You may think I’m just an average girl
Well here’s something nobody knows
Although I can’t sing like Aretha
I have a cool urethra
Who can soak a mattress faster than a garden hose?

The (ish) autobiography of Sarah Silverman Bedwetting deals with a difficult period in the life of young Sarah. The musical itself is also gritty – dramatizing a 10-year-old’s emotional breakdown in song poses challenges for the stage. Silverman has been candid about her problems with childhood incontinence and depression: according to her memoir, also called Bedwetting, she had nocturnal accidents until her mid-teens and was put on Xanax while still in elementary school. She started funny – she just didn’t start happy.

Serial humiliation can destroy a person, but as a child, Silverman survived by hammering her shame into armor. Like many comedians, she deploys an uneasiness; as a stand-up and writer, Silverman has become a connoisseur of grimacing and confession. There was an awkwardness even though she hadn’t dared yet, so she and co-writer Josh Harmon and composer-lyricist Adam Schlesinger decided to turn her memoir into something totally embarrassing… a musical.

Or they started. The delicately toned project, which requires balancing Silverman’s sparkling profanity and nighttime desperation, doesn’t seem quite finished, even though it’s premiering at the Atlantic Theater. There’s a dark and terrible reason for that: Schlesinger – the beloved songwriter behind the musical crybaby, TV show Crazy ex-girlfriend and his band Fountains of Wayne – died of COVID at the start of the pandemic. The show hasn’t replaced him, instead working with composer David Yazbek as a consultant, and the resulting musical has a hiccuping quality that may be the result of that interrupted collaboration.

In 1980s New Hampshire, 10-year-old Sarah (Zoe Glick) tries to stay positive. His parents recently divorced: mom Beth Ann (Caissie Levy) is bedridden due to depression, and dad Donald (Darren Goldstein) sounds upbeat and cheerful as he sings in cheeseball TV commercials for his discount clothing store. He keeps himself busy at work knocking off moms who come shopping (“Looking at the numbers, the results I’ve seen are / Twelve percent of customers like my penis”), and Sarah adoringly repeats each bombshell f and dirty joke she hears him make. She’s alone in her new school under the wisecracks: her sister, Laura (Emily Zimmerman), finds her little sister’s craziness annoying, and their girlfriend (Bebe Neuwirth) tries to help her, but her alcoholism adds to the feeling of a fractured foundation.

Sarah impresses her new fifth-grade classmates with her fart-focused humor, but the other girls end up rejecting her when the bedwetting, uh, leaks. Shocked in a depressive episode, little Sarah has the same breakthrough as the real Sarah – an ex-Miss New Hampshire (Ashley Blanchet) goes on the Johnny Carson (Rick Crom) Show and tells America she was herself enuresis. For adults and child actors alike, the tongue is blue, the humor is rude. But that’s all actually part of Silverman’s message – if you can find farting funny, it’s not that far off from finding your own body funny, your own weaknesses funny, even the terrible condition of life on earth…funny.

So it’s a problem that Anne Kauffman’s production doesn’t develop a whole lot of extra fun. Laura Jellinek’s dark set consists of large swinging walls with occasional additions: a solitary shelf with a globe on it (to place us in school) or a hospital bed (you get it). This colorless interchangeability goes against the show’s certainty that Sarah’s home life is unusual. During the musical, Sarah visits a friend, goes to her mother’s house, invites her friends to her father’s house, and the three interiors are identical. A CM2 student is shocked by Donald Silverman’s living room: “It’s even more divorced than I imagined,” she marvels. It’s a nice line – but what does she see? Why doesn’t the show make a visual joke here? In general, there are too few. Kaye Voyce’s costumes are witty (I’d forgotten how prevalent Laura Ingalls’ puffy shoulder was in the 80s), and Lucy Mackinnon’s splashes add some interesting mayhem, but the overall impression is one of a design at war with itself, too many of its elements quarreling or perhaps sulking.

This muted quality extends to the actors’ bodies. Even in these wide open spaces, Kauffman’s cast doesn’t move much. Mom is stuck in her bed, Nana rarely moves from her chair. The golden-voiced characters of Levy and Neuwirth are so underutilized that the imbalance snowballs in meaning — beware, the musical says, even the most talented women in the world (and the most famous women of this issue) can be discarded.

Other adults provide the key pleasures of Bedwetting. Goldstein is wonderful as Donald, especially when he tries to turn his jeans into Elvis slits (he never does), and Blanchet is indispensable as Miss New Hampshire, slipping with her reassurances the empty eyes you overcome bedwetting but depression is still. (Smile and wave, smile and wave.) Crom is great as Carson and as various doctors, all of whom succumb to their own terrible pressures. These grown-ups are the mainstays of the show, but a ton still rests on little Zoe Glick’s dangling shoulders, and she’s taking it well — her depressive second-half turn is performed beautifully.

But the show needs more of the real Sarah Silverman — her voice, her looseness, her slang, laid-back, genial energy on a podcast. Of course, that airy sense of improvisation only comes after lots of workshops, radical stuff to rip until it works. She and Kauffman and Harmon and, maybe, a new songwriter should come back, hammer and pliers. So will they? Bedwetting in its current clumsy state has charm; Bebe Neuwirth drawls “There is no God”; he’s worn out ; It’s good. But I will embarrass myself and say hopefully they keep refining because Bedwetting is important enough to correct until it is perfect. The show is honest about what happens to us when we’re 10 (“Ugh, I was so young and naive when I was 9,” Sarah sings) like few other works are. It introduces complex real-world problems that aren’t solved by the final curtain, but it still offers a viable game plan for survival. It rips off some irritating properties – it pisses them off, actually. So I hope there is an additional shape and form for Bedwetting, a stranger, wilder, more biting than this. It must be difficult to continue to grow, because the grief of the loss of Schlesinger must now be part of their process. But one day – the show sworn this is right — they can joke about it.

Bedwetting is at the Atlantic Theater Company until July 3.

The New Jersey Devils have a big offseason ahead of them. Goalkeepers have sunk their 2021-22 season, making it the No.1 priority, but general manager Tom Fitzgerald also has other needs to take care of. At his end-of-season press conference in early May, he talked about wanting to add something different up front. Most Devils forwards excel at running, so it’s not hard to see what Fitzgerald means. He wants someone who stops and creates havoc in and around the net.

