So there's a "Pixar filter" that turns faces cartoon-y. YouTuber yo chill bruh used it on several choice clips from Better Call Saul and imagined the show as a Disney-Pixar flick in this trailer. Amazing!

screengrab: yo chill bruh / YouTube

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We said goodbye to Better Call Saul this week but some two-year-old "how-to" promos for the show have resurfaced. They're dripping in subtext and worth a watch.

First, here's Los Pollos Hermanos' owner/meth kingpin Gustavo Fring (Giancarlo Esposito) on how to iron a shirt:

Then we've got super-suave bad guy Lalo Salamanca (Tony Dalton) sharing his special carne asada taco recipe:

But, wait, there's more!

—Kim Wexler (Rhea Sanborn) on how to negotiate like a boss

—Nacho Vargo (Michael Mando) on spotting a counterfeit bill

—How to dress to impress with Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk)

—Spreading the correct amount of cheese for a pimento cheese sandwich with Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks)

screengrab: Sony Pictures Entertainment India / YouTube

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A video that California Kindergarten teacher, who is known as Mrs.Frazzled, made is going viral and for good reason—it's hilarious! It imagines her talking to Trump about the FBI raid like he was a child, "Do you understand why they took those items from you? No, not for no reason, friend."

She makes me laugh so hard. She's a kindergarten teacher who makes videos talking to politicians the way she does her kindergartners. pic.twitter.com/INCNXoEEvu

— StaceyC.inKS (@StaceyCKs1) August 14, 2022

thumbnail image: HalynaRom/Shutterstock.com

The dudes at Dude Perfect, an insanely popular YouTube channel, made a wild Rube Goldberg-type contraption: the World's Longest Trick Shot Machine. The Texas-based bros collaborated on the 10-minute masterpiece with one of my favorite chain reaction-device creators, Joseph Herscher of Joseph's Machines. Behold!

screengrab: Dude Perfect/YT

Patmos Library in western Michigan is getting a crowdsourced lifeline after conservative taxpayers voted against a proposal to use tax funds to support it because approximately 90 titles "could be" LGBTQ-related, reports NBC News. The shortfall of $245K would result in the library's closure in a year, according to its Board President Larry Walton. In response to the vote, a resident and dad of two, Jesse Dillman, organized a GoFundMe campaign to ensure the library stays open. As of this writing, nearly $130K in donations has been raised of the $245K needed. And, Dillman writes in an update, the vote will be put on the November ballot again, in the hope that "the attention and understanding of the situation will counter the misinformation (and anti-library campaign) that put the library in jeopardy."

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Self-proclaimed "Mad Scientist" Lucas Rizzotto wants to experience his own life–from his own perspective– in virtual reality. So, he wore cameras for a full year and traveled around the world to capture VR-worthy moments. Now he's building a Back to the Future-inspired "real-life time machine" to take those moments and be able to access them in full immersion using an Oculus. The Patreon-funded artist comments, "This is by far the craziest thing I've ever done."

Here are the first four videos showing where he's at in the process:

This project reminds me of something my friend Mike Wooldridge has been saying for years, "I want to spend the second half of my life watching a recording of the first."

thumbnail: XRISTOFOROV/Shutterstock.com

It's long been rumored that Alanis Morrissette wrote her 1995 rage-filled hit "You Oughta Know" about her ex, Full House actor Dave Coulier. The two had dated for a couple years prior to the song's release but Morrissette has never acknowledged publicly that it was about him. Well, in a recent SiriusXM interview, 'Mr. Duplicity' shares what it was like for him to first hear the song on the radio and realize it was a) Alanis singing, and b) about him.

"I'm driving in Detroit and I've got my radio on. I hear the hook for 'You Oughta Know' come on the radio, and I'm like, 'Wow, this is a really cool hook. And then I hear the voice and I'm like, 'Wow, this girl can sing.' And I had no idea that this was the record. And I'm listening to the lyrics going, 'Ooh…Oh, no. I can't be this guy.'"

