New York franchise drew rave reviews from the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow. After working on the business for a decade, Evans sold controlling interest to an investor, who pushed him out. The company lumbered toward bankruptcy as Evans got to work on his next project.
Evans, 50, follows a diet of mostly raw, vegan foods. Technology was a new thing for him, but he picked it up quickly. He said he spent about three years building a dozen prototypes before devising Juicero’s patent-pending press. In an interview with technology website Recode, he likened his work to the invention of a mainstream personal computer by Apple’s Jobs. “There are 400 custom parts in here,” Evans told Recode. “There’s a scanner; there’s a microprocessor; there’s a wireless chip, wireless antenna.”
In fundraising meetings, Evans promised a revolutionary machine capable of squeezing large chunks of fruits and vegetables, said two people who agreed to invest in the company. Evans secured funding in 2014 by showing 3D-printed renderings of the product without a working prototype, said the people, who asked not to be identified because they signed nondisclosure agreements.
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers joined Alphabet Inc. and others in funding Juicero. Evans’s subscription model had hit on a sweet spot for venture capitalists, said Brian Frank, who invests in food-tech companies through his FTW Ventures fund. The successes of Nespresso and Dollar Shave Club have made VCs eager to chase such deals, he said. “Investors are very intrigued by businesses that combine the one-time sale of hardware that ends up leading to repeat purchases of consumable packages,” said Frank, who doesn’t own Juicero shares.
But after the product’s introduction last year, at least two Juicero investors were taken aback after finding the packs could be squeezed by hand. They also said the machine was much bigger than what Evans had proposed. One of the investors said they were frustrated with how the company didn’t deliver on the original pitch and that their venture firm wouldn’t have met with Evans if he were hawking bags of juice that didn’t require high-priced hardware. Juicero didn’t broadly disclose to investors or employees that packs can be hand squeezed, said four people with knowledge of the matter.
Doug Chertok, a Juicero investor, said he figured it out on his own. “There is no doubt the packs can be squeezed without the machine,” he said. “I’m still a huge fan.” Chertok, whose Vast Ventures is also a backer of popular organic restaurant chain Sweetgreen, said Juicero’s approach to delivering cheap organic produce could be valuable. He said the company is a “platform” for a new model of food delivery, where fresh fruits and veggies are delivered regularly to the home. “Juicero is still figuring out its sweet spot,” he said. “I have no doubt that they’ll be very successful.”
Built on the promise of technology, Juicero was among the top-funded U.S. hardware startups in 2016. But in October, Evans was replaced as chief executive officer by Jeff Dunn, a former president at Coca-Cola Co. A few months later, Juicero dropped the price of the machine to $400 from $700. “It’s very difficult to differentiate yourself in the food and beverage sector,” said Kurt Jetta, who runs retail and consumer data firm Tabs Analytics. “Entrepreneurs may be tempted to have a technology angle when it’s not really there.”
Evans is now chairman of the startup’s board. The company sells produce packs for $5 to $8 but limits sales to owners of Juicero hardware. The products were only available in three states until Tuesday, when the company expanded to 17. Packs can’t be shipped long distances because the contents are perishable.
Juicero has managed to find a niche at high-end hotels and restaurants. Workers from seven businesses that own Juicero machines said they like the product because the disposable packs can be discarded with minimal cleanup. All seven said they didn’t know Juicero packs could be squeezed by hand. In Bloomberg’s squeeze tests, hands did the job quicker, but the device was slightly more thorough. Reporters were able to wring 7.5 ounces of juice in a minute and a half. The machine yielded 8 ounces in about two minutes.
Kippy Williams, owner of Kippy’s Organic Non-Dairy Ice Cream Shop in Los Angeles and Toyko, said she purchased her Juicero late last year for $1,200. (Juicero charges businesses a premium, she said.) Williams, a self-proclaimed health-food evangelist, said she’d like to see the company sell packs by themselves to people who can’t afford the device. “It would be great if they offered people the opportunity to buy the packs and press them by hand,” she said. “I want juice for every man, woman and child.”
JARED and IVANKA are driving to the White House’s annual Easter egg roll. JARED is sulking, listening to his music. IVANKA is parenting the KUSHNER CHILDREN. They’re rehearsing the national anthem of the next head of state they will meet. The DRIVER opens the door for IVANKA and individually validates each child before they run over to the EASTER BUNNY. IVANKA walks over to JARED’s door and opens it. JARED is singing all the Zayn parts of that one Taylor Swift song.
IVANKA [to the DRIVER]: I never knew he was a falsetto. [IVANKA removes Jared’s headphones.] These cancel your sound not ours.