There are a few free agents that fit what Fitzgerald is looking for, but there may also be some available through a trade. One name that might be of interest is Edmonton Oilers winger Jesse Puljujärvi, who happens to be a restricted free agent this summer. Yesterday on TSN radioRyan Rishaug said that while he’s not sure, it’s possible Puljujärvi played his last game as an Oiler (around 6:30).

Puljujärvi finished the 2021-22 season with 14 goals and 36 points in 65 games – a pace of 18 goals and 45 points in 82 games. He may not be the top scorer the Devils need, but he would still be an ideal candidate for what Fitzgerald is looking for up front while giving the Devils maximum flexibility to pursue another top scorer.

Puljujärvi’s play since returning from Finland

Puljujärvi is a former Oilers top-five pick (4th overall in 2016), but his NHL career didn’t get off to a good start. From 2016 to 2019, he totaled just 37 points in his first 139 games, averaging 22 points in 82 games. With his entry-level contract expiring after the 2018-19 season, he decided to return to his native Finland and play for Kärpät in the Liiga, Finland’s top professional league.

In his first season in the Liiga, Puljujärvi scored 24 goals and 53 points in 59 games, making him one of the league’s top scorers. Due to the pandemic, he would start the 2020-21 season with Kärpät, where he would total five goals and 12 points in 16 games before returning to the Oilers in January before the start of NHL season shortened by COVID.

Puljujärvi’s stay in Finland seems to have paid off for his development. In 2020-21 with the Oilers, he finished with 15 goals and 25 points in 55 games – a pace of 22 goals and 37 points in 82 games. The counting totals might not sound impressive, but its underlying metrics were pretty good. He finished the year with a Corsi for percentage (CF%) of 52.92% and an expected goal percentage (xG%) of 56.14%.

It’s clear that Puljujärvi improved a season ago, and he kept that momentum going into the 2021-22 season. While count totals still lagged, especially for someone who played a lot with Connor McDavid, Puljujärvi finished with a 58.58 CF% and 59.78 xG%, both ranked first on the Oilers. . Although he should score more than he is, he is arguably the Oilers’ best playmaker after McDavid and Leon Draisaitl:

When you think of a game pilot, you probably think of someone with elite skills like McDavid or, in the Devils’ case, Jack Hughes, but it’s not Puljujärvi. What makes him such a good playmaker is his ability to forecheck and recover the puck to create scoring opportunities and open up space for his teammates. He’s also not afraid to enter high-risk areas. In fact, that’s where he makes his living, as he ranks third in high-risk chances on the Oilers since the start of 2020-21, with only McDavid and Kailer Yamamoto tallying more.

So why doesn’t Puljujärvi score more often than him? The area he needs to significantly improve is his shooting. He finished the 2021-22 season shooting 8.8% at all strength and is just a career-high 9.1% shooter. For someone who creates many high-risk chances, Puljujärvi has to convert them more often than him.

Related: Devils Could Use Bruce Cassidy Behind The Bench

If the Devils were to acquire him, he would likely play alongside Hughes. And if not Hughes, it would be Nico Hischier. If either is your primary center, you need to convert the chances they create and at least be a consistent 25 goal scorer. Fortunately, he recently turned 24 and improving a player’s shot is still correctable for someone his age. If the Devils think they can improve his shot, he’s on their roster because of what he would add offensively to the forecheck.

Commercial value of Puljujärvi

It is difficult to find a comparable profession for someone like Puljujärvi, given his situation and his time in Finland. The New York Rangers got a 2022 second-round pick and Sammy Blais in exchange for Pavel Buchnevich last summer. As Prashanth Iyer pointed out on Twitter, the Sam Bennett trade, in which the Calgary Flames acquired second-round pick and prospect Emil Heineman, might also be comparable.

Although Puljujärvi is a former top-five pick, he no longer has value in the first round. And while it may have strong underlying metrics, counting totals still determines business value. If the Devils give up a draft pick for him, it would likely be their second round in the 2022 draft, which sits 37th overall.

After that, things get a little interesting since the Oilers only have $7.13 million in cap space to work with this offseason. According to Rishaug, it looks like they prioritized re-signing Yamamoto, their other notable RFA. They also likely want to re-sign Evander Kane, who performed well after signing with the Oilers midway through the season despite off-ice issues. Add to that all the changes GM Ken Holland wants to make in net and defense, and money gets tighter than it already is.

If the Oilers trade Puljujärvi, they won’t be able to make much money due to their cap situation. It would likely be a forward deal, which the Devils should be able to complete as they have a relatively large prospect pool. Could the Devils’ 2022 second-round pick and a prospect like Kevin Bahl do the job? It’s close to Bennett’s return. Other prospects who could be part of a package instead of Bahl are Nolan Foote, Fabian Zetterlund and Shakir Mukhamadullin.

While the Oilers can’t take a lot of money, one scenario that could happen is the Devils giving up their 2022 second-round pick and Andreas Johnsson. If they keep 50% on the final year of Johnsson’s contract, that would bring his cap down to $1.7 million, which the Oilers may be able to squeeze in for 2022-23. Still, that’s probably unlikely given what else Holland might want to do to improve an Oilers team that just made the Western Conference Finals. So if they trade Puljujärvi, it would probably be a good bet that it’s a futures-based deal.

What does a Puljujärvi extension look like?

Finally, the Devils are expected to sign Puljujärvi to a new contract as he is an RFA. Per Evolving-Hockey, he plans to land a six-year contract with an average annual value (AAV) of $4.995 million if he signs with a different team. Since he struggled to score at a high level, I don’t think the Devils would be willing to go to six, but there are other paths that make sense.

Related: Devils’ 3 Free Agents Target This Offseason

Puljujärvi’s signing to a four-year deal comes with an expected AAV of $4.4 million, which would make him UFA-eligible in 2026 and eat up a year of UFA eligibility. It’s also possible the Devils could opt for a two-year bridge deal, which comes with a projected AAV of $3.446 million. This would take him to the 2024 offseason when he would be FRG again. If he breaks out during this period, the Devils could then opt for a long-term contract. But given some of his metrics, it might be wise to stay four years and bet improving his shooting will help him break out. Because if it happens during a two-year transition contract, his next contract could be quite expensive in 2024.

