Ty Watches "Vice Principals" Series Finale

This past Sunday was the series finale of "Vice Principals". I've been a fan of this show from day one. I have even said, and RD disagrees with me, that I think it is a better show than "Eastbound and Down". Don't get me wrong, I adore both shows, but I like the darkness and the seediness of "Vice Principals". That is not to say that "Eastbound and Down" wasn't dark at times, but it was always filled with some comedic element. When "Vice Principals" got dark, it stayed dark.

The series finale was a prime example of how far they could go with this show. I felt that the finale was a perfect ending to the show. I know that Danny McBride and Jody Hill and David Gordon Green had always said that it was only supposed to last 2 seasons, and the way they ended it was stupendous. They do not need to do anything else. They closed up every story line perfectly. I was so pleased with what I watched. After I finished the finale, I watched it yesterday, I felt a sense of completeness.

Everyone involved with this show, be it acting, writing, producing or directing, did a wonderful job. Danny McBride was awesome as Neal Gamby. He could have settled into a Kenny Powers esque character, but he went the opposite direction. His character had a soul. He had a conscience. He did some bad things, but his heart was, for the most part, in the right place. He is the hero. Walton Goggins deserves a god damn Emmy for his role. He was the absolute best thing about this show. He was conniving. He was a bad, bad man. He had a troubled past. He constantly lied and cheated to get what he wanted. He was just flat out evil. But, in the end, he came through for his buddy, that is a minor spoiler alert. All the bad stuff he did, he finally, kind of, redeemed himself. Goggins and McBride were the stars, and who the show was based around, and it was a perfect pairing. I did not know how they would fit, but they had tremendous chemistry on screen. I fully bought into their journey and friendship.

Outside of the main guys, pretty much every supporting actor was great too. Georgia King as Amanda Snodgrass, the sometimes love interest of Neal Gamby, was so good. She was tough, no nonsense and didn't put up with Gamby's bull shit. Her arc, especially when she started to date Fisher Stevens, an excellent addition, as a YA novelist, was so good. The fact that she took pride in Gamby's love for her book, which by all accounts sounded pretty bad, showed how naïve, yet faithful she was to Gamby. Kimberly Hebert Gregory as Dr. Belinda Brown, the ire of Gamby and Russell in season 1, was just as good in her much reduced role in season 2. She found a new school, but she popped up here and there to debunk some theories and curse out Russell when he came to her for help. She was so good in season 1, and I did not know how they would incorporate her in season 2, but they found a nice fit for her to come back. Edi Patterson as Ms. Abbot, had a much expanded role in season 2, and she owned it. She was nutso. She was crazy. She had all kinds of ulterior motives, and Patterson crushed in this role. Sheaun McKinney had a bigger role as Dayshawn in season 2, and he was great. He was always there with a joke, but also good advice for Gamby. I loved him in this show. I could go on and on. Dale Dickey was a great addition this season. Busy Phillips and Shea Whigham were just as good this season as they were in the first. All the other teachers at the school, excellent. The cast was one of the best parts of the show, and everyone involved really leaned into their roles.

What truly made this a great show was the writing. As earlier stated, it was dark, but it was also funny, sometimes moving and had a nice mystery involved in the second and final season. I love this show so much. The finale has one of the best guest appearance that I have seen. RD texted me and told me this before I watched it, and he was one hundred percent correct. The finale is crazy. All the stuff they pack into about 34 minutes is nuts, but it works. I loved the whole series, but the finale was exceptional.

I will miss "Vice Principals", but it is going out on top. It ended perfectly. You can always watch it on HBO Go or On Demand, or anywhere you may watch TV. I'm glad that I watched it in real time. It was a show that I looked forward to every week. As I said, I'm sad it is done, but I will remember it as one of the best shows I have ever watch. Watch this show. When Danny McBride, Jody Hill and David Gordon Green get together, they usually knock it out of the park, and with "Vice Principals", they hit a grand slam. What an excellent, phenomenal show.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. The Head Editor agrees that "Vice Principals" is one of the greatest shows ever, but the first ten minutes of "Eastbound and Down". that belongs in the Louvre.

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Ty Watches "Big Mouth"

Last week I finally got around to watching "Big Mouth" on Netflix. I was waiting until I caught up on other shows to watch, and when I finally sat down and binged the show, and I was very happy with what I saw. I was pretty sure I was going to like it when I saw Nick Kroll was the co creator. I'm a big Nick Kroll fan. Then I saw some of the other people involved, and I was on board. Nick Kroll, John Mulaney, Jessi Klein, Jason Mantzoukas, Seth Morris, Kristen Bell, Maya Rudolph, Fred Armisen, Richard Kind, I could go on and on with the people I am a fan of on this show.

At its core, "Big Mouth" is about teenagers going through puberty. "Big Mouth" hits all the important moments, both male and female, that make puberty such a drag. We get zits, wet dreams, periods, awkwardness with the opposite sex, weird feelings that go through your body, getting hair where there was no hair before, hormones, virtually everything that makes this such a tough time in young people's lives. After watching the first episode I told my wife that this was, by far, the best representation of going through puberty, at least from a male perspective. Puberty stinks. It is the worst. It is so awkward and challenging and there is so much change and new things that do not make sense. And "Big Mouth" captures that perfectly.

Andrew, voiced by John Mulaney, is one of the main characters, and we see a lot of the bad sides of going through puberty through his eyes. He even has a hormone monster that is always at his side telling him the wrong thing to do because, as we all know, our hormones are way out of whack when we are teenagers. We see the wet dreams, the constant urges, the will to fight when told something he didn't like, the yelling at parents, the horribly awkward encounter of asking a girl to be your girlfriend at 13. It is all there, and Mulaney, and the writers, completely nail it. Nick Kroll is his buddy that is a bit behind, as far as growing up goes, but he is just as good. You see the jealousy, the fighting, the wanting to be involved, trying to get girls himself, even drinking at his sister's high school party. Kroll's character also wants the hormone monster to get him, but he is not ready. In fact, that is a very good through line for the first season. Jessi Klein represents the female lead, and as far as I can tell, she is great at showing how rough this time of life can be for girls. She has a bad experience with white shorts, her mom and dad are always fighting and she has crushes on 3 of her different friends that happen to be boys. Klein is great. Jason Mantzoukas is cast perfectly as the crazed 13 year old that cannot control his urges. He also has a crazy home life, and he loves magic. The relationship between him and his pillow, voiced by Kristen Bell, is gold. Nick Kroll and Maya Rudolph play the voices of the male and female hormone monsters, and they are my favorite parts of the show. The hormone monsters tell these kids to give into their urges, and they also have a very odd relationship with each other. But, their lines always made me laugh, and also reflect on how true that situation was at age 13. Richard Kind is great as Andrew's dad, who has a big problem with scallops, and also constantly complains. Rudolph and Fred Armisen play Nick Kroll's folks, and they are almost too loving and caring. They are always eager to give advice that their kids may not want to hear. There is a great few scenes in an episode where Nick doesn't want to be babied anymore, so his mom starts to take care of Jay(Jason Mantzoukas), who is hard pressed for the love of a mom.

I have nothing but good things to say about "Big Mouth". It is perfect in every way. It gets across its message so well, and I am so pumped to see what they do with season 2. The only warning I will give, the show is animated, but it is not a kid's show. My son walked in one day while I was watching it, and I had to turn it off immediately. It is filled with curse words. Anyway, I highly recommend "Big Mouth" for anyone and everyone that went through puberty. There is no show that better represents that time in your life.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He still waiting for the hormone monster to get him. Being a bald prepubescent boy is one of strangest things ever. Something only Charlie Brown knows about.

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Ty Watches the New "Duck Tales"

In August I came home from basketball one evening and my wife and kids were watching "Duck Tales". I naturally assumed that is was the old version, the one I watched as a kid, but was surprised to find out that this classic show was being rebooted. I was a little hesitant at first. As I already stated, the original was a classic. But then my wife told me who was involved with the new version. I was then on board.

First, it is a Disney XD show, and for the most part, they do good TV shows. Disney XD is not your typical children's show network. They make stuff that parents enjoy watching too. Then my wife told me who was in the cast and I was for sure on board. The voices of Huey, Dewey and Louie are Danny Pudi, Ben Schwartz and Bobby Monihan. I love Danny Pudi. He is pretty good in everything he does, and he was phenomenal as Abed on one of my favorite shows, "Community". I love love love Ben Schwartz. Everything he does, I am a fan of. I also love that he loves basketball. Ben Schwartz is amazing. He is great in movies and TV shows, most notably "Parks and Rec" as Jean Ralhpio. That role is second to none, and only someone like Ben Schwartz could have pulled it off. Bobby Monihan was the only reason I held on to watching "SNL" as long as I did. I loved every character he played on that show, especially Drunk Uncle. I also loved his bit parts in movies and other TV shows he was in that I saw. His animated show on FX, "Chozen", has to be one of the most underrated and hilarious shows I have ever watched. This new version of "Duck Tales" nailed it with casting the three main characters. They also nailed it with the rest of the casting. Scrooge is voiced by David Tennant. I do not watch the show "Dr. Who", but I know that it has a rabid fan base, and he played Dr. Who. He is perfectly cast, what with the English accent and all. Launchpad McQuack is voiced by Beck Bennett. He is one of the decent current "SNL" cast members, and he has had funny turns on shows like "Ghosted", and I'm sure he is going to start doing more and more big time things. Kate Micucci, who I adore, is the voice of Webbigail, and she brings the perfect energy to this role. Then as you go down the line of people who have showed up in some of the 8 new episodes names like, Jim Rash, Margo Martindale, Josh Brener, Kimiko Glenn and Marc Evan Jackson, all have done voice work. That is a who's who of improv comedy people and good character actor people. I love that the creators of this new version of the show are using not as well known, more up and coming people to do the voices of these classic characters.

When you get passed the names on the show, the episodes are really well done. The animation is wonderful, the stories are well written and well acted and all the people involved are giving it their best shot. The show can be dark sometimes, which I enjoy too. For example, Josh Brener shows up as a tech wiz who is only fleecing people so he can become a billionaire. He actually gets kidnapped by a super strong, easily annoyed bald eagle during the episode. The darkness come when Huey realizes that Brener's character is a phony and is so upset with himself that he looked up to a creep like him. That is dark for a kids show. Of course they played it for laughs, but I loved that the writers went there. In that same episode, Scrooge and a cousin of his plot against Brener, and that got dark too. There is an earlier episode when Huey, Dewey and Louis go out on a boating trip and leave Webbigail behind. She thinks she is making a new friend when she meets someone by the pier, but this person is just trying to get close to Scrooge to get his money. Again, that is some dark stuff for a show made for kids.

For as hesitant as I was about a reboot I have got to say, I enjoy the hell out of this new version of "Duck Tales". It is funny, dark, witty and made for both adults and kids to enjoy. I don't usually like the shows my kids watch, they don't like when I watch "PTI" either, but "Duck Tales" is a ton of fun. I love the theme song as much as my son does too. When we walk to school we will bust into singing it out of nowhere. I highly recommend anyone with kids that wants to watch a show that would appeal to them as well to check out this new "Duck Tales". A new episode comes out every Friday I believe, but you can also watch it On Demand. That is how we do it. Check this new "Duck Tales" out if you haven't already. I'm pretty sure you'll like it as much as me, my wife and my kids do.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He is wondering if these improv comics do these new "Duck Tales" cartoons live. That must be tough on the animators.