JARED [averting eye contact]: I’m not getting out. [JARED likes Instagram photos of models and of tiny homes in wooded, rainy locations.] Where did Spicer get ‘Holocaust Center’ from? Is it because Bannon uses the expression so often that he internalized it? He makes it sound like an Amazon — like the building where they put together the orders. We read a case about them in business school.
IVANKA [unbuckling Jared’s seatbelt]: An Amazon fulfillment center. Do you really think Steve Bannon would attend this event? He’s with the generals and the other warmongers in Mar-a-Lago. Now get out of the car.
JARED [submitting]: You said we were only hiring Bannon to help flip the racists in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. And the election is over.
IVANKA [calmly]: How dare you verbalize that.
[A pickup truck, its bed overflowing with National Park System signage, pulls up behind the Kushner car. STEVE BANNON and REBEKAH MERCER emerge. STEVE BANNON stares at JARED like he is Robert De Niro from Taxi Driver but he ate Robert De Niro from Cape Fear. JARED mouths, “Don’t look at me.”]
STEVE BANNON [sarcastically]: Rebekah, look. It’s the Democrat and his wife, Bitcoin.
[STEVE BANNON walks towards the Easter egg roll. He is carrying a garbage bag and trays of eggs, stacked on top of each other. JARED and IVANKA also walk to the festivities. JARED is texting a friend from college. “Hey, I’m at work now,” JARED types, “Is everything ok?”]
IVANKA [smiling for the crowds of parents and children]: Who are you texting?
JARED: Someone from before. [JARED’s friend responds that everything is cool. He sends a meme of James Harden without a beard. JARED types that he is dying even though he isn’t laughing at all.]
IVANKA [to JARED and to crowds]: Please discontinue.
[Meanwhile a bird craps on STEVE BANNON’s head and face. He licks his face threateningly before he drops the eggs off beside the EASTER BUNNY, who is gathering the children to demonstrate how the race works. The EASTER BUNNY places a row of eggs on the ground and then hands two to JARED and IVANKA. JARED has never handled an egg before, and alarmed by its coldness, he drops it. The egg splatters all over everyone’s expensive shoes. The children also break many eggs, as they attempt to roll them, as instructed, with their noses.]
IVANKA [to the EASTER BUNNY]: Why aren’t these hard-boiled or wooden? I read that they would be wooden.
[The EASTER BUNNY removes its head. It’s KELLYANNE CONWAY.]
KELLYANNE: Yes, of course, Ivanka. I’ve had high-level strategy work, as I expect you understand. The first hundred days rebrand.
MARK BURNETT [rushing towards the stalled egg roll]: What’s going on here? I have the cameras rolling. Do we need to restage this?
KELLYANNE [purring]: Mark! You’re so brilliant to produce this like it’s a reality show. The people love guessing who is next to fall out of the President’s favor.
IVANKA: The liberals, especially, are engaging with the narrative. They enjoy projecting onto us. They enjoy recapping us like we’re “The Sopranos.”
KELLYANNE [feeling on]: What about — and I know we all promised we’d leave everything in the brainstorming session — but hear me out. One hundred days seems like such a long time, especially for our voters. What if we shift the focus to one?
MARK BURNETT [intrigued]: One what?
JARED [imagining what his friends will say about him when he dies]: One term.
IVANKA [feeling powerful]: First term.
[Meanwhile it’s mayhem. STEVE BANNON has gathered a group of the children, and is handing them face wash from one of the garbage bags from REBEKAH MERCER’s pickup. He is directing the children to squeeze the face wash, the kind with microbeads, directly into the sewers.]
IVANKA [to her DRIVER]: Please go stop that.
[GARY COHN walks outside and, as TRUMP’s most favored advisor, presses the button to unfurl the projection screen. TRUMP will speak to the children via streaming image from Mar-a-Lago. GARY and JARED then discuss how public service does have its perks, namely the hours.]
KELLYANNE [sensing alliances are shifting]: How was your Pesach, Gary? Did you get my gift basket from Russ & Daughters?
GARY [high-frequency trading via his Blackberry which he refuses to give up, first out of stubborn yet aloof arrogance and then because it has become so much a part of his personal brand that he couldn’t really ever change now]: Hi Tiffany. I got your email about your best friend’s kid working at Goldman this summer.
KELLYANNE [existentially]: I’m Kelly —
GARY [still high-frequency trading]: What do you think of us keeping Janet Yellen on, Tiffany?
KELLYANNE [messaging herself to send Janet Yellen a pallet of Girl Scout cookies and a signed copy of Sheryl Sandberg’s latest book]: Brilliant idea.
GARY: Hold on. It’s my quant. [GARY answers his Blackberry.] Vlad. Short [GARY covers the receiver while whispering to KELLYANNE] What’s something you need for an abortion? [KELLYANNE negs GARY. He speaks again to Vlad.] And go long on, I guess, our defense contractor stuff.