All in all, there is a fit for Puljujärvi on the Devils. He’s a great forechecker and isn’t afraid to get into high-risk endzones. Even with a weak shot, he has averaged 20 goals in 82 games over the past two seasons. If the Devils can help him improve his shooting ability, there are real benefits to his game, given his style of play. this offseason while giving him the opportunity to add another marquee scorer.

* * *

Advanced statistics of Natural Stat Tipprojections of contracts Evolution-Hockey

Alex Chauvancy is a New Jersey Devils writer for The Hockey Writers who has a penchant for advanced stats, prospects, signings and trades. He previously wrote for Devils Army Blog, a New Jersey Devils fan blog, from 2015 to 2017.

DAISEN, Akita Prefecture — Japan’s national fireworks competition will be held here on Aug. 27 in a riverside area for the first time in three years, the executive committee announced.

The event, popularly known as the Omagari Fireworks Festival, takes place along the Omonogawa River and features fireworks artists from 28 fireworks production companies across the country.

The committee will introduce measures to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus in accordance with central government guidelines for large-scale events.

Visitors will have to go through entry checks to ensure they are wearing masks and taking other precautions.

Balcony seats will be omitted from prepaid viewing seats to prevent visitors from being in confined and crowded spaces.

The number of seats will be around 110,000, or around 60% of the total capacity of around 180,000, to keep a certain distance between each spectator.

There will be no street stalls.

Daisen Mayor Hiroyuki Oimatsu told a news conference that the committee on May 17 unanimously approved his suggestion that the city host the fireworks this year.

Tickets will be sold on site from July 3 and online from July 11.

For more details, visit the official website at (https://www.oomagari-hanabi.com/).

]]> https://zoobooksales.com/legendary-hitmaker-linda-perry-singers-have-to-earn-my-songs-i-dont-just-distribute-them-music/ Mon, 06 Jun 2022 05:00:00 +0000 https://zoobooksales.com/legendary-hitmaker-linda-perry-singers-have-to-earn-my-songs-i-dont-just-distribute-them-music/

‘I have over 100 hats,” says Linda Perry, who wears an eye-catching western number today with a bandana brushing her cheek tattoos in the style of Captain Jack Sparrow. “I don’t really like hair. I had dreads for a long time, then a mohawk. Now I’m just like, ‘Fuck it. I’m not even going to try to have a hairstyle. This is my hairstyle. “

But the hats on his head aren’t the only ones Perry wears. As well as being the writer and producer of some of the most definitive pop songs of the 2000s – having written tracks for Christina Aguilera, Pink, Gwen Stefani, Courtney Love, Alicia Keys and Adele – she is also a manager. artists, tag head, movie soundtrack and queer icon. For a time in the new millennium, it was Perry that singers turned to when they wanted a sharp musical makeover. Many of his early forays into hitmaking leaned into rebellious hustle, with rising stars spouting sulky lines such as “kiss my ass” and “stupid ho.” Most memorable were Pink’s Get the Party Started, Stefani’s solo comeback What You Waiting For? and Love’s Mono.

Perhaps they were drawn not only to Perry’s hooks, but also to his sense of freedom amidst a rigid tag machine that churned out new artists by the second. At the start of the new millennium, she was already part of 4 Non Blondes, the American lesbian rock band for whom she wrote the 1993 megahit. What’s new. Despite their success, they were fiercely anti-commercial and seemed ahead of their time, but Perry now dismisses any such idea. “I don’t think there’s anything radical or progressive in my group,” she says. “We’ve sold 7 million records.”

Yet during the AIDS crisis and the endemic homophobia that accompanied it, as well as the growing tensions over abortion rights in the wake of the conservative Reagan era, Perry played a guitar on which she had recorded the words. “dyke” and “choice”. She says David Letterman’s chatshow producers once told him to withdraw their. “I knew it would make people uncomfortable,” she says. “I believe in being queer and I believe in having a choice because at that time – another time, in the 90s – we were fighting for the right to abortion. So that was my declaration: dyke and choice In fact, she would later say: “I don’t care what people think.

Perry, 57, is on a video call from his studio in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles. It’s visibly filled with light, which helps her keep regular hours so she can spend time with Rhodes, her son with ex-wife and actress Sara Gilbert. Endless gleaming guitars circle a recording booth with giant woodwinds hanging overhead. Black-and-white photos of musical legends line the walls, not a gold record in sight. It was here, in this rock’n’roll oasis, that Dolly Parton once came to record. Perry was producing the soundtrack for the Netflix movie Dumplin’ and ambitiously rearranged some of Parton’s classic songs, as well as writing originals with the country legend – work that earned Perry his fifth Grammy nomination.

“She called me a weird girl,” Perry said fondly. “And then she said she was attracted to weird people. I took it as a big compliment.” Parton had “never worked with a woman before, writer or producer” and they became “creative soulmates” who shared a hard work ethic.” She sang something thing like seven songs in one day and nailed them.”

Perry says she needs to work with artists she likes. In the past, she has criticized singers such as Katy Perry, of whom she said: “She doesn’t reinvent the wheel, she doesn’t give substance.” To this producer, substance is of utmost importance. There was another time “with a prominent artist,” she says, “and I didn’t like it at all. All that came out of her mouth was… she was plagiarizing a song, you know, even one of mine and I’m like, ‘If you want to scam people, you’ve come across the wrong person.’ So I excused her from the studio.

Perry will receive an Inspiration Award from the Music Producers Guild this week. In 2017, it was estimated that 6% of members of the UK organization and two nominees for the awards were women. Now that percentage has more than doubled and nominations have reached 13, but the numbers are still grossly disproportionate. In America, Perry is part of Equalize it, an initiative to equalize gender disparities in the American music industry, which has similarly grim statistics. “There aren’t a lot of women doing what I do,” Perry says. In the United States, she adds,2% of producers are women”.

She had to fight to be behind the mixing desk. While making 4 Non Blondes’ one and only album, Bigger, Better, Faster, More! of 1992, she disagreed with producer David Tickle’s over-the-top direction. So she started taking recording advice from the in-house engineer after hours. In the end, it was her version of What’s Up that did the final editing — but she didn’t get a production credit. When Perry left 4 Non Blondes to go solo, she worked with Bill Bottrell on her debut album, In Flight in 1996. He shared more studio secrets. But while its label wanted to turn her into another Sheryl Crow, Perry wanted to write her answer to Dark Side of the Moon. Without the support of the label, it sank.