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Ty Watches "Nathan for You" Season 4 Premier

Last night was the season 4 premiere of the wonderful "Nathan For You". This show is the perfect blend of humor, humility, weird ideas and some of the best deadpan comedy that I have ever witnessed. Nathan Fielder is a master of his craft. He is so good at what he does, and on "Nathan For You", he gets to show that ten fold.

I've been on board with this show from day one. I became a fan of Fielder's when I first saw him on "Jon Benjamin Has a Van", a one season long, hilariously underrated comedy on Comedy Central. He is the best. He has gone on to do many other things, most recently being in "Tour De Pharmacy" with one of the better roles, but "Nathan For You" is his baby and he takes great care of it. The show is based on his business ideas that help businesses that are on the down turn, or that have fallen on hard times. He claims that he went, "to a one of the best business schools in Canada, and got really good grades" during the intro. They even show his grades, and he has a few A's, some B's and one C. He got average grades, which makes the premise of the show even better. Some of his stuff from the first couple of seasons have made national news. He did Dumb Starbucks. He was the one that made it look like a pig was saving another animal from drowning in a lake. He convinced a realtor to become the "Ghost Realtor", who would guarantee that there were no ghosts in the houses she was selling. He created Summit Ice. This is the clothing apparel company that gives all of its proceeds to Holocaust awareness. He had someone ghost write a self help book, which I bought and read, called "The Movement". He's done a lot of crazy, but also sometimes very good stuff for people. He knows that there is comedy in what he is doing, but the people he goes to help are not aware. They are looking for legitimate help, and he wants to provide them with it. And while he knows that the show is comedic in nature, he does it all in a good nature.

Now, before I get hammered for calling last name a premiere, I'm fully aware that last Thursday they did a celebration of sorts and revisited some of his past customers and where they are now. But, for all intents and purposes, last night was the season 4 premiere, and it was just as wonderful as every other episode. In this episode, Fielder goes to a diner in LA that isn't the hopping place that it once used to be. The diner used to be pulling in money and customers left and right. But now, while still having a solid customer base, they weren't doing as great as they once did. Fielder arrived at the diner and met with the owner. First off, the owner kept telling Fielder that he was trying to get on "Diners, Drive Ins and Dives", and Fielder had to keep reminding him that his show wasn't Guy Fieri's show. It was hilarious. The guy kept bringing it up, and every time, Fielder had to shut it down, and he did it in the only way he could, with pure deadpan comedy.

After the guy got over his Guy Fieri stuff, he finally let Fielder tell him his plan. Fielder let the man know that he always saw an uptick in business when a celebrity would leave a big tip. This is true. When famous people leave a crazy tip, it is shown all over the news. The problem Fielder found was that no real celebrities wanted to do this for his show. He found another route though, and he auditioned some celebrity impersonators. It was hilariously sad to watch these people try and get this meaningless job. The Ace Venture/Jim Carrey impersonator was equal parts hilarious and sad. Fielder showed the tapes to the owner, and he picked a guy that was a Kramer impersonator. This led to a whole new set of problems. First, the racist stuff. Enough time had passed that most people brush that off now. But, he needed someone with the name Michael Richards to give him their credit card info, and this was met with all no's, obviously. Next, he found a guy that was willing to legally change his name. This scene was great because of the negotiation between the 2. With the name change came new problems though. They needed a 4 week period where the name change was announced in a publication. So, Fielder hired back the guy that ghost wrote "The Movement", from last season, to be the head editor of a newspaper he called "The Diarrhea Times". This was all perfect Nathan Fielder and "Nathan For You" stuff.

Once the 4 weeks passed and the name change was set, Fielder had the whole crew of the restaurant, and his Kramer impersonator ready to do the deed. Before I continue, please watch the Kramer guy try and figure out how to be Michael Richards and not Kramer. It is gold. Anyway, the Kramer impersonator does all the things Fielder had him do, the staff reacted as they were supposed to, and sure enough, the story made local news. It was on a local LA news station the next day. Fielder, to hammer home his point, had this story be the headlining story on the last issue of "The Diarrhea Times". It was tremendous.

I am so happy that this show is back. It is one of my favorite things on TV right now, and probably ever. Nathan Fielder is so funny and this show is so perfect for him. I'm so excited to see where he takes this season. I have heard that the season finale is going to be 2 hours long! I can't wait. It was a long 2 years to wait for the new season of "Nathan For You", but I'm so happy it is back and I am so happy that it will be in my life for the next couple of months. This show is perfect.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He is trying to figure out who is best to help a struggling business. Should you go with Jon Taffer or Nathan Fielder? Either way, the audience will always win.

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SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing.

Ty Watches "Vice Principals" Final Season Premier

This past Sunday "Vice Principals" returned to TV. I loved the first season of this show. Anytime that Danny McBride and David Gordon Green get together, save for "Your Highness", I am completely on board. They did great work with "Eastbound and Down", and they are doing it even better, in my opinion, on "Vice Principals". That is very high praise from me. "Eastbound and Down" is one of the greatest shows to ever appear on TV. It was perfect in every possible way. But, I feel like "Vice Principals" is darker, funnier and just a sight bit better. The show is so dark.

The opening scene of the season 2 premiere was intense. I watched it while sitting on the edge of my couch. It only got darker, but also funnier from there. Spoiler alert if you haven't watched the first season yet, McBride's character got shot in the school parking lot by a masked person. I didn't know if the show was going to come back, or if they did, how would they treat what happened? Would McBride be dead? Would he be paralyzed? Who did it? Why did this person do it? I had so many questions. So, when they announced that they were doing a second season, and it would be the last season, I was pumped.

I watched the season 2 premiere yesterday when I finally had a chance to sit down. As I said, they had that crazy dark opening dream sequence, and then the show snapped back to its comedy roots. McBride was awoken by his daughter, and she told him breakfast was ready. What made this so funny, he was staying at his ex wife's house, played by Busy Phillips, and her new boyfriend was his live in nurse. If people remember my review from season one, one of my favorite characters is Busy Phillips new boyfriend. He is so nice to Phillips, her daughter and, especially, McBride. That is hammered home in the season 2 premiere. McBride seems to think he needs a wheelchair and a lift to get up and down the steps, but we find out that he was shot in the shoulder and the hip. He is not paralyzed, but he acts like he is. He has become so reliant on the chair and the lift.

Later on Walton Goggins shows up to give McBride his medicine, so we find out then that he and McBride still hang out. They successfully got the new principal fired, and now Goggins has become principal of the high school. He does find time to help out McBride though. They go on walks and feed ducks. McBride tells Goggins his plans for getting Dr. Brown back, he believes she shot him, but Goggins says that everyone in town, including the police, say that it was a stereo thief that was spooked by McBride's presence. McBride doesn't believe that, and neither does Goggins. But, they have to go along with it so no one will find out all the terrible things they did to Dr. Brown in season 1.

At this recent walk in the park, Goggins gets McBride to get out of his chair and walk. He needs him back at the high school. Goggins is having a hard time being the full time principal. He goes on to explain how hard it has been by describing all things he has to do for the parents and administrators by describing it as "the worst gang bang I have ever been a part of, and believe me, I have been in some gang bangs". McBride returns to the high school the day after his last encounter with Goggins, and that scene was hilarious. He has the student choir sing "Tears in Heaven", and McBride is so very uncomfortable the whole time. It was comedic gold.

The episode did get dark when McBride found out where Dr. Brown was living now and confronted her in the restroom of a restaurant she was at with her kids. She told him she did not shoot him, and at this point, McBride tried to pull a gun on her. It slipped out of his arm, still using humor even in dark scenes, and rolled to her feet. He then pulled the sword out of his cane and told her not to move. She explained then all the reasons why she wouldn't shoot him, and even showed him a tattoo of him and Goggins holding hands and eating shit. She has put them behind her, just like gin, and got it tattooed on her back, as is her way. She then tries to tell him that she thinks it may have been Goggins that shot him because everything worked out for him. McBride storms into the school the next day and asks Goggins if he shot him at their meeting spot in the woods. Goggins is appalled, and starts to walk away. McBride apologizes, and this is when we hear about how bad it is to be principal. Goggins shows him a binder filled with possible suspects of people that could have shot McBride. They seem to be back in business as partners in crime again.

The final scene of the first episode shows McBride getting his gumption back and tearing into students that are acting up at lunch. It was great, and he is most definitely back. I'm very excited to see how this second, and final season, goes. I want answers, hilarious scenes and dark shit to happen, and I'm one hundred percent sure that "Vice Principals", Danny McBride and David Gordon Green will deliver. Everyone should be watching this show. It is amazing.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He is right that "Vice Principals" is an awesome show. It is not better than "Eastbound and Down". I mean the first ten minutes of that show's premier is the greatest piece of entertainment man has ever created.

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SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing.

Ty Watches "Bar Rescue": The Lucky Irish Saloon Edition

"Bar Rescue" was back with a new episode, and it was a classic. This was one of the episodes that I will fondly remember because it was so down the middle, and so perfect.

Taffer and crew traveled out to a smaller town in Florida, I believe it was Davenport, to a bar called "The Lucky Irish Saloon". Right off the bat, the name threw me for a loop. That is a very weird name. This bar had all the typical resounding success right off the bat. The 2 owners bought the bar, turned it into a big time money maker and eventually married each other. They were in love and forking in the money hand over fist. They seemed to have everything going in the right direction. Then, as with almost all the bars on the show, things turned for the worse.

The owners began to fight in front of employees. The employees became afraid of the husband that was the bar owner. He is an old school Irish guy and he talked down to all his employees. He was a real piece of work. It got so bad that the wife owner divorced the husband. But, they remained business partners and lived in the same house. That is a recipe for disaster. After the divorce, things went from worse to horrible. The employees despised whenever the husband owner was there. As I said, he would degrade them, and when he left, the employees would jump for joy. One of them said that they felt like a weight was off their shoulders. The wife owner, after the divorce and the bar starting to go under, basically gave up. She was at her wits end. She was in debt almost 300,000 dollars and was ready to throw in the towel. She tried "Bar Rescue" as a last ditch effort.

Of course this was way too juicy for Taffer to pass up, so he went to rescue this place. When he showed up, he did his usual recon. This time around he brought 2 experts, Phil Wills, his mixology expert, and Vic Vegas, his food expert with him. They watched from outside in the van like they always do. What they saw was a travesty. The drinks were so poorly made. They showed 3 of the exact same drinks all side by side, and they were different shades of color and each had different tastes. The staff was slow. They were deliberate, but very slow and didn't have any proper training. The wife owner kind of kept to herself and just stayed away from all the action. The kitchen was basically for show. They did do bar munchies, but that was it. They had a single fryer for that. Every patron in the bar was there to smoke more so than to buy drinks.