[TRUMP appears on the projection screen. The children and staff can see and hear him but not vice versa.]
TRUMP: Where are Jared and Steve? Steve, who I barely know by the way. Are they here? Are you two getting along?
[STEVE BANNON chucks a wooden egg, from the stacks of wooden eggs he swapped with KELLYANNE before the roll, at JARED.]
TRUMP: This is such a wonderful day. A great day, better than Obama’s. Better than Crooked Hillary’s. God is — [TRUMP smirks. He looks off camera.] Really? God? [MARK BURNETT cuts off the projection.]
[STEVE BANNON keeps tossing wooden eggs, but most of them miss his target, JARED. Because he is extremely out of shape, the repeated throwing motion injures STEVE BANNON’s back. He hobbles away, into the White House, where he plans to pop some pills and then Dutch oven himself in the smallest bathroom he can find. KELLYANNE explains to the children who remain, covered in yolk and whimpering, that they can’t make a delicious chocolate cake if they don’t crack a few eggs.]
JARED [to GARY COHN]: Okay, how about this one? An Uber but for trash collection. [JARED gestures to REBEKAH MERCER’s pickup.]
GARY [not listening, still high-frequency trading]: Love it, kid.
JARED [triumphantly]: We can hire Bannon next week when he’s out of a job.
GARY [present]: No, wait. He’s the drunk driver, right?
Barry Bonds was a ridiculously good baseball player. In this installment of the highly entertaining Chart Party series, Jon Bois answers a very hypothetical question: What if, during his monster 2004 season, Bonds had gone to the plate without a bat? This is super entertaining if you’re any kind of a baseball fan and the end result is really shocking. (via @caseyjohnston)
IVANKA is reclining on her fainting couch. As always, her phone is within reach. JARED, traveling throughout the Middle East, is calling her repeatedly, but IVANKA has yet to answer. REBEKAH MERCER, daughter of supervillain ROBERT MERCER, one of the billionaires who enabled Donald Trump’s rise, sits at the large dining room table, homeschooling the MERCER CHILDREN. REBEKAH has moved in briefly, to ensure that STEVE BANNON, in a fit of alcoholic, nationalist rage, doesn’t quit his job advising TRUMP. REBEKAH does not ever want to move to Alaska to launch a presidential exploratory committee for SARAH PALIN. IVANKA’s phone rings for the seventh time.
IVANKA [declaratively]: What.
JARED [screaming]: Did he really fucking call me a cuck and a globalist? Did Steve Bannon call me those things? Or is it fake news?
IVANKA: The left is too sanctimonious to falsify facts.
JARED: So he did say it.
IVANKA [whispering]: He calls you a Democrat to your face. What do you think he calls you behind your back?
JARED: Do you know what ‘globalist’ is a euphemism for?
IVANKA [honestly]: Steven doesn’t use euphemisms.
JARED [lying]: I’m not coming back until he quits. From everything. Like Gary [COHN, former President of Goldman Sachs, who also advises DONALD TRUMP] promised before I left on this envoy.
IVANKA [thinking about which left-leaning organization’s back channels she will next explore]: Okay.
JARED: That’s all you have to say about this?
IVANKA [trying to manifest a broken connection]: You’re bold when you’re abroad.
JARED: I fucking ate genetically modified food to foster fellowship with that asshole. We ate Stouffer’s macaroni and cheese. That orange shit is still coating my fucking stomach. And it’s giving me an ulcer. [JARED gags as he recalls the cheese sauce. He takes out a roll of Tums, but they’re the white kind, the only kind the generals carried. JARED winces, bites one, gags again, and spits into the sand. He kicks the sand with his dress shoes. Some of it blows up into JARED’s eyes and he shrieks so loudly the generals look up from their maps and plunder to see if he is alright.]
IVANKA: Stop this right now. I told you to tell yourself it’s a béchamel. [IVANKA raises her voice so REBEKAH can overhear.] We’re all so devastated the generals have ousted Steve from the National Security Council.
JARED: Oh my fucking God. You’re not alone, are you?
IVANKA: Mmm.
JARED [whining]: But I need to know what Steve Bannon is saying about me. Talk in code.
IVANKA: I can’t talk in code because you declined your Mandarin lessons.
JARED: And you never fucking learned Hebrew. The language of my people.
IVANKA [realizing the only way she will get JARED off the phone is by giving in to him]: Ekahbay Ercermay isay erehay.
JARED [kicking the sand again]: Rebekah Mercer is in our house? The God damned First Lady of the alt-right is where our children sleep?