She spent a few more years in San Francisco, where 4 Non Blondes had met and she had moved, at age 21, from Massachusetts. Recording local bands for free helped her perfect her technique. Then she moved to Los Angeles and, for fun, stocked up on digital gear to do the kind of pop she heard on the radio. She started racking up lyrical shots and soon had a demo for Get the Party Started. Madonna refused. But a week later, Perry got a call from a young singer named Pink, an Aerosmith stalwart whose team was trying to groom her for R&B.

Perry had thought about reviving his own solo career. But when she met Pink, she knew she had to put that on hold. She told her dismayed manager, “Listen, I have a feeling.” And it paid off. Pink took Get the Party Started to No. 4 in America, while Perry went on to co-write much of Pink’s second album, Missundaztood. Then she gave one of her comeback songs to Christina Aguilera and showed a different, deeper side. Unlike the improvised Olympics that Aguilera was known for, Perry wondered, “What does that voice do when it comes from pure emotion?”

Beautiful, Aguilera’s 2002 single, was the answer, striking in its simplicity and the poignancy of its message, with a vulnerability that Perry considered unique at the time. “It stood out because it was a time when pop was ridiculously overproduced,” says Perry. Wasn’t Pink annoyed that she gave it to Aguilera? “It wasn’t for her,” she replies. “I don’t just give people songs. They have to earn them.

During this period Perry was prolific, working with Kelly Osbourne, Lisa Marie Presley, Ashlee Simpson, Alicia Keys and – on her debut album – Solange Knowles. Perry also had a unique overview of the music industry: a rare woman in the studio at a time when countless performers, from Britney Spears to Kesha, were ruthlessly scrutinized or exploited. Perry said she had never experienced sexual harassment herself, but had heard stories from other women. Did she feel obligated to watch?

“All I can do is be mighty and strong,” she says. “I try to educate people. Christina, Gwen – I tell them what microphone they’re singing into. I give them the parameters. I just try to make sure everyone feels empowered and that I’m a responsible producer by making people feel safe when they come to my studio. During this time, I worked with many women who had never worked with a woman before. It gave them a sense of ease, knowing that I wasn’t going to flirt with them.

She continues, “In the past, women took this bait to get where they wanted to go, because those were the conditions they were taken to – ‘If you want to be famous, honey, you’re gonna have to suck some dick.’ In 2002, if they had had 10 Lindas, we would be talking about a different story.

More recently, Perry has branched out into film and TV writing the theme music with Bono for Sean Penn’s documentary Citizen Penn. And she wrote and performed her first solo track in years for 2021’s Gen-X Kid 90 doc. Rules.” She’s disappointed with the way pop songs are constructed these days. “A lot of music is just put together They have their ProTools, the guy who makes the beats, the top line writer, the friend who comes to help with the melody, there’s a circus of people writing a song.

Anyone, she says, regardless of their contribution, can be credited as a songwriter. “Even if you were stoned, you had nothing to do with the track, but you came off your high with, ‘Maybe you should say, uh, ‘It’s so good to be here now .’ And then they write that in – this guy is now a songwriter. She walks over to her piano and slides on the keys. “It’s rare that someone sits here and says, ‘I’m going to write a song today. ‘today.’ There is no quality. No, scratch that. There is a lot of quality, but it is more difficult to recognize it.

Sometimes, however, Perry will still be hit by a voice and will stop at nothing to record it, like the one she once detected in the background of a video call. “I heard Kate Hudson sing and I was like, ‘Holy shit!’ I got her number and I cold called her and I was like, ‘I’ve got a song for you.’ Perry convinced the actor to sing it, then started “harassing” her to do an album. “When she was ready, we wrote 25 songs. It’s a fantastic old-school record that you’d expect from the daughter of Almost Famous.

It’s a bit like how Perry felt about Pink: determination ignited. “I’m someone who goes with my instincts on all issues,” she says. “And I never consider anything a failure. Everything is an experience, everything is a risk. When you want things, you do everything you can to make it happen. You will find a way.

Well, hats off to that.

In any sport, fans will bond between the team of their choice and league opponents. It comes in many forms, from a simple interstate rivalry that brings decades of history with it, to a favorite player leaving for a new team and the fanbase letting them know what they think of this decision each time they come to town.

From 2014 to 2020, there are there were many direct connections between the New York Rangers and the Tampa Bay Lightning. Over the course of about five years, the Lightning steadily poached talent from New York through trades, free agent signings and even a few buyout candidates they used to grow their young core with talent. veterans. In fact, players left the Rangers to join Tampa Bay so often that a running joke at the time was that they were, in fact, the Tampa Bay Rangers.

This strategy worked, because the Lightning built a Championship contender and Stanley Cup winner thanks to the talent they acquired in New York. So, as these two franchises face off in the 2022 Eastern Conference Finals, let’s take a look back at some of the former Rangers who contributed to Tampa Bay’s recent success.

Lightning’s 2014 blockbuster with New York changed their future

The first recent move between the Lightning and Rangers was their blockbuster 2014 trade that sent Martin St. Louis and a 2015 second-round pick to New York for Ryan Callahan, first-round picks in 2014 and 2015, as well as a seventh round in 2015. . While the original agreement had a number of conditions, this reflects the full extent of the trade once these are met.

While THW recently did a bigger story on this blockbuster trade, basically this deal set off a series of events extending beyond the initial scope of picks and acquired players. In the deal itself, the Lightning acquired a veteran starting forward whom they re-signed to a long-term (albeit overpriced) contract and numerous draft picks, one of which was used to select Anthony Cirelli. They also picked Daniel Walcott with New York’s seventh extra round, who was a fantastic player at Tampa Bay’s AHL affiliate, the Syracuse Crunch.

Related: The 2014 Rangers-Lightning Blockbuster That Reshaped Both Franchises

However, the biggest impact of that trade wasn’t Callahan’s picks or even his play on the ice. After arriving at the Lightning, the former Rangers captain took advantage of his presence to attract major free agents to Tampa Bay. In 2014, this included both Anton Stralman and Brian Boyle.

Although neither player was a superstar, they both played a important role for the Lightning. Stralman returned to a top-four defensive role for a team desperate for quality defenders, where Boyle played a consistent bottom-six role, scoring at least 13 goals and 20 points each season.