The icing on the crap cake that was this bar was the husband owner. Instead of running his business, he was hustling patrons at pool. He was taking money from the bar to play people in pool to try and win some extra cash for himself. And in between pool games, he would openly yell at the staff. This guy was an ass. In fact, Taffer sent in Vegas to do some in house recon, and what he saw made him very upset. Vegas walked in with a baseball hat on and sat at the bar to get a beer and food, all in the façade of trying to get the husband owner to challenge him in pool. Vegas had a beer, didn't say much about it, and ordered some food. The food was frozen and greasy. It all looked disgusting. The husband owner eventually walked up to him, and Vegas urged him to play some pool. The husband finally said yes, and this was when Taffer blew his lid. He stormed into the bar and immediately started to berate the husband. He must have called him an asshole 15 times in under a minute. He yelled and screamed and forced him to give the people he hustled their money back. The husband tried to fight back but he realized that he had no business to even try and fight Taffer. He relented, paid the people back and closed up shop.

After Taffer ordered them to clean the place up, the staff all sat down and had a heart to heart. The husband owner said he would ease up so they could get their bar back to being a money making machine. This guy's 180 with his attitude was incredible. He was so easy to give up his bad attitude and make a change. The next day Taffer showed up with his experts and they got to training, but not before Taffer explained why he went after the guy the night before. It was unnecessary, but also hilarious. Training was kind of so so. First off, the kitchen needed to be a one item menu because they wanted the bar to stay a smoke friendly establishment. They decided on beer braised hot dogs that they would sell for 99 cents. It was a great idea. The bartender training was a little tougher. The bartenders were inexperienced, and that showed when they tried to make the fairly easy cocktails that Wills taught them. Stress test was an absolute disaster. They couldn't get the drinks out right, or on time. They have 5 and 6 people deep and the bartenders were almost immediately drowning. The food was coming out on time, it is just hot dogs, but it was going to the wrong tables and the wrong people. They had horrible systems in place. The best/worst thing though was a gentleman who took a seat on his stool and the stool exploded. It was a riot. After about 2 hours, Taffer told the owners to shut it down. He moved them to a different bar to train while his construction crew fixed the place up, and the staff, I must say, worked pretty hard. They seemed like they wanted to be successful.

The next day the crew showed up at the newly renovated bar and had their big reveal. The name was changed to "Lucky's Corner Pocket", due to the husband's love for pool, but it sounded more like a sexual innuendo to me. The inside looked much better. No exposed wires, the place was clean, a new bar top, new stools and new POS systems and, of course, a lifetime subscription to Partender. The re launch went great, as always, and everything seemed to be going smooth. Even the divorced couple were smiling and hugging each other, which forced my wife to say, "I bet you they both get lucky with each other tonight".

At the 6 week check up, the bar sales were up 32 percent from the year before and everyone, even the ex husband and wife, were getting along great. I love when "Bar Rescue" comes back after a couple week hiatus and gives me a classic episode like this one. I need more of these. I'm sick of the "Back to the Bar" ones, which they are doing this Sunday. I want more of the timeless classic like "Lucky's". This was a fun watch.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He likes to hustle people at pool. His trick is to convince someone that Ty can pull of a trick shot of hitting a ball over a stack of money. When the money is down, Ty grabs it and runs. It doesn't always work

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SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing.

Ty Watches "Bar Rescue": Rockin Rhonda's Edition

I know it is a bit late, but I finally saw the most recent episode of "Bar Rescue" last night.

This time around, Taffer and crew headed to a bar in Florida called Rockin Rhonda's. This was another episode that involved not only rescuing a bar, but also a person, Rhonda. At first Rockin Rhonda's was raking in the dough and Rhonda left her job as a stock broker to take over the bar full time. She was having so much fun at first, she even started to sing and do open mic and karaoke nights. She always had the singing and playing guitar bug, and since she had her own bar, she thought it was the perfect opportunity. Now, she was not terrible, in fact, she was a competent guitar player, but she was no star either.

Then, Hurricane Matthew wreaked havoc on her bar. It destroyed a lot of the place she built up. After the hurricane, things really started to fall apart. The bar was in such disarray, when Taffer got there, I swear to god the place was on a slant. When she showed him the "kitchen", the shelves looked like they were ready to topple. The bar was a real disaster. The wells and the ice machine and everything in the bar was either leaking or literally sinking into the ground. It was so bad that the employees and Rhonda had to wear insoles because they all had back problems from bending over all the time due to the poor state of the bar. The floor was also falling apart. Pieces were just falling off and being replaced with tape or floor mats. The "kitchen" had been reduced to a fridge and a microwave because it was in such a bad place. Rhonda started to drink when she realized that she only had 45 dollars in her account. She was a shell of her former self. She couldn't really handle what happened, so she turned to alcohol.

When Taffer got there, he went in alone. He didn't have any experts at first because he wanted to see if the place was even worth the effort. As soon as he walked in, Rhonda spotted him and was immediately brought to tears. She then laid out everything I just told you. She was crying the whole time. She was at the end of her rope. Taffer said he was going to do everything he could to fix this bar, but he ordered Rhonda to close up shop immediately because, after seeing all the destruction, Taffer deemed the bar unsafe. Everyone was ushered out and Taffer's construction crew got right to work. They showed the workers working on the bar, and it was a total mess. The floors were too easy to rip up. There were leaks everywhere. They had to get new lighting, plumbing, floors, basically, Rhonda's bar was going to be completely revamped. One of the construction guys said that, "this is the worst condition we have ever seen a bar in before". That is wild considering some of the bars that "Bar Rescue" has visited.

While the workers worked on the bar, Taffer trained the crew at a different bar. Truth be told, the employees weren't half bad. They needed proper training, which they would get from Taffer's mixology expert, but they were fine, just rusty. The kitchen expert had a different problem. The cook had been cooking for 25 years, but he never cooked in a proper restaurant kitchen. He was also very quiet and not authoritative, like an executive chef should be. During stress test the bar did a decent job, but the kitchen was a nightmare. The chef couldn't get simple flatbread pizzas out on time, or he burned them. It was rough. They had a full day of proper training, and in typical Taffer fashion, he had a heart to heart with Rhonda the day before reopening the bar. It was typical schmaltzy crap.

The next day they all gathered for the relaunch. The bar was renamed Rhonda's. That was it. He just knocked off the Rockin part. The inside looked a million times better, obviously. Same with the outside. The construction crew did a phenomenal job I l must say. This may have been the best rescue I have seen due to how bad the bar was before they got there. During relaunch they did much, much better. The bartenders, with proper training, were busting out drinks. The chef was being more vocal and looked to even be having some fun in the back. He was also getting the flatbread pizzas out much quicker. The relaunch was going so well, Rhonda grabbed her guitar and sang a song for Taffer and his crew before they left. Taffer, of course, left with that weird, almost creepy grin on his face. At the 6 week checkup things were running well for Rhonda and her fixed bar.

These episodes, the "heartwarming" ones are odd, but I still enjoy watching them, and this episode was no exception. They are doing a back to the bar this week, so come back in a few weeks for my recap of the newest "Bar Rescue", whenever they air it.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He caught the guitar bug years ago. I wonder what is the favorite of all the guitars he owns?

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Ty Watches "Bar Rescue": Sidelines Bar and Grill Edition

This week's "Bar Rescue" was your run of the mill, "not only save a bar, but a family" episode. The bar was called Sidelines Bar and Grill, and it was in a small town in Florida. The bar had the typical story. They thrived at first, the owner then decided to switch to a full sports bar, lost some regulars and started to drink. He then drank some more and yelled at his staff, 2 of which are his sons, more than run the everyday business of the bar. He was a drunk that used physical violence as opposed to words to solve conflicts.

Like always, Taffer didn't care for this, neither did his experts, and when the owner hit one of his sons in the face, Taffer stormed in and went off. First off, the son that got popped, he did nothing but berate his brother in the kitchen. He would constantly annoy him, then go play on his phone and do nothing. The younger brother worked hard, but he was dirty. He never washed his hands, labeled anything and cooked and cleaned with no gloves. It was gross. The front of the house tried their hardest, but they had no guidance, and with the owner constantly drinking, they fell into a hole of bad habits. When Taffer came in, he berated everyone, but mainly the owner. The owner threatened to fight him, remember he was drunk, but when he calmed down, they all got to cleaning.

The next day the bar was fit to train, and they got to it. The drinks were easy, the food was easier to execute. It was made so they would look good during stress test. And during said stress test, they started out strong. But things fell apart due to no soda guns, a small bar station and no communication between front of house and kitchen. They closed up, went to a different bar to train and Taffer and crew got to fixing up the old bar. But, first Taffer had to have a sit down with the father and his 2 sons. Tears were shed, things were promised and Taffer left the conversation with his creepy smile on his face.

The staff got their training, and were sent home to come back the next day for the reopening. When they arrived, Taffer revealed the new bar and new name. He changed the name to Lake Shore, blah, and it had the look of a beach house. It was a typical fix. They had some new benches, barstools, a bar top, an outside seating area, new POS systems, multiple soda guns and, of course, a lifetime subscription to Partender and Taffer Virtual Teaching. All the same stuff he gives every bar this season.

During reopen they did great, obviously. The owner stopped drinking and the kitchen staff was cranking out orders with 7 minute ticket times. The bartenders did have a hiccup here and there, but they righted the ship and things ran smoothly after that. At the 6 week checkup, sales were up 17 percent from the previous year and the owner stopped drinking on the job. The brothers were doing better in the kitchen, but the older one was still ribbing the younger brother, as brothers do.

As I said, run of the mill episode. That is not to say it wasn't entertaining, it was just a very typical episode. Come back next week for a quick recap of the next episode.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He sometimes think that it would be good for Taffer to do a heart to heart between the head editor and Ty. Tears will not be shed, but fists will be thrown.

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Ty Watches "Bar Rescue": Liquid Lounge Edition

Taffer and crew got back to one of their regular episodes this week, and I have to say, it was a good one. They traveled outside of Nevada finally, and they ended up at the "Liquid Lounge" in Long Beach. The bar's backstory was typical. They were making a ton of money, they had new customers every night, everyone loved the food and drinks, the same story told during every cold open.

Then, also as usual, one of the bartenders wanted to be the owner, so he bought the bar from the outgoing, soon to be retired owners. He spent his life savings on the bar, which they said was 400,000 dollars. But, earlier in the episode, the man claimed he inherited 400,000 dollars from his folks, so I do not understand why that was all that he had in his life savings. Anyway, as soon as Rob took over, "Liquid Lounge" went down the drain. By all accounts, Rob was a good guy to a fault. He was a total pushover. He let everyone walk all over him. Even his favorite employee, who genuinely seemed to try hard and like him, walked all over him. Don't get it twisted though, Lola was a great, great worker. She even brought her husband on to help out with basically everything that they needed help with, and he was always available. I don't know if he got paid, I assume he did, but he worked his tail off. In fact, the staff at "Liquid Lounge" was legitimately good at their jobs. But, when you have an owner that will let you skip out early, not always have you clean, not hold employees accountable, things tend to go awry, and that is exactly what happened.

