Ahhh, yes, gonna take a big sip outta my AbsolutePunk mug and share the latest podcast episode. New episode featuring Mike Herrera of MxPx is available now. We do a deep dive on the band’s new album. Available in all podcast apps and a video version can be found at the top of Chorus.fm right now.

Blog: ‘Slay In Your Lane’ is an uplifting book with words that will have a ripple effect across generations of Black Women.

The biggest difference between racial issues in the UK and the US is the attitude the people have towards the topic. In the US, there is a constant call for racial tolerance, racial awareness, and racial acceptance. Emphasized from childhood, people of color are aware of the racial differences. However, in the UK, there is an unspoken rule that race should be ignored. In Britain, racism is more subtle. It’s more insidious. Sometimes, you won’t even know you’re being discriminated against. The way the script usually goes is, “Hello. So nice to meet you.” Fake laugh, fake laugh, and more fake laughter, until you leave the room, and they say, “We are never going to employ that woman.” Many of them have mastered that script.

Meet the two successful black British women, Yomi Adegoke, and Elizabeth Uviebinené who have written Slay In Your Lane, a book with the tricks for black women to make lemonade out of the lemons given to them by racists. Yomi Adegoke is a journalist and senior writer at The Pool. While her best friend, and co-author, Elizabeth Uviebinené is a marketing manager at HSBC. They met at Warwick University years ago, and among the many things they share in common is their goal to protect black people at all cost.

Read More “‘Slay In Your Lane’ is an uplifting book with words that will have a ripple effect across generations of Black Women.”

Craig Manning’s Top 100 Albums of the 2000’s

Contributor Craig Manning is a madman. He’s written up thoughts on his 100 favorite albums from the 2000’s. One-Fucking-Hundred. There’s some great stuff in here:

The resulting project took me the better part of six months. I chipped away at it every night before bed, taking just 10 or 15 minutes before I turned in for the night to sit down in front of the computer, choose an album, and cast myself back in time to when it captured my world. Slowly, the list took form. Eventually, I realized that the list wasn’t just a catalog of music, but also an autobiographical story, told through albums that I loved in the most formative years of my life. As it turned out, writing about the music I loved between the ages of nine and 18 meant writing a lot about my life. Some of the stories told below are things I’ve revealed before. Some are things I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone. All form the backbone for a collection of albums that is completely “me.” I didn’t write these records, but there’s at least a song from every single one of them that feels like it came directly from my heart.

Blog: The 14 Habits of Highly Miserable People

The 14 Habits of Highly Miserable People:

  1. Attribute bad intentions. Whenever you can, attribute the worst possible intentions to your partner, friends, and coworkers. Take any innocent remark and turn it into an insult or attempt to humiliate you. For example, if someone asks, “How did you like such and such movie?” you should immediately think, He’s trying to humiliate me by proving that I didn’t understand the movie, or He’s preparing to tell me that I have poor taste in movies. The idea is to always expect the worst from people. If someone is late to meet you for dinner, while you wait for them, remind yourself of all the other times the person was late, and tell yourself that he or she is doing this deliberately to slight you. Make sure that by the time the person arrives, you’re either seething or so despondent that the evening is ruined. If the person asks what’s wrong, don’t say a word: let him or her suffer.

Happy Father’s Day. I’m pretty sure my sunglasses are virtually the same as my dad’s style in the early 80s. So I got that going for me.

Blog: It’s KD’s Fault

Basketball

Craig Fehrman, writing at Slate:

The NBA has been bad for two years, and it’s Kevin Durant’s fault.

If the Warriors beat the Cavaliers on Friday night, they’ll clinch a second straight title, compiling a playoff record of 32–6 along the way. This team has erased two seasons of potentially exciting basketball as thoroughly as Ted Williams’ military service erased several years of his prime.

The Warriors aren’t the ’96 Bulls. The Warriors were the ’96 Bulls—a 70-plus-win team with a superstar and a championship-level supporting cast. Then they added the second-best player in the league. It’s as if David Robinson decided to join Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen in Chicago and coast his way to some mid-’90s titles.

I love the NBA and have hated this year’s playoffs and finals. It’s not fun to watch. This article really gets to the why and how an un-competitive league is bad for basketball.

Hey, @hannahleland made a CD. (Yeah I don’t know what a CD is anymore either, but still.) So proud to see all her hard work pay off. I don’t know how to play this though. 😩