Without these players, it’s unlikely the Lightning would reach the 2015 Stanley Cup Finals and continue to find success in 2016 with a trip to the Eastern Conference Finals. Also, when they finally had a down year in 2017, they sent Boyle back to the Toronto Maple Leafs for a second-round pick and Byron Froesemaximizing its value.

Girardi and Big Trades followed Lightning and Rangers

After the 2016-17 season, when the Lightning missed the playoffs by just one point, the team signed Dan Girardi, whom the Rangers bought out his contract after playing 11 seasons in New York. While only on a two-year contract, Girardi quickly endeared himself to fans with his tough-as-nails game, even though he was no longer a dominant defender.

These aren’t the last Rangers defensemen the Lightning will acquire for the 2017-18 season, however. At the 2018 trade deadline, then-general manager Steve Yzerman swung one of the biggest deals of the season, acquiring defenseman Ryan McDonagh and forward JT Miller from New York for Vladislav Namestnikov, prospects Libor Hajek and Brett Howden, as well as a 2018 first-round pick and a conditional 2019 pick that becomes a pick second round.

With this trade, the Lightning acquired a key defenseman in McDonagh, as well as a solid starting forward in Miller, who has let up a bit with his new team. While they would fall again in the Eastern Conference Finals, the team looked set to win big in 2018-19.

And they won. Throughout 2018-19, the Lightning dominated the league while bringing together one of best performances in the regular season in NHL history. However, as we all know, this team didn’t win it all and instead got swept in the first round of the playoffs.

Undeterred, new General Manager of the Lightning Julien BriseBois returned to Yzerman’s playbook and used his old New York assets to his advantage. First, he returned Miller to the Vancouver Canucks for a 2020 first-round pick and a 2019 third-round pick, which was used to select goaltender Hugo Alnefelt.

Then he dipped back into the Rangers buyout pool by signing Kevin Shattenkirk to a one-year demo deal. It was a perfect fit for the veteran defenseman as he was able to thrive in a smaller role with the Lightning before signing a major deal with the Anaheim Ducks. Finally, he traded Miller’s first-round pick with prospect Nolan Foote to the New Jersey Devils for Blake Coleman.

The Lightning won two Stanley Cups thanks to the Rangers

After failing for years, those moves finally helped the Lightning reach the Stanley Cup milestone. They won the 2020 Cup in the bubble, along with McDonagh, Shattenkirk and Coleman all playing leading roles. Following that, they won it all again in 2021, this time without Shattenkirk.

Related: The 2014 Rangers-Lightning Blockbuster That Reshaped Both Franchises

In total, from 2014 to 2020, seven players who wore the Rangers jersey played directly for the Lightning, while four others who were acquired through draft picks (caps or trades) played at least one game with them. franchise. These 11 players helped make Tampa Bay a champion and serve as a reminder of just how impactful a trade can be.

Eugene Helfrick is a Tampa Bay Lightning writer who is actually from Tampa Bay. He’s written about the Lightning for six years, covering everything from their run to the 2015 Stanley Cup Finals, to their crushing first-round exit in 2019, to their redemption in the bubble in 2020. Although he’s happy from pretty much talking cows to cars to video games, hockey will always remain one of his favorite pastimes.

It might not seem like it, given the enthusiasm with which he transformed for a wide range of roles, from the bald and disrespectful Paolo to Gucci House to the budding supervillain of Morbius-but Jared Leto learns to relax as it ages. “I’m grateful that I got to spend my life doing this,” the 50-year-old but also ageless actor said on this week’s show. little golden men podcast. “And lately, the gratitude keeps growing. Some of the dissatisfaction or frustration with my abilities becomes a little calmer, and I just have more gratitude for being able to work and do what I’ve done.

His remarkably prolific six-month run ended in April with the final of We crashed, the Apple TV+ limited series about the WeWork co-founder’s dramatic rise and fall Adam Neumann, played by Leto. With the help of subtle prosthetics and remarkably effective brown contacts, Leto’s transformation into Neumann was less dramatic than some others he’s attempted in his career, but no less profound. “In Adam’s case, there were also his challenges, because I found him to be quite close to me,” Leto says. “And when you work closely, even if you just change your eyes, you see so many things that you’re used to me. Sometimes it’s harder to forgive or forget a small change. So it took work. We started with a lot more in the prep, and then we had to scale it all down and make tough decisions about what we were going to be able to achieve in the time we had for the duration of the shoot.

Leto knows he’s famous for the intense preparation he brings to his roles, and points out that it’s also his job “to be as kind as possible, to be as collaborative as possible, to be supportive and to be of service to the other actors, the writer and the director. But he also thinks it might be fun to show that he can do something completely different, if someone lets him. “It would be fun to do something romantic. at some point,” he said. Or maybe even a romantic comedy? “A romantic comedy would be hilarious. The funniest thing would be to promote it and talk about it. People would be so like, ‘So what’s going on here?’ As in front of McConaissance.

Listen to Jared Leto’s interview on this week’s show little golden men, which also includes a conversation with Dope star Kaitlyn Dever. You can also read a partial transcript of the interview below. To subscribe to little golden men on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Vanity Lounge: How did you feel watching the show unfold? Do you now feel like it’s completely over for you?

Jared Leto: It doesn’t feel like it’s completely over because we’re still talking about it. I mean, I’m still working on what I think of the project and the experience, but this one was really special. It was really different because of the time it took to do it. And I absolutely loved every second of it.

Did you pay attention to how people reacted when the show aired? Not even reading the reviews, but the reactions on social media, what did people think of your performance? How much of that do you follow?

I try not to get involved in a lot of things, but you get an idea of ​​how things go whether you like it or not. You kind of have an idea if something is hitting a nerve or if a performance is working. So that’s enough for me. I’m too sensitive to dive into reviews and that sort of thing. I think I have a pretty good idea if I’m achieving what I set out to do. I give myself a lot of opportunities to fail day after day and with a project. I mean, I’m interested in making really big swings. And when you do that, you’re going to miss. And sometimes you win and you make things work. And that’s wonderful, but I think it’s important to give yourself the freedom to fail.

I wanted to ask you about this failure, because you talked to my colleague, Julie Miller, a few months ago and talked about being Adam Neumann when you weren’t on camera to understand the character and how much of a failure that was. How do you know when something is failing when you’re trying to figure out who the character is in your spare time when the camera isn’t rolling?