Now, there were no mice or rats, but this may have been the dirtiest bar on all of "Bar Rescue". This place was an absolute nightmare. Everything seemed to be falling apart, and a lot of that had to do with the massive mold problem they had. The fans were even falling out of the ceiling because the mold was so plentiful. The wall paper was tearing everywhere. The stools were a mess. The bar tops and the bar were nasty. The kitchen was a total nightmare. The bowls they used to "ring" their margaritas, I gagged when they showed what was inside of them. It was disgusting.

After Taffer and his crew, food expert Tiffany Derry and drink expert Rob Ford, stormed in and laid waste to poor Rob. He didn't even know what hit him. He was like a deer in the headlights. And, because he is such a calm and chill guy, he did not fight back and he never raised his voice. After Taffer was done screaming at him, and he was most definitely screaming, Rob literally took all the blame. It was his fault the bar was dirty, not making money, his employees had no respect for him, he was too nice, everything he owned up to. It was a nice change of pace from other owners or employees that always want to fight with Taffer. Before leaving the crew to clean for the night, Taffer, Derry and Ford all got in a few more nuggets of how bad this place was run. Taffer and Derry were throwing food left and right and Ford was just as disgusted as I was from what he saw behind the bar. The whole crew, including Rob, stayed and cleaned all night to get ready for training.

Taffer arrived early ish the next day, but before they could get to training, he took a pool cue and banged it against the wall. I thought this was odd. They had cleaned all night, and the bar looked much, much better. But, when he banged that cue on the wall, there was an explosion of ants. They were everywhere. So, Taffer lost his mind again, and brought in a pesticide crew. They were able to fumigate without having to close the bar for more than a day.

The stress test had to be postponed, but they rescheduled it for the next night. The staff got some mild training. Ford showed them some easy drinks and Derry showed the chef a simple fried shrimp plate recipe. The doors were open, and stress test began. Everything seemed to okay, at least for a stress test, at first. Lola was pumping out drinks, only having to redo a few, and the kitchen was getting the food out. But, there was trouble around the corner. Rob never took down names for the food, so it was dying in the window. Lola was pumping out drinks, but we came to find out that only one person had paid for their drink. No one was charging anyone, and this was all on Rob. Rob had again shit the bed. He again took full responsibility, and he finally confessed that he needed to be more of a boss and less of a friend.

After hearing this revelation, Taffer got his people to fix up the bar for re launch. The "Liquid Lounge" crew gathered outside, and it was revealed to them that the name was changed to "Tidal Bay: A Beach Bar". That is not one of Taffer's best, but given the location, it wasn't horrible. The inside looked brighter and they had 3 new POS systems, new soda guns, new speed wells, everything was updated. And when they reopened, things went great. I expected that because, as I said earlier, the staff was already good, they just needed proper training. Even Rob began to be a bit more managerial. He was great during reopen, and so was Lola She was exceptional in fact.

For the 6 week check up, the bar sales had increased by 20 percent in both food and drinks, and Lola got a raise andpromotion to manager. This was a very good, old school "Bar Rescue". I want more episodes like these.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He regularly walks into places of business and slams a pool cue against the wall. He is not looking for ants, he just hates business walls and pool cues are his weapon of choice.

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SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing.

Ty Watches "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" Season 3

Last night I finished the third season of "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" and I have to say, this has been the best season so far.

I really enjoy "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt", but this season had me laughing harder than the other two did at any moment. I feel like the show's writing this season was extremely sharp. There were so many jokes, and if you missed one, there was another right around the corner. The episode that featured Maya Rudolph as Dionne Warwick was one of the funniest, best written and just flat out best 31 minutes of TV I have ever witnessed. I literally slapped my knees multiple times from laughing so hard the whole time. Maya Rudolph's performance is worth watching the whole episode alone. But, everyone else involved, and the story, it was magical.

"Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" has a great group of creative people around it, mainly Robert Carlock and Tina Fey, and they were at their peaks this season. This season was the closest thing they have had to the best seasons of "30 Rock". I'd go as far to say that this season of "UKS" ranks right up there with what many consider the best seasons of "30 Rock".

The performances this season were top notch as well. Even small characters had great moments. When Kimmy's old roommate in the bunker, Gretchen, has her own episode that shows how her new cult is going, absolutely riotous. The whole storyline was great. Gretchen is great, and I think this was the only time she was even on the show this season. Amy Sedaris as Mimi, great. She was so annoying and rude, but also so funny and heartbreaking. I loved when she needed Jaqueline to take care of her. That was a great mini storyline. And Jaqueline's arc this season, tremendous. I'm a big Jane Krakowski fan, and working with Tina Fey has been the best thing she could have ever done for her career. She was tremendous this season. In dealing with her husband being smooshed by an electric car, fighting NFL owners to change the Washington football team name, to stop caring what other people think of her, and everything else, she was great. Carol Kane was wonderful. She is one of my favorite people on the show, and this year, she had a very big change in character and a new love interest. I love her old school attitude, how little she truly cares what people think and how much she loves her new boyfriend, the owner of the hilariously named grocery chain, Big Naturals. The episode where she and Jaqueline go shopping together and have a makeover, just tremendous. Her "key" bit, which was just a hammer, was used multiple times this season, and it was funny every time. Her filibuster episode was excellent as well. Tina Fey's one appearance as Kimmy's disgraced former therapist, awesome. She works at a mall piercing kiosk now. The addition of Daveed digs this year, I loved it. He is so funny and charming and I hope they bring him back next year, I'm almost certain they will. He looks like he is going to be an incredible actor. He was great on this, and even better in "Tour de Pharmacy". He's going to be a star.

Ellie Kemper as Kimmy had a very good season. She struggled with always trying to look on the bright side of things. She went to college. She struggled with jobs, but always did them with a smile. She had her issues with the guy that kept her in the bunker, wonderfully played by Jon Hamm. The episode where she tries to save Laura Dern from marrying him, exceptional. Kimmy's old "friend" Zan, in her much smaller role, was just as moody and hilarious as she could have been. Her show she started in college, "Profiles", that was an excellent button to another excellent show.

Finally, we have who I, and many consider, the star of this show, Titus Burgess as Titus Andromendon. If he doesn't get some kind of Emmy love this year it would be a damn shame. He was so, so, so great this season. His spoof of Beyoncé's "Lemonade" was one of the best things I have seen on TV in a long, long time. His journey, from breaking up with Mikey, to his tales of working on the cruise ship, to his run in with Dionne Warwick, to his new relationship with a guy in the church choir that has a baby named Linda, to him using a gas station bathroom, and everything I may have left out, it was all perfect. Titus Burgess is absolutely the best thing on this show. His selfishness, that turns into selflessness at times is so great. He is so funny. He can be heartbreaking, yet make that hilarious. His singing is wonderful. His one liners are great. Everything about Titus is tremendous. If you need only one reason to watch "UKS", watch it for Titus Burgess. He is incredible.

"Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" is a tremendous show, and this season was the best to date. I highly recommend watching all of it, but if you want to start on season 3, be ready for some great writing and jokes after jokes after jokes. This season was an absolute homerun.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He was once stuck on a boat with Dionne Warwick. They were fleeing a future where children ruled the earth. He then realized he was asleep on a canoe with easy listening hits of the 1980's playing through his Pandora station.

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SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing.

Ty Watches "Bar Rescue": Jack's Place Edition

We had another new episode of "Bar Rescue" this past Sunday. Taffer is sticking to his hometown this half of the season and he went and saved another bar in Las Vegas. Last week he was in a small town in Nevada, this week, he was in the biggest town in Nevada. The bar he went to this time was called Jack's Place.

Jack's Place had the typical "Bar Rescue" story. The bar was thriving at first under the first owner, he retired and sold it to Corine, a bartender, and now it was going down the tank. Corine did not have the authority, or the want, to be the big time boss. She let people walk all over her so much so to the point that the staff called her mom. Mind you that only one of her biological children worked there. She also had three managers, but only one bartender. That meant that one guy had to basically pour all the drinks and take all the orders. You'd think that he would take this responsibility seriously, but he was a total jackass. He kept trying to flip the bottles around and do all these tricks that he was in no way capable of pulling off. I feel like he saw the movie "Cocktail" once and decided he could do everything in that movie. He couldn't do one simple thing, and that was making the drinks. He either put too much liquor, or not enough, sometimes forgetting to put liquor in a drink. He broke multiple glasses trying to do these tricks. Then, when pressed by one of the managers, he would just argue and complain that he was getting three different directions and he didn't know which one to follow. He was useless.

Corine, the new owner, also had no idea how to appeal to a new client base. Everyone that came to the bar was old regulars from the past, and she said that she had been to approximately 50 funerals of former customers since taking over as the owner. That is crazy. When you own a bar I imagine that I would want a wide variety of customers, not just your regulars. She just didn't know how to pull in a younger crew.

When Taffer arrived with his mixology expert Phil Wills, they saw everything I just told you. The customers were old, the drinks were messed up, the bartender was a total moron and the managers and the owner had no control. When he sent in his two spies, they both said all the same stuff too. One of them told his buddy that there was no alcohol in his drink. It was a mess. When Corine's son finally confronted the bartender that was screwing around, the bartender went off on everyone. He was yelling at anyone and everyone within ear shot. This was when Taffer went off and stormed into the bar. Instead of going to Corine, he went straight to the bartender and started to go off on him. It was your typical, yet spectacular Taffer rant. He kept telling the guy to "be a man and own up to your mistakes", and the guy kept coming at Taffer. The tension was only broken by a commercial break.After the break, the bartender relented and apologized to everyone he was just yelling at previously. This was expected.

With the apology out of the way, they went into stress test. Stress test was a nightmare. Everything went bad. They had only one well and one ice machine. The bar was circular and everyone was running into one another. The drinks were wrong, of course. The drinks were late, of course. It was a mess. Taffer and Wills shut it down and got to their training. First off, Wills went to see how clean the bar was, and you guessed it, it was disgusting. Bottles of liquor had fruit flies. The keg was leaking water. The ice was leaking Freon. It was totally unsafe and gross. After the crew cleaned the entire place, they got to work, but not before the male bartender threw a fake tantrum and quit. He came back, of course, and they got back to training. Wills made the drink menu much simpler, and this episode was clearly sponsored by Jack Daniels. Everything was a mix with Jack Daniels, and 2 of the bartenders, one of which has 11 kids, got to go to their distillery and check everything out. This happens from time to time on "Bar Rescue". Some big liquor company comes along and the show caters everything towards how great this particular alcohol/liquor is.

After the trip and the return, they got their big reveal, but not before Taffer and Corine had a heart to heart about her ownership style. Taffer said all his usual nonsense, and of course Corine promised to change. They changed the name to Regan's Bar. I think that was Corine's last name, and got set for re launch. The new inside of the bar looked fine, but not spectacular. During re launch everything seemed to be going over smoothly. The lone exception was one of the managers, Caryn, seemed unhappy with all the changes and she retreated to the back. After this little problem, Taffer left and everyone seemed happy. They did the 6 week check up and everything was going well and Caryn had been fired.

