We had just recovered from our first bout of Covid, and we were rewarding ourselves with a trip to Cabo San Lucas that we couldn't really afford. My wife was sunbathing while I strolled with our daughter, nine years old, through the waves along the beach. Returning to our towels, I saw a text on my phone from my brother Tim—"Call me"—and moments later I learned that our older brother Chris was dead. Perhaps this will be the last time that I feel the need to write about the Thursday afternoon in February 1986 when Chris jumped from a window in the attic of our house in Scarsdale, New York. I was 12, and I witnessed the immediate aftermath: my brother limping toward our front door, barefoot, no jacket, snow matted in the back of his blue sweater and blue jeans, and the back of his mussed blond hair. That evening, home from the hospital, my mother collapsed in my arms. "Nobody can ever know," she whispered in my ear. "This is a secret we must take to our graves." |
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The Problem with Legal Gambling That Everyone Seems to Be Ignoring |
My days in the orbit of a dice game come strong to mind when I watch a game or a sports show today, damn hard to do without Kevin Hart and LeBron lending their ethos to DraftKings. Without Jamie Foxx shilling for BetMGM. Without Stephen A. Smith doing the bidding of ESPN Bet. That's ditto for sports gurus touting the spread or a parlay or offering prognostications about the odds on their shows. To say nothing of the shows dedicated to talking overs and unders. Sports betting is now legal in 38 states. And business is beyond booming, as Americans bet $119.84 billion on sports in 2023, helping to generate a record-high $66.5 billion in revenue for Big Gambling, including $10.9 billion from sports betting alone. But this new era of sports betting ain't just more big business. It's another industry undermining my people, targeting them with predation. Why do I think that? Because we arrived at this era by way of a law that's been used to harm Black people and marginalized groups. Because Big Gambling resembles Big Tobacco in troubling ways. Because the industry must know that its efforts intersect with a culture, maybe the most influential culture in the Black community, that by and large has encouraged a reckless relationship with money. |
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What I Really Think About HexClad's Cookware |
Celebrity endorsements don't mean much in my book. When I heard that Gordon Ramsey and Oprah use HexClad cookware, my first thought was, "Do they really?" But my second, and more useful, thought was to try HexClad myself, to really put these pans to the test. For the past few months, I've been using two HexClad pans as my primary pieces of cookware. The 12-inch frying pan replaced an old banged up nonstick, and the 5.5 quart deep sauté pan has got its fair share of use as well. Both have been put through their paces, and both have lived up to the HexClad name. I really do love using these pans. With few exceptions, I want to continue using them for every meal I cook. |
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The Case for Bringing Back Sleeve Garters |
Like most people who spend extensive hours traveling on trains and planes during the holiday season, I plug into a good show on my iPad and binge-watch the hell out of it. This holiday season, that show was Rivals on Disney+, a cutthroat, scandal-filled British drama based on the Jilly Cooper novel of the same name. The show is set during one of fashion's finest decades—the 1980s—so naturally, the menswear moments are pretty damn great. But even in a sea of tweed suits, suspenders, and frilly taffeta dresses, there was one '80s accoutrement that caught my eye more than any other: the sleeve garter. Folks, consider this my official plea to bring back sleeve garters. Not so much for function, but for fashion. If you're a little bit unfamiliar with sleeve garters, the way I was before Rivals had me Googling "david tennant rivals cuff on arm," here's a quick brief: Sleeve garters are adjustable bands, usually elastic or metal, originally meant to allow men to customize the length of their shirtsleeves without any actual cutting or sewing. They're worn just below the bicep and above the elbow—the idea is to adjust your sleeves by pulling the shirt fabric up or down through the garters. |
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David Lynch's Best Movies, Ranked |
David Lynch died on January 16 at 78 years old. He had been suffering from emphysema, which he admitted was caused by his decades of cigarette smoking. The legacy of his art extends far beyond the success of his films. Lynch was also known to be a sensitive soul, who believed in the power of transcendental meditation and the empowering people to express their creativity, No matter the disturbing images that his films may have been known for, beneath them was always a flaming belief in love—and hope for humanity. "I told them to fix their hearts or die," Lynch once said in his widely beloved series, Twin Peaks: The Return, to anyone who ridiculed the trans character he was speaking to. As we look over his life and legacy, we can dive into the riddles he left behind for us in his deeply rich filmography. |
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The 9 Best Tech Deals Of the Week |
The holidays are over and so are all the annoying end-of-year sales. That actually means now is the best time to shop because you don't have to be bombarded by "Buy Now," or "This Sale Will Never Happen Again," banners. And surprisingly, there are a handful of tech products still on steep discount. Making the rest of January the perfect time to look back at all of 2024's award-winning gadgets and video games, and snag a few for cheaper than ever. Here's the deals we're seeing. To start, a recent addition to my device rotation, the new iPad Mini is $100 off on Amazon. They start at $400, but get more expensive from there depending on how much storage you want. Anyway, a good deal on a relatively new piece of tech. Speaking of new, Meta's latest VR headset the 3S is seeing a discount of $50 off the 256 GB model. A solid first stab at a discount, but the 128 GB one is still $50 cheaper. I think the highlight of this week's deals have got to be the showings on robot vacuums. Maybe I'm still poisoned from my trip to CES, but damn, I think it's time I got myself one. And with Roborock and Roomba both having discounts that put it well within my price range, it seems time to bite is upon me. |
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