I like to do a lot of research and I like to be really prepared, over-prepared. When you walk onto a film set and there are a few hundred people there, it’s your job to deliver no matter what. If it’s five in the morning and you’ve had very little sleep and you’re supposed to be walking on target and having an emotional breakdown and you haven’t even had a cup of coffee, that’s your job and you must deliver. So I like to do my practice in advance. And in that practice, when you’re sitting with dialogue, when you’re sitting with a character and experimenting when you’re researching and pulling things that you may have found in that rehearsal, in that practice is a great place to research things you think might work. And of course, when you get up in the day, everything can change. But I always try to arrive with ammunition so as not to end up empty-handed.

And so when you’ve done that work on your own, how do you communicate that when you get on set? Do you come to discuss the work you did upstream with the directors, with the screenwriters? Or is it really something you bring in-house?

All the foregoing. I mean, if there are things I’m looking forward to trying that require some preparation, of course you want people to know about it so you don’t make people’s lives more complicated. And I have to say that by being prepared and working as hard as I can, I believe it’s also my job to show up and be as nice as possible, be as collaborative as possible, be supportive and to be at the service of the other actors, the writer, the director, because you need a team. And on this one, in particular, I mean, the handles and the personal assistants and the people who worked, I was struck so often by how hard people worked and the contributions they made to us can all do our job. Not wanting to be too selfless or anything like that, but it was a beautiful thing to be a part of, really special.

And doing it during COVID too, the stakes are so high for everyone to do exactly the job they have to do.

Yeah. It was wild because we were in New York and it was also a ghost town at that time. But anyway, sometimes there are things you want to keep to yourself and try, whether it’s an improvisation or an ad-lib or something like that. And sometimes you want people to be in cahoots. So it really depends. But I want to be prepared. There’s no worse feeling…we’ve all dreamed of giving a speech or going on stage. In fact, I had one the other night when I was going on tour with 30 Seconds to Mars and I had to get up and do the first show. And I haven’t sung in a few years, and I was hoping my voice would be there. And those kinds of dreams can come true when you’re an actor. It’s good to be prepared. And especially in this case with Adam Neumann, because he was so wordy. He gave a lot of speeches, words were his superpower, as they may have said on this show. And in this project, dialogue is action in a sense.

My colleague, Gabe Sherman, reported at the end of WeWork in 2019 and the headline said something like “You don’t bring bad news to the cult leader.” And I was wondering if that term for Adam Neumann, cult leader, sounds right to you in terms of his power, with words and his charisma and how he is on stage? Does this suit Adam?

I mean, it’s a term that gets thrown around a lot, but I think he had a cult personality. He had enormous power within his company. And I think people were in awe of this immigrant who came to America and built a business from scratch into a $47 billion empire. And he was really charismatic in a start-up world where you have a lot of engineers turned CEOs. Charisma isn’t always… it’s introverted people, often people who’ve spent a lot of time alone coding and working. And not all CEOs have this charisma. And he certainly…

I mean, I’ve talked to CEOs of some of the biggest companies in the world who’ve met Adam or had meetings with him or knew him, and I’ve always said, after all that’s been said and fact, I always said he was one of the most compelling and charismatic, confident people they had ever met.

Kurkov continued to write his article on the plane, and by the time we got to Charles de Gaulle, it was over. He was staying in a hotel near the Luxembourg Gardens. When we got there, in the pouring rain, a little after 11:30 a.m., someone from his French editor, Liana Levi, was waiting at reception to escort him to their neighboring offices, where the battery was planned. afternoon interviews. By the time I caught up with him again, for an event at the Ukrainian Cultural Center that evening, he had been awake, I calculated, for almost seven of the last 48 hours. You wouldn’t have known. In front of a full house on the second floor, Kurkov pleaded, in French, for the Ukrainian people with his usual dynamism. Distressed sighs and bitter laughter rumbled through the hall, whose walls were adorned with scathing anti-war caricatures by French and Ukrainian artists: Putin at the head of an empty conference table under a slogan inviting him to eat excrement; an insecure-looking Putin exposing his genitals, accompanied by the words I have balls (“I have balls”).

Kurkov was there to discuss the war, but because “Grey Bees” had recently appeared in French, the event doubled as a conference on the book. Four years ago, when the novel first appeared in Ukraine, it was timely; today it is already historic. The story takes place in 2017, three years after Putin sent his forces to the Donbass region, where, unlike the center and west of the country, Soviet nostalgia continues to run rampant. The Russian calculation was simple, Kurkov says in a preface to the book’s English translation: “A Ukraine with a permanent war in its eastern region will never be fully welcomed by Europe or the rest of the world.”

Sergeyich, the novel’s protagonist, is literally caught in the middle of this bitter conflict. The 280-mile-long front between Ukrainian and pro-Russian forces is separated by a narrow strip of territory known as the “grey zone”. Most of its inhabitants fled at the start of the war. Sergeyich, a retired mine safety inspector, stayed behind and is now one of only two remaining residents of the village of Little Starhorodivka. “If every last person left, no one would come back,” he reasons. As shells whistle overhead and supplies run out, Sergeyich seems to be thinking of only one thing: beekeeping. It used to be a hobby, but now it has become something more. In the absence of family and community, his hives give him meaning. “He had to maintain his health not only for his own good, but also for the good of the bees,” writes Kurkov. “If anything were to happen to him, they would perish in all their multitude – and he simply could not afford to become, whether by his own will or not, the annihilator of hundreds of thousands of bee souls .”

Sergeyich doesn’t just care about his creatures; he admires them. The order and cohesion of the hive reminds him of the Soviet era. Despite all its hardships, life then had meaning. Today there is only chaos and confusion. A Russian-speaker, Sergeyich dislikes having the name on his passport written in Ukrainian (like “Serhiy Serhiyovych”) and dismisses the Dignity Revolution as “all that nonsense in Kyiv”. He also admires Yanukovych, the ousted president (who enriched himself and his family through massive public spending), as someone you could “understand and trust, like an old abacus.” In other words, Sergeyich seems like a familiar contemporary figure, the kind of yellowish middle-aged man who complains about free speech when told he can’t call women “broad” anymore. In other circumstances, he might have been a Trump voter or a Brexiteer. As things stand, he appears to be a likely candidate for reabsorption into the Russian hive.