The past 2 episodes have been your average, run of the mill, episodes, and I love it. When "Bar Rescue" has trashy people acting trashy and Taffer stooping to their level, that is when it is at their best. Next week is a back to the bar episode, and I don't watch those, so come back in a couple of weeks for my review of their new episode, whenever that may be.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He used to flip his kids baby bottles behind his back like Tom Cruise in "Cocktail". No one was impressed.

Follow Ty on instagram and twitter.

SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing.

Ty Watches "Tour de Pharmacy"

There are spoilers for the HBO film "Tour de Pharmacy". Go watch and come back to read Ty's review. It is currently showing on HBO Go, HBO Now, and periodically showing on one of HBO's family of channels at some time of the day.

This past weekend The Lonely Island and HBO released their second sports based faux documentary/comedy, "Tour de Pharmacy". I loved the first one, "7 Days in Hell", so I was excited for this second movie. When I say movie, I use that term loosely. This is basically a short. The "movie" runs about 35 minutes long. This is perfect for this subject material, and an excellent amount of time for what is basically a long form sketch.

Anyway, "Tour de Pharmacy" tells the "true" story of the 1982 Tour de France. This was the most drug riddled race in the history of bike races, according to the narrator, Jon Hamm. We all know now that, for the most part, the guys that do the Tour de France are dopers. It is widely accepted. "Tour de Pharmacy" takes this knowledge and makes it the entire basis of the movie.

Early in the program we find out that a rich German guy named Dittmer Klerken, played hilariously by Kevin Bacon, writes a letter to all 170 racers saying that they can do whatever drugs they want and they won't be tested, if they give him 50,000 dollars a piece. Klerken had built up incredible credit card debt due to a very absurd credit card ad in Sweden. The scene with the ad was probably my favorite part of the entire movie. It was so bizarre and odd and the talking heads comments on it were hilarious. If you watch this movie for one reason, make it to see the part with the ad. It was uproarious.

After the ad shows, they cut to the racers. They introduce us to 5 specific riders at the beginning. The first is Nigerian born racer, Marty Hass. He was played by Andy Samberg. Hass was born into a royal family that just happened to mine diamonds in Nigeria. They say that he went to an all American boys private school, and the people of Nigeria hate him. They hate that he is their country's representative. He is the epitome of a spoiled rich kid, and Samberg plays him hilariously. Another great part of this movie is they have the main characters as their older selves, and the actors that portray the older versions are perfect. Jeff Goldblum plays the older Hass. He is so god damn funny. He has some fake blonde hair hanging out of his hat and he wears African coats the whole time. Goldblum is just as funny as Samberg.

We also meet the first female, posing as a male, to ride in the tour. Freddie Highmore plays the young version of Adrian Baton. He was hilarious. His attempts to act like a female acting like a male was classic Lonely Island stuff. Julia Ormond played the older, and real, Baton, and she was equally as funny. She is a classically trained dramatic actress, but she pulls off the comedy to perfection. Her reveal at the end is wonderful.

Next up is Jackie Robinson's nephew, Slim Robinson, who is trying to get out of his uncle's shadow. He wants to be the first African American to break the color barrier, and at the time, cycling was the only sport that did not have many, if any, people of color. Daveed Diggs, of "Hamilton" and "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" fame is terrific in this movie. He is so funny, but understated. Danny Glover as the older Slim was equally tremendous. His wig is absolutely bananas. I loved it.

John Cena plays Austrian cyclist, Gustav Ditters, and he may have been the best in the whole movie. They show a picture from him the year before and he is rail skinny, then they show the actual Cena, and he is ripped. His claims that he isn't doping are so funny. The fact that he is that shredded, but constantly denies doping, is awesome. When the big fight breaks out in the first stage, and Cena starts to beat the hell out of people, I was in tears. Dolph Lundgren plays the older Ditters, and the whole "cheetah" and "cheater" scene is comedic gold.

The final main cyclist, JuJu Peppi, played by Orlando Bloom, was classic cycling cheater. He had so many drugs in his body that he actually died during the race due to a heart attack. Unfortunately for Peppi, he died while going pee, so his member was out when he died. There is a ton of male frontal nudity in this movie by the way. I have to say, while I don't like Bloom as an actor, he was really good in this movie.

The reason there are only 5 riders left is due to the fight I mentioned earlier. After the fight broke out, many of the riders came forward and said they were paid to not tell anyone that they were doping, and Klerken was the one that paid them. The only riders to not pay him were the 5 main characters, or as Seth Morris' ESPN anchor dubs them, "The Fab Five", claiming no one else will live up to that nickname ever. This was when we get a mini interview with Chris Webber and underneath his name it days, "a member of the much more famous Fab Five". Again, I was cracking up.

Lots of funny and wacky stuff happens during the race. I mentioned Peppi's death. Ditters get caught with cheetah blood, thus setting off the whole cheetah and cheater scene. Hass and Baton start to fall in love. Slim leaves the race to go be a farmer in France, only to return in the end. James Marsden, who was incredible as the announcer for the BBC, is involved in the race, but it is later found out that he is using a bike with a car motor on it, and Baton throws herself onto him to help her new lover, Hass, win the race. Just tons of crazy, hilarious stuff.

The people that they got to be the talking heads in the movie were phenomenal as well. Maya Rudolph is the head of a cycling magazine. She is great. Nathan Fielder is the head of the anti doping committee and he brings his dry humor to this movie, and it is pitch perfect. Joe Buck is himself, and he is really good. Mike Tyson and Lance Armstrong, both people that have done truly awful things in their personal lives, were actually pretty good in this movie. Lance Armstrong was pretty funny. Mike Tyson was a riot. JJ Abrams was pretty tremendous in his small role, as himself too. He plays a heightened version of himself, and I found him to be pretty good.

The entire cast was phenomenal for this small movie. The star, at least in my opinion, was Cena. He was the funniest of all the funny people in this movie. I have found that I enjoy Cena as an actor. Diggs was also really good too. Watching him try to get out of Jackie Robinson's shadow was just great. Jeff Goldblum was also really funny as well.

What I am trying to say is that "Tour de Pharmacy" was incredibly funny and I highly recommend everyone watch it. The Lonely Island seem to have found another niche that fits them, and I hope they continue to do little movies like this. "7 Days in Hell" was great, "Tour de Pharmacy" was better. I can't wait to see what they do next. Until then, go watch "Tour de Pharmacy" if you want a good laugh.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He recently competed his first mini triathalon and has his sights set on the 2018 Tour de France. Anybody know where he can score some cheetah blood?.

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SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing.

Ty Watches "Bar Rescue": Casual Tap Edition

Just because it's the Fourth of July, that doesn't mean Ty is taking the day off. Enjoy. 

This past Sunday we got the glorious return of "Bar Rescue". That's right, Jon Taffer and crew are back to save some failing bars. I hadn't realized how much I missed this show until I watched it on my DVR yesterday. I was so happy to see that crazy looking, mean yet helpful old man, Taffer. He is a national treasure. I needed to hear that shrill yell again. I missed it so much.

On the season premiere or mid season premiere, or whatever this show and Spike TV decide it is, Taffer and one of his drink experts visited a bar that shut down 3 months ago in Chicago. The bar was, and still is, called Casual Tap. The guy who owned the bar doubled as a firefighter, so it was hard for him to be at both jobs. His firefighting job, as it should be, was priority number one. His wife also has a disease called Huntington's Disease, which is kind of like Alzheimer's. So, his bar was pretty much number 3 on his important things list.

The bar started off strong, as most do, so the owner decided to step away and let his employees run the place. This is always a disaster. Everything went down hill. The people didn't know what to do, or they just didn't care. When the owner realized that he was nearly 700,000 dollars in debt, he decided to close the place down for awhile. He didn't give up, promising to reopen the bar soon, but he was close to letting it go. In fact, when Taffer shows up, he has to meet him at the firehouse. As I said, the bar was shut down. The owner told Taffer about the employees, the firefighter job and his wife. Just then, this became not only a bar rescue, but a family rescue too.

This is Taffer's personal wheelhouse. So, instead of a stress test, Taffer decided to see the crew in action in a very small sample. He had the owner reopen the bar and invited some guests. The bartenders, minus one guy, were not that terrible, they were just out of practice. The guy though, Louie, struggled mightily. This was bad news for the owner because he wanted Louie to be the new manager. Taffer warned against this, and even told the owner to let the newer bartender, Zee, be the manager. Taffer even went so far as to have the 2 take a mangers test that he set up, and Zee crushed it, where Louie, he crapped the bed. They had some intense training after this, and the owner still hadn't decided who was going to be the manager.

Taffer and his crew did their magic and gussied up the bar. They kept a lot, including the name, the bar was a mainstay, but they gave them some POS systems and other, newer things. They also tidied up the floor and walls too. At the reveal, everyone loved the place. They like that it looked the same, only a bit newer. They loved the new menu, and in classic Taffer fashion, he named a drink after the fireman and decided that some of the proceeds would go to Huntington Disease research. He also cut a check himself. Taffer may come off as an asshole, and then he does stuff like this. The owner was moved to tears, as was his daughter.

After they all gathered their emotions, they got ready for the reopen. During this though, Louie cut his hand getting garnish ready. He cut it so deep that he couldn't work. It looked dire for Casual Tap, but the rest of the crew stepped up, and Louie was not really needed. They had a great reopen.

During the end credits it said that the bar was taking a hiatus before reopening later in 2017. They didn't specify, but I hope the owner's wife and daughter are okay. I want this bar to succeed. The people deserve it.

I'm very happy that "Bar Rescue" is back. I missed it so, but now it's going to be here for the next couple months or so. They are taking one week off, but they'll get back on July 16th, and I'll be here to review it. Welcome back BR, you were missed, and I'm so pleased that you are back in my life.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He wants to one day open a bar called "Need Rescuing". Maybe the name will be enough for Ty to meet his idol Jon Taffer.

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Ty Watches "Playing House"

This past Friday "Playing House" returned to our television sets. I was so thrilled to see this show again after the long layoff. I was confused why it took so long for season three to come back on, but after hearing about Jessica St. Clair's battle with breast cancer, it all made sense. I have heard that the cancer is going to be a storyline, and I bet that they will tackle this tough subject matter in a very proper, yet very funny way. Both Parham and St. Clair are comedic geniuses. they are skillful actors, great improvisersand exceptional writers. I know they will create something magical when they get to the cancer story arc of this season.

With that being said, the first 2 episodes of season three did not touch on that subject, yet I still loved them as much as I loved all the episodes from the first 2 seasons. The first episode started with both Parham and St. Clair at a mommy self defense class. This whole bit was a riot. Parham was one of the stars of the class, and she used St. Clair as her partner, whom she deployed her newfound strength on. It was all played for great laughs. The instructor of the class was hilarious too. She was a total badass that, upon hearing Maggie(Parham) and Emma's(St. Clair) story of how they came together, she pauses for a moment and points at them aggressively and tells the whole class, "this is what true friendship looks like. I want you all to admire this". She then goes back to kicking ass.