Miami prankster Thomas Kennedy commissioned a plane to fly over Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home pulling a banner with a special message: "HA HA HA HA HA HA." The four-hour stunt cost him and some friends $1800, which seems like a small price to pay to mock Trump in the most hilarious way ever.

He told USA TODAY:

"We thought it would be funny," said Kennedy, a self-professed Trump critic and Democratic activist. "From our perspective, Trump is a bully, and we wanted to give him a taste of his own medicine."

We got a little message flying over Mar-a-Lago for Trump and the losers gathered there. Give this a retweet to let them know. pic.twitter.com/C4cKb1zFRq

— Thomas Kennedy (@tomaskenn) August 10, 2022

Here is video of our banner saying HAHAHA flying over Mar-a-Lago today. This is how you treat wannabe authoritarians like Trump. You ridicule and mock them. pic.twitter.com/gFqndjMSUv

— Thomas Kennedy (@tomaskenn) August 11, 2022

Enter your road trip's "Point A" and "Point B" and the web app Make My Drive Fun will offer cool stuff for you see and do. I started playing around with it and it pointed out some "sites unseen" in my own travels. In my many, many years living in California, I've driven from the Bay Area to Los Angeles many, many times but never once did I know to stop at the anthropomorphic oil derricks in Coalinga or the world's longest running lightbulb in Livermore. Guess I was too busy anticipating, or digesting, that endless bowl of pea soup in Santa Nella.

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There's a clip of "Macho Man" Randy Savage from a 1992 Arsenio Hall Show interview making the rounds. Arsenio asked the WWE wrestler, "Have you ever cried?" Savage confirmed that, yes, he does cry, "It's okay for macho men to show every emotion available right there because I've tried 1,000 times, I'm gonna cry some more." Can't help but be reminded of Rosey Grier's pro-tears hit, "It's All Right to Cry."

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Thumbnail image: The Arsenio Hall Show

A metal band performing a song titled "Burn in Hell" may not seem like an obvious choice for a Pee-wee Herman vehicle but the character's creator, Paul Reubens, would disagree. In a recent interview on Robb Flynn's No Fuckin' Regrets, Dee Snider explains how his band Twisted Sister got a badass cameo in Pee-wee's Big Adventure. It started when Snider and Reubens met at the MTV New Year's Eve party and realized they had a mutual admiration of each other's work.

Here's that killer scene:

(Pee-wee Herman). Thumbnail image: Pee-wee's Big Adventure / Warner Bros (screengrab)

Never underestimate the power of nostalgia. I'm sure it has not gone unnoticed that The Golden Girls, a sitcom that ran from 1985 to 1992, has been experiencing a resurgence in interest in the past few years. Besides more merch than you can shake a stick at, there's a Golden Girls Day (July 30) its own convention called Golden-Con, and a "futuristic" animated series based on the TV show being "shopped around," AP reports. With that renewed interest now comes a pop-up restaurant that would make Blanche, Dorothy, Rose, and Sophia—the show's characters—proud.

AP reports on The Golden Girls Kitchen in Beverly Hills:

Bucket Listers, an online events company, organized the pop-up. It had the blessing of Disney, which owns the rights to "Golden Girls." So, organizers were free to put Easter Egg references in the décor and the menu. Upon walking in, fans are immediately greeted by a bartender at the Shady Pines bar. Further inside is a replica of the women's kitchen counter, complete with a yellow wall phone. Behind the dining room is a recreation of Blanche's bedroom, including the iconic banana leaf bedspread and wallpaper.

The events company is planning to bring the pop-up to New York City, Miami, San Francisco, and Chicago in the future.

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Back to the Beach, the eighties nod to the beach flicks of the sixties, turned 35 this week. For the milestone, UPROXX interviewed the movie's director, Lyndall Hobbs. She talked about what it was like to work with stars Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello, and the rest of the eclectic cast, including Pee-wee Herman who performed The Trashmen's earworm "Surfin' Bird."

You said you were a fan of Pee-wee Herman. Do you just call Paul Reubens and say, "Hey, do you want to be in this?" He had just done Pee-wee's Big Adventure…

You know what? He was completely thrilled to do it. It was one night of shooting. There are not a lot of words. He did mime, but he didn't have to mime a lot of words. No, he was totally into it. There was never a problem, really, getting anyone. I can't think of anyone we tried to get that we couldn't. They saw that it was a cute, fun, witty script. That side of things was great. When I turned it into a musical, I didn't get any extra time or budget. So the fact that I brought it in on time and on budget was pretty great, but everybody worked like dogs and it wasn't an easy shoot. It was really beyond exhausting and grueling, but we got that. It happened. And lots of long nights shooting.

Here's Pee-wee's scene in all its frenetic glory:

Pee-wee's "Surfin' Bird' was available as a 45-rpm single too.

Thumbnail image: Paul Reubens as Pee-Wee Herman in "Back to the Beach"

For the past 58 years, John Waters has spent his summers in Provincetown, Massachusetts. This summer he hosted a "once in a gastronomical lifetime" meal in its dump. The 10-seat dinner was a benefit for the Provincetown Film Society and featured some really off-the-wall dishes.

Vanity Fair's Emily Kirkpatrick won the opportunity to go. She reports:

And over the duration of our five-course meal, it couldn't have been clearer that the cesspit of Waters's youth has long since been transmogrified into a tidy little recycling oasis. As if to underscore this point, during the event, a Thomas Kinkade–worthy sunset cast an ethereal glow over the rolling hills of manure and compost surrounding our parking lot banquet table…

And the meal just got weirder, and viler, from there. See what disgusting, but gourmet, foods were served next: Dancing Bulldozers and Noxious Gazpacho: Dining in a Dump With John Waters.

It's the end of an era for a beloved diner in Emeryville, California. Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe, which boasts Green Day's Mike Dirnt as a co-owner, has shuttered its doors for good. (Their second location in Oakland closed in 2019.)

They broke the news on Instagram:

With a heavy heart, the ownership of Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe has decided to permanently close operations effective immediately.

We are grateful and appreciative to our talented staff for their tireless efforts and creative contributions over the years.  You are Rudy.  You made what it was: a continuous award winning diner where everyone that "Walked Among Us" were always welcomed.

20 years ago we strived to create that same environment and ethos that the Yee Family did at Eugene's Ranch House for 40 years before us and now it is time for Rudy to pass the torch.  The slogan "The Best People on Earth Walk Through These Doors" was written on both of our front doors for a combined 60 plus years, this must say something about the community that we will always love.

Many thanks to all our customers for your patronage and support over the years, we will miss serving your preferred Brew For Breakfast and Late Night Munchies.  We wish you well.

I Am Rudy

Wikipedia:

The diner was named after a song by punk rock band the Clash, "Rudie Can't Fail", from their album London Calling. The menu item names are loosely based on punk themes such as "God Save the Chicken", a reference to "God Save the Queen" by the Sex Pistols, and "Give 'Em Enough Meatloaf", a reference to Give 'Em Enough Rope by the Clash.

Rudy's is dead, long live Rudy's! Get merch while you can.

At Saturday's Outside Lands concert in San Francisco, Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong asked, "Alright, who knows how to play the guitar? I need a guitarist. I need a guitar-ISH. It's only three fucking chords." Over at stage left, a 10-year-old boy named Montgomery got Billie Joe's attention, saying he could play.

"Alright kid, get your ass up here!"

SFGate:

Armstrong threw a guitar around him, and the boy killed it. Without any hesitation, he played the chords for the song "Knowledge," a cover from Operation Ivy, a Berkeley band that used to perform at the city's punk rock club 924 Gilman, where Green Day also got its start…

The boy kept going — and the crowd roared far louder than any other moment in the show. One woman standing behind me was sobbing and screaming at the same time. 

When Armstrong asked the boy his name, he replied it was Montgomery. Armstrong told the boy he'd call him Monty — and the crowd started chanting his new rock star name. 

"Oh, and you can keep the guitar," Armstrong said.

If you've had tickets to Black Rock City mailed to you in the past 20 years or so, you've probably wondered why a lone piece of spicy candy, an Atomic Fireball, was included in the package.

The Project's former Head of Ticketing, Nimbus, explains it all in a recent Burning Man Journal post:

As with many cultural institutions, this one started out for practical reasons. As the event was growing so were our operations, and some unexpected challenges were introduced. Among them, ticket deliveries were being mishandled by the postal service. To improve this, the ticketing team changed all deliveries outside of Will Call to USPS Signature Confirmation. 

After consulting with our local Postmaster, we were advised two things to improve the odds of our packages being handled correctly: 1) manually highlight the label with a green highlighter to call out that it was signature confirmation and, 2) include something small, more than half an inch thick, to make the package uneven so that it would have to be hand-sorted and couldn't be machine-sorted. 

Thus the Atomic Fireball candy was introduced. It was the perfect size to indicate a package contained more than just tickets. Being the candy equivalent of a fiery explosion, they were a natural choice for gifting with Black Rock City tickets. Many years later we were told we no longer needed to include it to ensure reliable handling. But by that point, the community was attached to finding the cinnamon jawbreakers in its packages. In fact, they are so attached that every year we see complaints online of people whose packages don't have the candy! 

The story doesn't end there though. One time their ticket fulfillment partner ran out of Fireballs and substituted them for another candy which prompted internet conspiracies. The one conspiracy NOT covered in The True Story Behind the Famous Atomic Fireball Candy! is that the candy is laced with LSD. (To be clear, Burning Man is NOT dosing people with Fireballs.)

Image: Ferrara Candy / ferraracandyshopusa.com

Just try to "unsee" this clip from a 1995 live-action Wallace & Gromit. Screenrant rants:

The unique look and feel afforded to the pair's adventures by stop motion is irreplaceable – but that didn't stop British comedian Lenny Henry (Broadchurch) giving it a try. In a 1995 sketch for The Lenny Henry Christmas Show titled "The Right Trousers," Henry takes on both roles to hypnotically horrifying effect.

On one hand, Lenny Henry's Wallace And Gromit live-action sketch is a total success. It manages to recapture the tone and look of the series, which is no small feat. On the other, the entire thing looks like it was pulled out of some feverish nightmare. From the uncanny valley look of both characters – where Henry's eyes are seen poking out through layers of makeup – to Wallace's dancing, everything about "The Right Trousers" just screams wrong.

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Screengrab: Joshua McCombe/YT

Employing AI-art generator Midjourney, Los Angeles-based Artist Jon Alloway imagines a monkeypox outbreak at Burning Man in a collection titled, "Monkey Pox hits the orgy camps!" If you're headed to the playa this year, take heed!

Here's a taste:

images: Jon Alloway / used with permission

Readers of NPR Morning Edition were asked to send in poems in the form of handwritten letters ("epistolary"), addressed to anyone they'd like. Their Poet-in-Residence Kwame Alexander turned (some of) the 600 submissions into a lovely crowdsourced poem titled "Love, Me."

It begins:

Dear Love,

Seeing you again today has got me thinking. We are at that stage in life where it's death — funerals, wakes, memorial services — that draws us together.

Should we wait for someone else to die to get together again? For some unknown reason the thought of you taking singing lessons in Bishkek crossed my mind this morning. I hope you are still singing, opening windows and laughing at our absurdities.

Every morning I open up to the back deck and look at the colorful array of life.

I dare you to wake up early before the sunrise, to step out of your home barefoot and naked. I dare you to walk through the grass and drift toward the trees and when you get there to raise your head high and plant your feet deep to look at the sky and marvel at its changing color.

Mortality is looming large. I'm almost 80. You will be soon, a few weeks before me. Will we party? Maybe? Does this worry you? Getting older?

Today, I noticed a tiny grasshopper leap into the unknown, and suddenly my escape turned into a race to be home. To tell you about it. To hold your tiny, chubby hand and show you this tiny leaping soul, and revel in your delight. Your wonder.

But, you are gone, and everything I see, touch, smell, hear takes me back to the you I still love, the you that still lives in all I see.

Read the rest.

image: LambArtist/Shutterstock.com