Kurkov wants to tell a different story though. Sergeyich finally decides it’s time to leave the village when he notices that his bees are producing bitter honey – the burnt gunpowder has contaminated the pollen they collect. Packing the hives in his battered Lada, he travels first to the nearby region of Zaporizhzhia, then to Crimea, where he intends to visit an old friend, Akhtem, whom he met on a beekeeping convention years earlier. Akhtem is a Crimean Tatar, a member of the indigenous Muslim minority, that Russia has persecuted since he annexed the peninsula in 2014. When Sergeyich arrives home, he learns from Akhtem’s wife that he has been taken into custody: she has not heard from him for almost two year. Sergeyich is by nature apolitical, but as he asks the authorities for information about his friend, he is slowly awakened to the horrors of Russian state violence. Kurkov traces the development of his rustic hero with great subtlety and care, resisting the impulse to scold or editorialize. It’s hard to think of an American novelist from the cosmopolitan centers who has done the same with a rusty MAGA supporter.

During the question-and-answer session that followed his speech, a young compatriot asked Kurkov if he planned to write a novel in Ukrainian. He didn’t, he said politely but firmly. Later that evening, at the obligatory four o’clock dinner, where Kurkov showed no sign of weakness, he told me how irritated the question was. Its subtext was clear: if you didn’t use the Ukrainian language, you weren’t really Ukrainian. Plus, it seemed to lack the spirit of “Grey Bees” itself. While the book reveals a country divided by language, region and ethnicity, it also suggests that these divisions are less entrenched than they appear. Despite his Russian roots, Sergeyich befriends a Ukrainian soldier who makes periodic visits to his home. In Zaporizhzhia, a shocked veteran of the Donbass war gives his Lada an ax, believing him to be a separatist, and yet this does not prevent Sergeyich from forming a romantic relationship with one of the locals. An Orthodox Christian, he must overcome an instinctive mistrust of Akhtem’s observant Muslim family, though he eventually comes to be devoted to them.

Editor’s note: Deadline presents the 21st episode of two knocks, a series of videos in which Pete Hammond and Todd McCarthy discuss the art of movies. Each has reviewed and written about the craft for decades and gained remarkable insight into films past and present. What we were hoping for when we asked them to do this was a concise, mature, and thoughtful conversation comparable to what we’ve seen from Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel.

On Tuesday in Cannes, columnist and chief film critic Pete Hammond and film critic Todd McCarthy gathered on the waterfront of the American Pavilion in Cannes to assess what the first full week of the 75th annual Cannes Film Festival Cannes meant to them in terms of coming all the way back after the pandemic to the festival we knew and loved, but also of course to the films on display. Thus, the two give their opinion on what they saw of the most starry (Top Gun Maverick) to the best of English-language films available, to the best of what our hosts, the French, have to offer, to potential candidates for the Palme d’Or. On the waterfront, we cover the waterfront of all things Cannes 2022 halfway through the festival. What do we say is the best, and what do we say is the worse (and believe us To do)?

To watch our conversation, click on the video above.

Hammond has been Deadline’s awards columnist for the past decade, covering what now appears to be Oscar and Emmy seasons year-round. He is also Deadline’s Chief Film Critic, having reviewed films for MovieLine, Box office magazine, In the wingsHollywood.com and Maximas well as Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide, for which he was editor-in-chief. In addition to writing, Hammond also hosts KCET Cinema Series and the station’s weekly series Must-see movies.

McCarthy is a veteran film critic, columnist and journalist who has also written several acclaimed books and documentary films. He served two stints on the staff of Variety and The Hollywood Reporter and widely covered film festivals internationally for both publications. His film Visions of light: the art of cinematography won best documentary awards from the New York Film Critics and National Society of Film Critics, and he won an Emmy for writing the documentary Preston Sturges: The Rise and Fall of an American Dreamer. He also directed the documentaries Man of Cinema: Pierre Rissient and hollywood forever.

NOTFew authors come to a literary festival to explain why they plan to never write again, but best-selling novelist Don Winslow does just that. On a Saturday afternoon in Santa Fe, the author of more than 20 books, including The border, the savages and his last, City on fire — calmly explains to an audience why he decided to put the pen down.

“Our present time is extremely perilous,” he said, “and we cannot choose the time in which we live. I’m not a politician…but now I think it’s time to put my resources elsewhere. ” When he says “elsewhere”, Winslow means towards activism. “We can no longer bring spoons to a knife fight” when far-right politicians and judges work to take away Americans’ rights, he says.

Winslow isn’t afraid to bring up the specific issue looming over all cultural discourse these days: abortion. Three weeks before the opening of the literary festival, a leaked memo from the Supreme Court showed the justices planned to strike down landmark abortion legislation Roe v. Wade. Two weeks later, another leaked memo — this time from the Department of Homeland Security and published by Axios — said the US government was bracing for an outbreak of politically motivated violence after the 1973 ruling, which enshrined constitutional protections for women seeking an abortion, is overturned. The fact that preparations are underway for the end of abortion rights in the United States is alarming to many. And already state governors, emboldened by promises of a post-Roe future, are pushing through legislation that would have been unthinkable even 10 years ago: Most notably, Oklahoma lawmakers passed the bill on toughest in US history on May 20, banning all abortions except for rape, incest, or saving the life of the mother. This makes Oklahoma the “first state in the nation to completely ban abortion — even though Roe is still standing,” Planned Parenthood president Alexis McGill Johnson said in a statement upon the news.

“I’m very aware that people like Kamala Harris and other women are perfectly capable of standing up for themselves,” Winslow said onstage in New Mexico. “They’re smarter than me, they’re tougher than me…I just want them to know they don’t have to do it alone.” I want other men to say – I’m talking about men like me, white people – that they’re going to fight. Not in a parochial, paternalistic way, but we will stand with them and we will fight.

Winslow’s speech is a welcome addition to the conversation, which too often features only women. And while the bravery of women speaking out about reproductive rights is undeniable, it’s also true that little can be accomplished if men aren’t willing to fight alongside us.