JARED: Gary promised me he was getting fired. Why does he still have any power whatsoever? After calling me a cuck. Have his walk-in privileges at least been revoked?
IVANKA: I told you I couldn’t talk about this right now. [REBEKAH MERCER walks over to IVANKA and asks her if everything is alright. She shows her an executive order her child has written for homework. The order would privatize Amtrak and permit nuclear waste to be buried underneath the 30th Street Station in Philadelphia. IVANKA, complicit but polite, nudges REBEKAH MERCER back to the table.]
JARED [slapping his own face]: My fucking head is splitting. I should’ve brought my French press. The generals drink ration coffee and it tastes like that gross cabin we went to on the campaign.
IVANKA: I’ve already explained it wasn’t a cabin. It was the General Motors plant. And we won Michigan so you’re not to disparage their coffee choices.
JARED [having an epiphany]: What if Bannon wants me to be angry with him? What if this is a trap?
IVANKA [sternly]: Go back to your tent, find your Netflix and watch Bob Ross paint. Right now.
JARED: He wants me to flip out. He’s probably recording this conversation right now. Fuck. What the fuck, Ivanka. Breathe. [JARED breathes rapidly.] My fucking Headspace app. It started updating, and now it’s just, like, hanging there. I can’t open it and I can’t delete and reinstall it either. [JARED cries.] He’s playing three-dimensional chess with us and mom only ever let me beat her at checkers. I don’t know how to play chess.
IVANKA: Three-dimensional chess was a metaphor the left devised because they only know how to self-defeat. [IVANKA mutes JARED.] Bekah, dinner is served at 7. It’s gluten-free and genetically unmodified. I hope you don’t mind. Jared has some allergies and so we’re all on his special diet. It makes it easier for the kitchen staff if they only have to prepare one meal.
JARED [unmuted, still crying]: I don’t know how to play chess.
[STEVE BANNON barges into the room. He is wearing a Confederate soldier’s uniform he has stolen from the Smithsonian. The buttons won’t fasten and it’s covered in vomit and diarrhea, so it’s more like a small dirty cape than a military uniform. STEVE BANNON explains to REBEKAH MERCER that he is not reenacting the War Between the States. It’s red states versus blue states now, he bellows. She rises and asks how she can help.]
IVANKA [talking over STEVE BANNON’s booming slurs, so as not to further trigger JARED]: Why don’t you tell me about a new business you’ve come up with? For daddy’s SWAT team.
JARED [scream crying]: Tell me what else he said about me.
JARED [stifling his tears]: It’s like Chipotle but for Middle Eastern food. You can say if you want kebab or falafel or hummus. And then which toppings.
IVANKA [lying]: Brilliant. [IVANKA shouts so STEVE BANNON can overhear.] And we can commandeer heartland agribusinesses. [IVANKA whispers to JARED.] In order to grow genetically unmodified chickpeas. Instead of corn and animal feed.
JARED [relaxing]: You always know how to calm me down. [JARED smiles at a CIVILIAN BOY who is asking his mother why the tall American boy is so sad.]
IVANKA [while hanging up]: What else are you learning? [IVANKA walks over to the white nationalists in her home and offers them a drink.]
JARED [to himself]: It’s like Aladdin where I am but there’s no genie, and the sand is — Well, I guess I never have touched sand before this vacation. It’s itchy powdery? [JARED turns to the CIVILIAN BOY.] Do you know of a good coffee shop around here?
Jared Kushner Flips Out was originally published in The Awl on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
this all is fucking GARBAGE, except for the spinach dip
From Everything Changes, the Awl’s newsletter. Subscribe here.
There is a cookbook on our cookbook shelf at home called Arrow Rock Cookbook.
It’s from a historic preservation organization based in Missouri, and in a little mission statement in the opening pages they say they wanted to record recipes from some of the country’s foremost “hostesses.” Our copy is from the (early) Reagan administration.
It contains the usual mid-century and ‘70s-era recipes, and women’s names are followed in parentheses by “(Mrs. James Thurgood Jr.)” or whatever because no one could apparently recognize who they were without the context of their husbands’ names.
But the most interesting part of the cookbook, for me, is that it has tons of recipes submitted by wives of presidents.
So what do presidents eat, other than noche specials which sound kind of delicious to be honest?
French or French-adjacent dishes for JFK and Mrs. JFK.
Their sister-in-law makes something called a Chocolate Roll that I think I will try making this weekend:
Mrs. Richard Nixon lives in dreams:
Lady Bird and Lyndon B. Johnson like cheese and meat and chess:
Coconut balls and eggplant for the S Trumans:
Barry Goldwater and Peggy are “bean-eaters”:
And finally, Margaret Chase Smith doesn’t need a parenthetical — or a crust, thank you very much.
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