It is later found in the episode that Maggie's ex husband, Bruce(Brad Morris), has a new girlfriend, and it is the self defense instructor. Maggie is thrown off by this, not because she still has feelings for Bruce, but because she is the only one on her core group without a signifigant other. Emma and Mark(Keegan-Michael Key) are officially a couple as well, after the season 2 cliff hanger. The story of the 2 of them trying to be intimate with each other,  but they both have concerns over their aged bodies, the motto of the episode seemed to be, "this is 40", was very funny. They do eventually get intimate, and they both love it.

Later on, Maggie has a big freak out at a party she has at her house for Bruce, his new girlfriend and Emma and Mark. They are playing a game where they guess movies with vague clues and she gets "Home Alone", and the party guests are all saying that she is alone, that no one except an old man likes her, that she has been forgotten, everything from the movie, and she blows up.

After Maggie's moment, her and Emma have a great moment in the kitchen, and things seem to be smoothed over. I love this about the show. Their moment doesn't seem hacky or tacked on for sympathy sake. Parham and St. Clair are lifelong friends, so their conversations, even in their characters, seems so real.

There was a second episode immediately after the first, and this one finds Emma and Tina, AKA "Bird Bones"(Lindsay Sloane), Mark's ex wife, trying to smooth things over after all that has happened. Tina says she is okay, but she looks like she is on razors edge. She isn't so much mad at Emma as she is overwhelmed with her new career. She has unfortunately gotten involved with a pyramid scheme, even though she keeps saying that she is a business woman. This leads Emma, after profusely apologizing for being with Mark, to try and help. She was a big time business woman herself before she moved back to help with Charlotte, Maggie's baby. She thinks she can take down the head of this pyramid scheme. This only leads to her being too cocky and deciding that she is going to prove to this lady that she can sell all the product. I know, it sounds like your typical sitcom nonsense, but again, all the people involved, mainly Parham and St. Clair are so sharp witted and funny, they make this seemingly typical story line absolutely hilarious. When Emma applies lip balm to Maggie, and it makes her swell up because she is allergic to bees, it was gold. Tina's constant flip flopping of emotions was great and funny. Emma's hubris, then realizing she had screwed up, it was all very well done.

Maggie's other story arc of the episode involved her and another nurse working with a new doctor, possibly Maggie's love interest for the season, who was very cold and no nonsense. The scenes with all three of them, Maggie, the male nurse and the doctor, are comedy gold. The scenes with just Maggie and the male nurse might have been even better. It was all great.

I'm beyond thrilled that "Playing House" is back. I've been a fan of this show from day one, and I've been a fan of Parham and St, Clair since I have been listening to podcasts. I highly recommend this show for everyone. It hits all the comedy marks that one could want out of a 30 minute sitcom, and they hit them so much better than any piece of garbage on CBS. I love this show so much and I cannot wait to watch it again on Friday. "Playing House" is a must watch TV show.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He one time went to a daddy self defense class. After hearing the rules, Ty figured out he was at a fight club.

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Ty Watches "Carnival Eats"

Amidst all the TV shows I watch because I genuinely have interest in them, i.e., "Legion", "Fargo", "The Simpsons", so on and so forth, I need shows like "Bar Rescue" and "Barefoot Contessa" that are just kind of on in the background, serving almost as white noise. Well, I have found another show that fits this bill perfectly, and it has become my show of choice on Thursday afternoon, if I am inside at the particular time the Food Channel is running a marathon.

Said show is called "Carnival Eats", and it is my new obsession. First off, I love the host. His name is Noah Cappe, and he is a wonder to watch. The guy has a ton of energy, but is very good at doing people on the street type interviews. He's incredibly knowledgeable when it comes to certain foods. And the people he talks to that make the food seem to enjoy his company.

The food that Cappe gets to eat as well, man does it make me jealous. Obviously, due to the name of the show, Cappe goes to random cities that have big carnivals, and he tries what some consider to be the best spots. His job makes me so jealous. I would do awful things to get a job like his. What is even more confounding, and makes me want to watch this show even more, the dude is in relatively good shape, considering all the crap he eats.

Anyway, I cannot get enough of "Carnival Eats". Cappe has eaten so much fried food that I would love to try just once. I've seen him eat so many variations of a corn dog, and they all looked tremendous. One of them was a breakfast type corndog, with the batter being pancake batter, but the chef used a polish dog, and the outside of the corn dog was drizzled with peanut butter and chocolate sauce, and to top it off, they put a light dusting of powdered sugar on top. My mouth is watering as I type this. He's had many varieties of funnel cakes, including a red velvet funnel cake. I love red velvet cake, so I imagine a funnel cake version is just as good, if not better. He's had fried Twinkies, fried doughnuts, even fried s'mores.

The craziest fried food I've seen him eat was fried watermelon. I was put off at first, but after he ate it, then described it, I want to try some fried watermelon right now. The person that made it used a pancake batter, of course, froze the watermelon over night, and after they fried it, he drizzled a watermelon syrup on top. The chef also added powdered sugar because, why not. Cappe said it tasted like a watermelon Jolly Rancher. That is my absolute favorite flavor. I need to go out and find some fried watermelon now.

It is not just fried food at these carnivals. He has had cheesecake quesadillas before. You read that correctly. He had a strawberry cheesecake quesadilla, covered in a cherry sauce. It looked incredible. He has eaten popcorn balls that have sparklers in them. Again, it looked awesome. He has had many different ice creams and a wide variety of slushies.

All the sweet food looks so great, but the savory stuff looks just as good. Cappe has eaten a ton of BBQ on the show. On a recent episode, he had a slow cooked pulled brisket bowl that included mac and cheese, cornbread, homemade baked beans and a homemade BBQ sauce. It looked dynamite. He's had so many different tacos, it is hard to single out any single one. They all look fantastic. He has had a million different types of mac and cheese. Whenever my son watches with me, he sits up when he sees mac and cheese because that is his favorite food. He has had some crazy pizza, including a gyro pizza. The gyro pizza looked so good, I wanted to crawl through my screen so I could try it.

Then there are the burgers. My god, these burgers look glorious. He has had all types of hamburgers. Burgers with doughnuts as the bun. Regular burgers heightened by the chefs secret recipe. Fried burgers. You name it, he has had it in burger form.

I absolutely love "Carnival Eats". Anytime it is on, I stop what I'm doing and watch. It's great for my kids too because they love food shows, but there is also the carnival angle, and they enjoy that as well. I always say to my wife, "I wonder if he is going to throw up this episode because he has been on the tea cup ride like 10 times". "Carnival Eats" is a homerun in every possible way. I think Cappe is wonderful. The food looks great. The people on the show seem to be having a ton of fun. Hell, even the rides look like they would be a good time. But, what makes it great is, I can put it on and just go about my day. I don't have to have laser focus like I do with other shows. It is just white noise, but it is the best kind of white noise.

Check out "Carnival Eats" if you don't already watch it. I think you'd enjoy it.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He used to work for a carnival, and has eaten his fair share of funnel cake batter and cotton candy sugar. He just has not had any of these fine foods in a higher form, yet. 

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Ty Watches Gorburger

Recently I have become more and more engrossed by the show "Gorburger"  on Comedy Central. I knew of the character of Gorburger prior to the show, but the show was my gateway. TJ Miller, of whom I'm a very big fan, had this blood thirsty, alien monster that hosted a talk show on Tokyo television. I saw some of the old clips online, but when the show was announced, I was very much on board. I like the idea very much, and I love when younger comedians spoof old time television.

So naturally, I tuned in to the series premiere 4 weeks ago. I did not know what to expect, but what I saw for 22 minutes kept me onboard. The show starts out as a game show in Tokyo, but then Gorburger gets blasted down to the set, quenches his blood thirst by devouring almost everyone on stage, then walks up to the 2 hosts and tells them that this is his show now, and he says that he will keep the very few people that you see standing on stage. One of those people is the announcer, and the other is the pop duo, Tokyo Fever, who whenever you say their name, they have to repeat in Japanese, "We are Tokyo Fever!". It is so bizarre, but I laugh every time.

The pilot episode features Reggie Watts, another guy that I am a big, big fan of. The whole plot is based on vaping. Gorburger even has a buddy of his, some guy that is famous on YouTube for the things he can do with vapor smoke, named Trevbone, that just sits there, vapes and does weird shit with the vapor smoke. It was distractingly weird, but it was also fun to see Reggie Watts looked just as confused as everyone else seemed to be. Reggie Watts was a good sport though, and he went along with all the weird stuff that Gorburger wanted him to do, including some absurd games. There was also a pre taped segment where Gorburger visited a real doll factory. It was disgusting, but also very funny, because TJ Miller, dressed as Gorburger, was given a full tour and got the whole spiel from the owner. It was wild. The episode ended with Reggie Watts and Thundercat doing an improvised song together, which was dope as hell. But, to keep it crazy, poor Trevbone was delivered a fatal blow to the head with a brick.

Like I said, the show does not make a whole lot of sense, but I found myself thinking about the pilot a few days after watching it. The more I thought about it, the more it was like a full sitcom version of an Adult Swim show. "Gorburger" was like watching a 22 minute long episode of "The Eric Andre Show" or "Aqua Teen Hunger Force", or even "Space Ghost: Coast to Coast". I love all those shows, so a 22 minute version of one was a great surprise.

Since the pilot, I have obviously watched the next 3 episodes. The second episode had Dr. Drew as the guest, again, being a very good sport, and the central plot was Gorburger's obsession with smooth jazz. The entire episode had Kenny G, who was literally wearing cement shoes, playing music anytime Gorburger wanted, because if he didn't, he would be hit with a brick, a la Trevbone. During the show, Gorburger visited a "twerking" class. That segment was nuts, but also very funny. "Twerking" is such a thing of the past, but to see this enormous alien try to "twerk", and the teachers really trying to teach him was a thing of comic beauty. Before the episode ended, Dr. Drew helped cure Gorburger's bloodlust, and played another absurd game. But, poor Kenny G had to keep playing jazz, Gorburger couldn't stop, and he met the same fate as Trevbone at the end of this episode.

Episode three had one of my favorite comedians, Tig Notaro, as the guest. Throughout the entire episode, little "gorbabies" keep showing up because it was shedding season for Gorburger, and they have been known to only give bad advice. During the interview segment, Notaro played a hilarious game called "Christian Bale or Christian Male", where she had to guess a quote Gorburger gave her as to if Bale, or a Christian male said it. It was laugh out loud hilarious. Later, Gorburger visited a wild life zoo, and again, it was bizarrely hilarious. The fact that these people want to be on TV so bad that they will let a guy dressed as an enormous blue alien monster come to their place just to get exposure. The interviews are always weird, but that is the point. The end of this episode was like the first 2, with Notaro playing another game, but it coming to a terrible demise for her and another gentlemen, when she took a Gorbaby's advice to smash herself through a brick wall. I'm sure this will be a running theme for the rest of the season.

The most recent episode featured Zach Woods and Johnny Pemberton, two of my favorite improv comedians/actors. They were game for all the weirdness that was "Gorburger". This has been, by far, the best episode to date. It was Grizzlebub's Day, which is like Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa for wherever in the hell Gorburger is from. They sang carols and played games and did other nonsense for the whole 22 minutes. The interview was very funny, playing another name game that immediately went off the rails. There was another death because Gorburger thought that Grizzlebub was coming due to a loud clanking sound, and the only way to appease him is a human sacrifice. It was disturbing, but dammit, I was laughing. The show ended with a performance from Portugal the Man, and the song was pretty good. We also come to find out that the clanking noise was the air conditioning guy fixing the AC unit, so the sacrifice wasn't needed.