A featured speaker at the festival, Margaret Atwood, was thanked by Buddhist activist Roshi Joan Halifax for “making this issue so visible”. And it’s fair to say that few people have done more to keep women’s rights high in the public consciousness than Atwood, whose dystopian novels The Handmaid’s Tale and The Wills deals directly with a world where forced pregnancies are commonplace, and which still writes about thirty political articles a year for various publications. Atwood is candid when talking about what could happen if Roe v Wade were called off. If abortion is a criminal offence, “you can accuse people of having abortions,” she says, before emulating the would-be blackmailer: “You got one, and now where’s my $10,000 ?”

Atwood never minces his words. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s a reward for MeToo,” she said during her speech at the first Santa Fe Literary Festival. A week earlier, she posted excerpts from an essay by her next collection, burning questions, in which she compares women who do not have access to abortion to slaves or recalcitrant conscripts. “Women who cannot decide for themselves whether or not to have babies are enslaved because the state claims ownership of their bodies and the right to dictate what their body should be used for,” says the extract. “…force childbirth if you wish, but at least call this execution what it is. This is slavery: the claim to own and control the body of another, and to profit from that claim.

Atwood adds in his essay that: “Nobody likes abortion, even if it is safe and legal. It’s not what any woman would choose for a happy Saturday night. But neither does anyone like women who bleed to death on the bathroom floor from illegal abortions. In a few short sentences, she deftly deconstructs the central vanity of the “pro-life” cause, a cause that doesn’t quite protect the lives of innocent little babies so much as condemns hundreds of desperate women to a painful, underground death. And on the Saturday afternoon of the literary festival, Atwood also lays bare the hypocrisy of Supreme Court justices who say they simply want to stick to the Constitution’s original intentions: “If you take the original Constitution [as it is and apply it]many people will lose their rights, including all women… and all those who do not own property.

The “Roe” story of the Roe v Wade legislation is fascinating in itself, a true example of America’s complicated relationship with women’s liberties. Norma McCorvey was given the pseudonym Jane Roe when she took her case to the Supreme Court, arguing that states’ abortion bans were unconstitutional. She won the case too late to abort her own pregnancy and carried a child to term who was eventually adopted. In a bizarre twist, she then went public that she was “pro-life” years after the ruling and spent years on the pro-life circuit talking about her supposed regrets for helping legalize the proceedings.

In another Atwoodian or perhaps Winslowian twist, McCorvey then made a “deathbed confession” on camera in 2020 to a documentary filmmaker who had gone to film her final months while living with an illness in the last phase. McCorvey said she received money she couldn’t refuse from the anti-abortion movement and was simply told to show up to events and repeat a few well-worn lines about her regrets, saying, “I took their money and they kicked me out on camera and told me what to say, and that’s what I’d say.

“Roe’s” final confession shows the anti-abortion movement for what it is: seedy, controlling and immoral. If the newly conservative Supreme Court reverses its decision in 2022, honoring its final words will be more important than ever. Fortunately, a number of public figures are ready to intervene.

“I’ve never seen a bully approach two people standing side by side, let alone 20, or 200, or 2,000, or 200 million,” Winslow says. “And we have those numbers, and we should use them.”

The Independent, as the event’s international media partner, provides coverage of each day of the festival with exclusive interviews with some of the key writers. To learn more about the festival, visit our Santa Fe Literary Festival Chapter or visit the the festival website.

She is known for writing the column for the Sex and the City newspaper that spawned the famous HBO show and movies, which revolved around the Manhattan dating scene.

And it turns out Candace Bushnell, 63,’s love life is just as colorful, as page 6 reported that the writer is currently dating a 21 year old model.

The “original Carrie Bradshaw” reportedly met her “dark-eyed, tousled-haired toy boy” at a Spring Fashion Week show, and according to a source, “take him everywhere’ since then.

Although her young man’s name is currently unknown, Bushnell’s friend confirmed that she “talked” to him while being chased by another suitor.

The other suitor for Bushnell’s heart is believed to be 91, although nothing else is known about him either.

Bushnell was previously married to Charles Askegard, 53, the director of New York City Ballet who is ten years younger than her.

The two tied the knot in 2002, apparently just eight weeks after they met. They divorced in 2012.

The ex: Bushnell was previously married to Charles Askegard, 53, the director of New York City Ballet who is ten years her junior; Photographed in 2008

Bushnell opened up about her divorce struggle in an interview with The Guardian, revealing, “When I got divorced, I couldn’t get a mortgage; I did not fit a computer model. All of a sudden, I was asked not to be a couple anymore. Being single is hard and there’s something heroic about it.

The reporter has also dated Penthouse heir and Spin editor Bob Guccione Jr., 66, Sen. Al D’Amato, 84, and model Michael Bergin, 53.

Perhaps most famously, she has been linked to powerful publisher Ron Galotti, who is said to have been the inspiration for the character Mr. Big, played by actor Chris Noth, 67, on the show.

The Beginning: Bushnell began writing his famous column, Sex and the City, in 1994. It later served as the basis for the popular HBO show and two film adaptations.

Bushnell also admitted to having previously gone on a date with John Corbett, 61 – the actor who played one of Carrie’s most serious love interests, Aidan, on the show.

However, she revealed that she did not pursue the relationship because he was simultaneously dating actress Bo Derek, 65, whom he later married.

“You can’t compete with Bo Derek,” she said on the Bradshaw Boys podcast in 2020.

The writer’s new relationship comes after she said People in December 2021 that she was “not dating”.

Mr. Big: She also dated editor Ron Galotti (center) who was said to be the inspiration for the character of Mr. Big on the show; LR Askegard, Bushnell, Galotti and Helen Lee Shifter

“I’m not in a relationship, and that’s fine. I’m not saying I won’t be in the future, but I think the reality is that when you get older, you’re not that worried about this topic,” she said.

Bushnell began writing his famous column, Sex and the City, in 1994, after joining The New York Observer in 1993.

The column was based on her own dating experiences, as well as those of her friends, and in 1997 it was published in an anthology of the same name.

It was later used as the basis for the popular HBO show, which ran from 1998 to 2004, starring Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie Bradshaw, a sex and lifestyles columnist who was the Bushnell’s alter ego.

The series was later turned into two film adaptations, released in 2008 and 2010, as well as a sequel miniseries, And Just Like That… on HBO Max.

Famous date: Bushnell also admitted to having previously dated John Corbett, 61, who played Aidan on the show; Corbett and Sarah Jessica Parker in an image from Sex and The City