For
@GQMagazine
I profiled Dr. Terry Dubrow of "Botched," the premiere reality TV plastic surgeon, an unexpected voice of caution in a world where extreme cosmetic surgery has become more and more normalized
the nyt sent me to coachella to try to figure out what’s cool nowadays. turns out: cowboy attire, vapes that look like pacifiers, being optimistic about the future
for
@VanityFair
, I hung out with
@jj_redick
and wrote about how he went being from one of the most hated college basketball players ever to a widely beloved podcaster and ESPN commentator
I wouldn’t be surprised if 40 years in the future, we’ll start a distinctly American tradition of 9/11 blowout sales and long weekends for white-collar folks.
I talked to
@AdamRippon
and
@mirai_nagasu
about Valieva testing positive for a banned substance, and why letting her compete in the Olympics is unfair to other figure skaters
this is maybe the most incredible thing i heard at the mensa convention:
“I think I might’ve been born poly like I was born libertarian,” an elderly woman who had cornrows and wore a t-shirt with the word NERDY said. “If anybody knows about Ayn Rand, she was poly.”
.
@evepeyser
reports on the strange but affirming experience that is Mensa’s Annual Gathering, where she learned that being “smart” and doing well on tests have virtually nothing to do with each other
@NYTStyles
since i can’t use first person in the new york times, i’d like to state for the record, here, that i have deep respect and admiration for this weird shirt
The thing they don't tell you about getting sober is that at the beginning, it can be kinda boring. But it's an opportunity to learn who you are and what you really like.
So I asked sober people about the weirdest stuff they do at night. Check it out:
The best movies — not the most critically acclaimed, but the ones that you’re captivated by — remind you not only what it means to be human, but what moves you and why.
Branded goods create the texture of our consumerist lives. Half the stuff at the supermarket is licensed: Dole licenses Marvel for its bananas, Kraft licenses TGIF for its frozen mozz sticks. I explored this inconspicuous part of our world for
@nytimes
:
The Nets are vibing and look happy to be playing basketball. The next weeks without Kevin Durant will test both those good vibes and the strength of the bench.
@evepeyser
writes
if sean mcvay retired, he wouldn’t be “quitting” or “giving up.” he’d simply be leaving his full-time job (“football coaching”) to devote himself to his side hustle (CHUNKY SOUP)
Organ transplants are something I think about all the time, especially since my dad got a new liver in 2012. I wrote about that, the Jerry Orbach eye bank ads, and more on
@medium
:
For the January 2023
@DimeUPROXX
cover, I profiled Anfernee Simons, the shy and exceedingly humble Portland Trail Blazers guard who is having a career year.
i tell 1 friend i was trying to get meta’s ai to make a pic of me and my husband “white woman w dark hair and glasses and asian man with a beard holding a baby clown frog” and it was unable to generate a white lady and an asian man and suddenly it’s news:
my favorite piece i wrote this year was a dispatch for the annual licensing expo in las vegas for the times. i've been obsessed with licensing (e.g. how minions get on your fruit snacks) for YEARS so this was incredibly, incredibly cool to do:
in the google pixel commercial with giannis, why does the waiter want to take a pic OF giannis and thanasis (but not WITH them)? it would be so bizarre to go up to a celeb and ask for a picture and be like "not of us, just you babe"
BREAKING: The Raiders are benching quarterback Derek Carr, per head coach Josh McDaniels.
Jarrett Stidham will start the final two games of the season.
Virginia country club thought it was a good idea to have a 9/11 themed menu for this Sunday, September 11. The “2977 Chowder” appears to be a reference to the number of people killed. (Via
@ProducerSass
)
I wrote about how in the advertising world, the term "mood board" has become totally passé—now, designers create "worlds" for their clients (feat.
@robynkanner
)
BREAKING: An M&M's rep told me that the brand's iconic spokescandies aren't going anywhere!
My story about the ongoing spokescandy controversy and what it says about legacy brands' attempts to connect with young people:
if you were an NYC teen in ~2009 remember how we used to say "I'm tight right now" to mean I'm pissed off? that was top tier slang and I think about it a lot
I told Terry that Botched has made me never want plastic surgery. “Isn’t that fantastic? No matter how negative we go, we’re never going to stop [it]. It’s like a forest fire. If we can put a screen in front of the sparks coming off of the flames? Great.”
The Slap made the Oscars matter again. Here are some suggestions for how awards shows can stay relevant:
-Give the statuettes genitalia
-Punish the losers
-Put on a musical salute to the troops…
…of Iran!
@GQMagazine
"Botched is a show about the tremendous downside of plastic surgery, a reminder that it's not all rainbows and sunshine and ski slope noses and perfectly round breasts. It’s gory and risky and, oftentimes, upsetting."
@NYMag
i took my (relatively newfound) sports obsession to the next level when i profiled jj redick for vanity fair, which you can read in the december/january issue, or right now on the web:
@GQMagazine
"After spending more hours watching Botched and thinking about Botched than perhaps anyone else in the world aside from the people who work on the show, I have come to the conclusion that it is the most perfect television product in American history."
I wrote about how Jacque Vaughn turned the Nets into legitimate contenders, and what Kevin Durant's injury means for a team that is just starting to actually thrive
@OldManAndThree
@jj_redick
“I don’t consider myself to be woke,”
@jj_redick
told me. But that doesn't mean he's apolitical. “I support trans athletes,” he later said. “It goes back to just a basic level of empathy. They want to be able to compete. They should be able to compete.”
i am the least likely person to go to coachella since i hate crowds and drunk people, but the genius editors at nyt styles decided to send me there anyway to find out what the "vibe shift" is: gen z loves dressing up, vaping, and optimism
Organ donation is persistently compelling and emotional because it raises fundamental questions: Who are we? Do we define our being by our physical bodies or intangible consciousnesses? (Some real mind-body problem shit!)
I know it’s a trick, but being hung up on gas prices, and subsequently feeling great satisfaction when I save a few dollars filling up my tank, is less emotionally taxing than pondering more significant economic woes.