I know this all sounds very bizarre, but for fans of absurdist humor, "Gorburger" is a homerun. I'm pretty sure season one is only 6 episodes, and they're already 4 in. I hope the people at Comedy Central keep this show going because I will watch the hell out of it, if it comes back for a second season. "Gorburger" is great. Weird, but great.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. One time he hot a guy in the face with a brick just for playing jazz. Ty does not fool around when jazz is being played. 

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Ty Watches "Bar Rescue": Desi Romano's Edition

This past Sunday "Bar Rescue" got back to its usual form. The episode the week before, with Big Mike's Sports Bar and Grill, was moving and very different from anything I have come to expect. While that was a very nice change of pace, I was happy to see it get back to its roots.

Taffer and crew traveled to New Orleans once again, but the bar was not in trouble due to a massive flood of epic proportions. This bar was failing because of the ownership and staff. You know, typical "Bar Rescue" type stuff. The bar is called Desi Romano's, and I will say right at the top, Taffer could not and did not change the name. It was named after the owner, and to Taffer's credit, when the bar has a historical or meaningful name, he does not change it.

This bar was like most other bars on the show. At first, they were making tons and tons of cash. They were making so much money, they couldn't count it fast enough. Then, the bad stuff happened. In this bar's case, the owner Desi had a stroke. This was very unfortunate and it happened at the worst possible time. Desi was ready to hand the bar over to his daughter, but she needed lots and lots of training. She is very young and inexperienced, but he wanted to keep the bar in the family, which is very understandable. So, Desi has the stroke, and he misses 3 plus months of work. He had to get his life back together. During that 3 month period, the bar took an enormous tumble. The staff started to take major advantage of Laura, Desi's daughter. She could not run the bar properly yet, and the staff knew it. A bunch of the bartenders and the head chef started to run their own bar tabs. The bar also was becoming neglected. The staff didn't clean as much and they did not restock liquor and food kind of took a back seat. When Desi was healthy enough, he came back, but he more so came to his bar to drink and berate his daughter, along with the entire staff.

When Taffer and crew showed up to the bar to watch from their van on the monitors to see how poorly the bar was being run, the main thing that stuck out to them, and me for that matter, was that Desi just got more and more hammered as the night wore on. Taffer sent in his spies, who were former bar owners that had their bar rescued and were now thriving, and what they saw from the inside was even worse. The bartenders couldn't make a simple drink, and a New Orleans staple, the Hurricane. The bartender told them she had no idea how to make one, and instead offered to make him a margarita. When they tasted the margarita, both spies said it was terrible. The other spy ordered a rum and coke, seems simple enough, and he said that it was watered down and gross. When they ordered food, they ordered what the menu said was "Award Winning Mac and Cheese". Well, this did not look like halfway decent, and definitely not award winning, mac and cheese. It looked awful and that was confirmed by both the spies.

All the while this stuff was going on, Desi was having beer after beer and shot after shot. When Taffer finally decided to enter the bar it took him over 3 tries to get Desi's attention. When Desi finally acknowledged Taffer was there, he called him Tom. His first name is Jon. All of us know this. But, Desi was so wasted he couldn't even say his first name. While Taffer was berating him, Desi would go back and forth between yelling and asking for help. He couldn't figure out what he wanted because he was so inebriated. It was a mess. It started out funny, but soon became sad. Desi clearly has an alcohol problem and his daughter was very worried about him. After Taffer had enough, he walked out to Desi yelling at him to not leave, then giving him the finger.

Taffer, of course, came back the next day, and Desi showed up sober. He even stated that he did not remember what happened the night before and that he was very embarrassed. It is always nice to see an owner own up to his or her bullshit on this show. Taffer and crew immediately got to training after Taffer let Desi and his daughter know how much money their staff had run up on their bar tabs. The first few were average, right around 50 or 60 dollars, but then they got to the head chef. Her bar tab was 2,000 dollars. That is a whole lot of alcohol that she had not paid for in three months.

After this was all resolved the real training started. The staff was not prepared for the simplest of tasks and you could see it weighing on Taffer's experts. Stress test came and it was a nightmare. They had no system in place that was any good, and Desi and his daughter could not run the bar. No one was getting drinks and food was getting cold in the window. It was a typical stress test nightmare. After seeing how far behind they were, Taffer's experts decided it would be best to make the menu as simple as possible. During this training session, Taffer and his construction crew got to fixing the bar up.

With the new, easier menu and the bar being all gussied up, Taffer was ready for Desi and his crew to see their new bar. The name was the same, but the inside was totally different. There were new POS systems, new décor, new bar tops and stools, new pool tables, charging docks at the bar. Basically, the inside looked brand new, and everyone loved it. It was one of Taffer's better efforts I must say.

During re launch, everything ran smooth and Desi Romano's looked to be getting back to its money making ways. The staff was better, the kitchen staff was firing on all cylinders and Desi and his daughter were doing everything right. Taffer left feeling he had done all he could. During the 6 week check up, the bar sales were up 12 percent and the staff no longer had open bar tabs. Desi Romano's looked to be slowly, but surely getting back on its feet.

This was another run of the mill "Bar Rescue" , and I loved it. This Sunday they are doing another back to the bar thing, so I won't review that, but in 2 weeks there will be a new episode and I will be back to review that one. Come back then for your next "Bar Rescue" update.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He was relieved when he found out the bar was not serving Mac's Famous Mac and Cheese. Poor dog.

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Ty Watches "Love" Season 2

ed note: Ty Watched season 1. Read about it here.

Recently I finished season 2 of "Love" on Netflix, and I really enjoyed myself while watching it. I really liked that it picked right up where season one ended. I will do little to no spoilers today, so anyone who hasn't seen it yet should be fine reading this.

Where we left Gus(Paul Rust) and Mickey(Gillian Jacobs) were outside a gas station where Gus was buying snacks. Mickey lays it all out for him and tells him all of her secrets. She says that she wants to take a year off from dating and get her life together. Gus proceeds to kiss her, and that is where season 2 starts.

I really like this show. A lot of people will say "Master of None" is the better romantic comedy show on Netflix, and while I really like it, I think "Love" is much better. "Love" doesn't take itself as serious as "Master of None" seems to. I also prefer the leads in "Love" to the leads in "Master of None". I love Aziz Ansari's stand up, and his phenomenal role in "Parks and Rec", but for a sitcom type show lead, I, for some reason, prefer Paul Rust. He is way goofier and way less self serious. As far as the female leads, I will take Gillian Jacobs any day over Noel Wells. She's a much better actress and way, way funnier than Wells. She is just more fun to watch act. People are trying to compare these shows, I chose not to. These are 2 different style shows. "Love" is much more of a straight forward comedy and "Master of None" borders on the dramedy line. I like both shows a lot, but, as previously stated, I prefer my comedy as goofy and straight up, therefore I prefer "Love". That is where the comparison stops for me.

Anyway, season 2 of "Love" follows a couple of months between Gus and Mickey. Mickey doesn't want to date anyone, but her addiction to love gives in. Not only is she an alcoholic and drug addict, but she is also a sex and love addict. She really, truly seems to very much like Gus. Gus is different from any guy that she has dated before. Gus is polite. Gus is nice and complimentary to her. Gus tries hard because he feels that he doesn't deserve someone like her. Gus, at least on the surface, seems to be a great guy. But, he is a little overbearing. He can be complimentary, but also condescending. He waits until the last minute to explode on Mickey when he is upset with her. Mickey, to her credit is trying to get her life together. As I said, she is involved in all the addiction programs. She actually takes her job seriously this time around. She wants to better herself. She doesn't want to give in to Gus, but she likes him so much that she gives it a try. But, she too has her flaws. She flakes out a lot on friends and family. She rants and raves about Gus a lot. She feels that she can give relationship advice, even though she clearly doesn't know what she is doing in that aspect of her life. That is what I like about the 2 main characters, they have flaws. Neither is right or wrong with their decisions. There is some great back and forth this whole season between Gus and Mickey. The creators and writers, including Paul Rust and his wife Lesley Arfin, really did an excellent job portraying relationships in your early thirties during this season.

While Rust and Jacobs are the clear stars of the show, the supporting actors were used excellently, and frequently, this season. Claudia O'Dougherty, who plays Mickey's roommate, was great this season. She is funny, quirky and plays her role as fish out of water so great. She is the best supporting actor in the whole show by far. Mike Mitchell, of "Doughboys" and "Birthday Boys" fame, was used a lot more this season, and he had a creepy and weird story arc, but it was perfect for him. Judd Apatow's daughter Maude, who plays the actress that Gus teaches, had a much bigger role and she can really act. The people who work on the show "Wichita", the show where Gus works, weren't used as much, but when they were, they were really funny. Brett Gelman is awesome in his few and far between scenes that he gets this season. Bobby Lee is really funny in his minimal role. Gus' friends, the guys and girls that make up theme songs for movies that don't have theme songs, where really good as well. Everyone in the show is great.

I cannot say enough nice things about "Love". I think it is the best Netflix show, and I am way into a lot of Netflix shows. Paul Rust has found a perfect place for him to shine as a writer and actor. Lesley Arfin is a tremendous comedy writer. Gillian Jacobs crushes her role on the show. All the supporting actors I mentioned are fantastic. Watch this show. I know you will love it as much as I do. I saw that they are filming a season 3 and I cannot wait until it comes back on. "Love" is great, and it is one of the best comedies on any type of television right now. Check it out.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. If Ty watches a bunch of Netflix shows, where is his review for Voltron: Legendary Defender? That show rules. 

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Ty Watches "Bar Rescue": Big Mike's Sports Bar and Grill

This week's episode of "Bar Rescue" was so much different from anything I have ever seen on the show before. They have done rescues of bars that have been damaged before, they did one in the Northeast after they had their big storm, but this one was just different. This was the first ever episode I have seen where I was legitimately moved by what happened over the course of 44 minutes. I literally thought I was going to shed a tear or two, and I do not cry at anything, except Pixar movies.

For this rescue, Taffer and crew go to a bar in a small town in Louisiana called Big Mike's Sports Bar and Grill. This town just three months ago was absolutely destroyed by a horrific storm. During the cold open they were flashing stats of the storm, and some of the things I remember where, there was 2.3 billion dollars worth of damage, they said there was more rain and flooding than Hurricane Katrina and that 90 percent of the businesses in the town had still not re opened and may never open again. Right off the bat the music was sad and the announcer's voice reflected that sadness.

When we finally get to meet Big Mike, who seems to be one hell of a nice guy, he tells of the terrifying tale of what has happened to him and his family since the storm. Big Mike, and his wife Jocelyn, are being interviewed and they show pictures of the damage to their house first. It is absolutely wrecked. They needed to have, pretty much, their entire home fixed due to flood damage. They show pictures of their children sitting on cars that are in 4 feet of flood water. It was so goddamn sad. Big Mike has a water damage stain on one of his walls and shows the viewing audience that the water got as high as 64 inches in their home. That is almost 5 and a half feet. That is so scary.

Taffer comes by himself to talk to Mike and Jocelyn about the bar and their home and their lives afterward. When he shows up they tell him that before the storm, Big Mike's was the place to be in this town. During LSU games on Saturday and Saints games on Sunday the bar was packed to the rafters. People would come in after sporting events, have kids parties there, basically anything that a restaurant and bar could handle, Big Mike's handled and then some. They were making almost 2 million dollars a year, and they deserved every cent of that. Jocelyn and Mike where hard working, nice people that their employees and their neighbors and the town loved. Hearing all this almost brought Taffer to tears. That was crazy. When they showed him where they were living while their home and bar was under construction, I got even sadder. They were living in a mobile home and their daughters were living in a different mobile home. They were separated because they did not have the space to live together. The kids were older, teenagers I believe, but still, that would be very hard. I cannot imagine not living with my kids.

At this point I found out that Jon Taffer is a dad. I never knew that. He told them that he has a 28 year old daughter. I was floored. But he sympathized with them not being with their kids. This was the point where Taffer promised them that he would fix up the bar in a week, they were told it would take up to 6 months to get the bar up and running.

Taffer brought Jocelyn and Mike out of the bar after he had them show him around and at this point we see the entire town there ready to help anyway they can. Again, I almost shed a tear. There was so much crying I could not help myself. Taffer brings in his best construction crew to get to work, and while they are getting the bar ready, he has 2 experts, one of which was McCargo, get the staff ready at a different bar that was back up and running. This staff had not worked in a bar or restaurant for about 3 months, so they were rusty. But, following the theme of this very off the cuff episode, the experts and Taffer never demeaned the staff, instead they encouraged them the entire time. Sure, he told them they needed to speed up and shake off the rust, but he never called one person a failure or told them that they were letting their loved ones down. The training was all very civil and respectful. McCargo helped out the kitchen staff with a big smile. The mixology expert was always complimentary, even in his criticism. It was a very nice change of pace.

There was one point during the training and construction where it looked like Taffer's construction crew may not get all the work done. This was a 10,000 square foot bar and restaurant. This place was big and needed a ton of work.

At another point, Deuce McCallister, formerly of the New Orleans Saints, showed up to lend his support and help any way he could. This whole town was coming together to get this well known and loved establishment back up and running.

After working throughout the day and night the construction crew got the job done. I would usually have a snarky comment about this, but this was such a touching episode, I'm not going to say anything mean. When the staff and Jocelyn and Mike see what the bar looks like, they cannot stop crying tears upon tears of joy. The place looked spectacular. This was the best rescue they have ever done in my opinion.

They kept the name too, thank goodness. While looking around at everything, the television crew kept showing old pictures with all the flood damage next to the new look of the bar. It was amazing. When Taffer sat the staff down, he showed them a video of the bar owners that he helped get back on their feet in the Northeast, and they donated 10,000 dollars to Jocelyn and Mike to get another trailer for their daughters to live in while they house got fixed up. Again, I was just about to cry until I realized that I was watching "Bar Rescue".

During the re-opening, everything, thankfully, went so smooth and the staff crushed it. I was so, so happy that these people were getting back on their feet. Taffer left the enormous bar to a great ovation. It was well deserved.

When they did the 6 week checkup, Big Mike's was doing great. They were recording record sales and their house was nearing completion for the family to move back in. This was, I kid you not, the best episode I have ever seen of "Bar Rescue". It was so different from the norm, but it was incredibly touching and moving and I was taken aback at how sweet these people on the show can be. I loved this episode so much. I actually wish more were like this, but "Bar Rescue" has made its dime on trashy people. But, this was such a great change of pace and I applaud them for doing something like this.

An episode like this of "Bar Rescue" makes me like this show so much more than I thought ever possible. Thank you for this "Bar Rescue" and Spike TV. You guys did a tremendous job on this episode.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. If Taffer and the crew ever make us shed a tear for a run down super trashy strip club, they deserve a goddamn Nobel Prize. Follow Ty on instagram and twitter.

SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing.

Ty Gets Ready to Watch the Final Four

The 2017 Final Four is set. We have UNC and Gonzaga, the 1 seeds, Oregon, the 3 seed that hasn't been this far since 1939, and the Cinderella 7 seed, South Carolina. I don't think a lot of people predicted this. In fact, on my Tournament Challenge app, a stat popped up that said only 657 out of 17 million plus entries correctly predicted the Final Four. That comes out to 0.003 percent of entrants that got it right. That is crazy.

With all this being said, I do like the matchups and the teams. But, before I jump into my predictions I want to touch on the last 4 days of the tournament. All the crazy things that led to these teams being the teams left standing.

The tournament picked back up last Thursday. As you all know by now, Oregon beat Michigan in a great game. Gonzaga and West Virginia played one of the sloppiest, foul ridden, terribly run offensive games that I have witnessed. There were 50 plus fouls called, a combined 61 free throws shot and missed after missed opportunity by both teams. In the end Gonzaga won late when WVU ran the worst 3 offensive plays to close out a game ever. Later that evening, KU demolished Purdue. Purdue kept it close for a half, then KU bulldozed them. Frank Mason, Devonte Graham and Josh Jackson looked unbeatable. The last game of the evening was incredible, and in a pretty big upset, Xavier beat Arizona in the final minute. Arizona showed its youth and Sean Miller reared his ugly head, and Xavier just kept plugging away until it took the lead for good with 40 seconds left. Xavier played with so much more heart and they deserved that win.

The next night had some marquee matchups, and only one of the games really lived up to the hype. Earlier in the evening, South Carolina laid waste to Baylor. Baylor looked like Baylor and South Carolina took advantage. Is Scott Drew a good coach? Maybe, but this team always chokes in March. The UNC-Butler game had potential to be close, especially with how UNC played against Arkansas, but UNC came out scorching hot, and rode a great first half to an easy 12 point win. The game that was supposed to be the game of the night, UCLA-Kentucky, was good, but not great. Kentucky played incredible defense. De'Aaron Fox was ridiculously great. Malik Monk did his thing. I was shocked at how nonchalant, and seemingly uninterested both UCLA and Lonzo Ball looked in this game. TJ Leaf also played really bad. These are 2 projected first round picks, with Ball being considered number 1 or 2 overall. He showed little to no effort, and Fox absolutely crushed him all night long. To no one's surprise, Ball immediately declared for the draft, but man oh man did he look really terrible. And TJ Leaf, he was a complete no show. He couldn't keep up with Kentucky's big men and they destroyed him all night long. The game was good for awhile, but with about 11 minutes left in the second half, there was no doubt that Kentucky was moving on. The game of the night was Wisconsin-Florida. Florida seemed to have the game put away, but Wisconsin came up with big plays and an incredible shot at the end of the game to tie it up and push it to overtime. But, after making that shot, the Wisconsin kid showboated, and I said to my television, with no one else in the room, you will regret that. Well, with under 10 seconds left, one of Florida's guards went the length of the floor with his team down 2, and took almost the exact same shot as the Wisconsin kid, but this time, it was a game winner. The Florida kid hit all net. That game was truly great, especially the last 5 minutes of regulation and all of overtime.

Then we had 8. 

On Saturday we had KU-Oregon and Gonzaga-Xavier. Gonzaga-Xavier was a blowout from the tap. They crushed them the whole time. Gonzaga actually looked like the team that only got beat once all year. People may say that they got to play an 11 seed, but Xavier blew away FSU, a 3 seed, and beat Arizona, a 2 seed, and Gonzaga absolutely destroyed them. They won by 24 points, and it wasn't that close. I thought this would happen. What happened in the KU-Oregon game though, I did not expect. With the way KU hammered Purdue, and how Oregon had to come back against Michigan, I just naturally assumed that KU would continue their destruction. Well, Frank Mason did his thing, but no one else showed up for KU. Graham was an 0 fer from the filed. Josh Jackson was very mediocre. The Myhkulik kid was non existent. Bill Self was out coached. They just played terribly, and Oregon played great, especially their big men. They had one forward that had 11 points, 12 rebounds and 8 blocks. That is a phenomenal stat line. He single handily shut down everyone but Frank Mason. Oregon looked very, very good in this game.

So Saturday's games were both blowouts and gave us half of the Final Four. Sunday's games were much better. We started off with South Carolina-Florida. Florida looked like the better team in the first half, holding a 7 point lead, but South Carolina came out firing away and hitting shots in the second half. Sindarius Thornwell is a tremendous college basketball player. He is awesome and he kept this run going for South Carolina. They had a 4 point lead for pretty much the last 4 minutes, and they pulled away at the very end and won by 7 points. I'm still in shock that South Carolina, a team that has never been to the Final Four, is there. It's crazy. Congrats to them. To finish out the weekend, we had a great, great game between Kentucky and UNC. UNC looked like they had control in the first half, putting Kentucky's young stars in early foul trouble. But, Kentucky fought its way back, took a five point lead with about 3 and a half minutes left, but then UNC went on a 10-0 run to take a 5 point lead themselves. Then things that crazy. UNC pushed the lead to 7, but then Kentucky started to finally hit threes and with about 14 seconds left Malik Monk hit an incredible three to tie the game. The shot was awesome. But, instead of taking a timeout, UNC pushed the ball up the court and passed to this bench guy who hit a jumper with 0.3 seconds left. Kentucky never got another shot off. This was a great way to end the weekend. This game was flat out awesome. It had everything you could want out of an NCAA tournament game.

Now we have the four. Next Saturday Gonzaga will face South Carolina and UNC will face Oregon. South Carolina is on a magical run, but Gonzaga finally looked like the team we have all been waiting to see. I think this game will be very competitive, but I see Gonzaga ending South Carolina's magical run. I remember about 10 or 11 years back when George Mason was an 11 seed and on a similar run all the way to the Final Four, and it all came crashing down in their matchup. That is what I see happening here. It will be highly contested, but I just think that Gonzaga is a better team, and they should win. Oregon-UNC will be a blowout. I know that a lot of people are saying that Oregon is the team that no one wants to play, but UNC is a much, much better team with much better depth and equal size and skill from their big men. I think UNC will demolish them. Great for Oregon that they beat KU, but UNC is, I just have a feeling, going to throttle them. They passed their toughest test and came out of the South region as the Final Four recipient. I just do not see how they don't hammer Oregon.

That will give us a Gonzaga-UNC title game, and I think UNC will make up for what happened last year and win the title. It may be taken away in a few years, what with all the allegations coming at UNC athletics, but I see them beating Gonzaga in a very good, not as good as last year, but still highly contested game. It will come down to the final couple of minutes, but I see UNC winning it in the end. I think Justin Jackson will win MOP because he is the guy that most people know of on UNC. He has also had a very solid tournament run.

This is how I saw the past weekend, and how I see the Final Four playing out. I'm excited for next Saturday. This has been an entertaining tournament thus far. Hopefully that continues this weekend.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. Where is Ty's sense of loyalty? He picked Oregon at the beginning of the season. Why bail on the Ducks when they are closer than most people imagined. Follow Ty on instagram and twitter.

SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing.