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‘Aladdin’ gets Memorial Day Disney magic, but ‘Brightburn,’ ‘Book Smart’ stall

George Cando
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‘Aladdin’ gets Memorial Day Disney magic, but ‘Brightburn,’ ‘Book Smart’ stall

What a difference a year makes for Disney; last year they were recovering from the “Solo: A Star Wars Story” disastrous opening, but the live-action “Aladdin” overcame expectations to top the Memorial Day holiday weekend box office. Will Smith was the only major star power to help propel the film.

“Aladdin” cost just under $200 million with marketing costs included, so with the additional $121 million made overseas through Sunday, it has already brought in an estimated gross of $207.

Film is the sixth-highest Memorial Day weekend total ever, topping the 2011 mark of $103.4 million for “The Hangover Part II.” The top total came in 2007, when “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” took in $139 million in its first four days. “Aladdin” is also dominating moviegoing internationally with $121 million in 56 markets.

Moviegoers voted with their dollars and chose the familiar over the new this Memorial Day weekend. The Walt Disney Co.’s live-action remake of “Aladdin” crushed the competition at the box office, which included two new original R-rated films that opened as counterprogramming to the family pic: The critically acclaimed teen comedy “Booksmart” and the horror movie “Brightburn.”

But the strategy didn’t quite work. “Aladdin” did better than expected, grossing an estimated $86.1 million to take the top spot at the North American box office, according to studio estimates on Sunday. It’ll likely pass $100 million by Monday. The others didn’t even break $10 million.

“Aladdin,” a musical-adventure directed by Guy Ritchie, stars Will Smith, Mena Massoud, and Naomi Scott and draws heavily on the music and story of the 1992 animated film (the top earner of that year) that it’s based on.

Like its animated predecessor, this “Aladdin,” directed by Guy Ritchie, tells the story of a young street thief who finds his happily-ever-after with a princess, thanks largely to a genie who can grant him three wishes.

On the subject of three wishes being granted: Disney can now boast that it is behind the top three highest-grossing openings so far in 2019. Only the Disney-Marvel movies “Captain Marvel” (opening weekend: $153.4 million) and “Avengers: Endgame” ($357.1 million) had better openings than “Aladdin.”

And “Avengers: Endgame” is still making money. That superhero movie came in third this weekend with around $16.8 million in domestic ticket sales from Friday to Sunday, according to Comscore, which compiles box-office data. Second place went to Lionsgate’s “John Wick: Chapter 3,” which sold $24.4 million in tickets over the three-day period.

“We’re delighted,” said Cathleen Taff, Disney’s president of theatrical distribution. “Between the fun action-adventure and spectacular music combined with the cast, which is so charming and has such great chemistry together, we’ve hit something that fans are embracing and walking out of wanting to share with others.”

Audiences, who were 54% women and 51% families, gave the remake an A CinemaScore, which is much more promising for its continued success than the tepid critical reviews. The studio also got another metric with the newly launched verified Rotten Tomatoes audience rating. Over 7,000 people rated the film to give it a 93%.

“I’m so pleased that Rotten Tomatoes launched this, it means people bought the ticket. You can trust that people giving you the score actually sat through the movie,” Taff said. “We couldn’t ask for a better barometer of fan reception.”

The top few spots at the holiday box office were populated by known brands and sequels. “John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum,” now in its second weekend, placed second with $24.4 million. “Avengers: Endgame” took third with $16.8 million, and “Pokémon Detective Pikachu” landed in fourth with $13.3 million.

Original films are struggling to attract significant audiences at the moment. Sony’s modestly budgeted horror movie “Brightburn” opened in fifth with $7.5 million. The James Gunn-produced film starring Elizabeth Banks puts a sinister spin on the Superman myth and has received mediocre reviews from critics.

A surprise for many, however, was “Booksmart,” an Annapurna film distributed by United Artists Releasing, which debuted in sixth with only $6.5 million, despite excellent reviews and steady buzz from its SXSW film festival debut. Although in line with studio expectations going into the weekend, some had thought that this would be a summer breakout hit.

Olivia Wilde directed the film that stars Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein as two teenage overachievers and rule-followers who decide to go to a party on their last night of high school. Many compared it to “Superbad,” which opened in August 2007 to $33 million.

But despite all the hype, including a lot of celebrity endorsements on social media from the likes of Natalie Portman and Ryan Reynolds, audiences just didn’t turn out for “Booksmart” in noteworthy numbers.

Wilde saw the writing on the wall Saturday and tried to change the course with a Twitter plea.

“Anyone out there saving @Booksmart for another day, consider making that day TODAY,” Wilde wrote. “We are getting creamed by the big dogs out there and need your support. Don’t give studios an excuse not to green-light movies made by and about women.”

Those who did make to “Booksmart” were mostly women (61 and under the age of 35 (74%). And the target 17-34 age group gave a more favorable exit score (an A) than audiences overall, who gave it a B+.

“People are in a popcorn mood,” Comscore senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian said. “Films trying to be more introspective and fresh are having a tougher time getting their head above water.”

Still, he noted, to have three R-rated films in the top 6 (“Brightburn,” ″Booksmart” and “John Wick: Chapter 3”) is impressive. And one limited release that did manage to connect was the Laurel Canyon music documentary “Echo in the Canyon,” which earned an impressive $103,716 from two locations in Los Angeles. It expands to New York next week.

The deficit is still running around 9% for the year, but next weekend could chip away at that with a diverse set of new offerings including the Elton John biopic “Rocketman,” ″Godzilla: King of the Monsters” and the Octavia Spencer thriller “Ma.”

aladdin gets memorial day disney magic brightburn book smart stall 2019 images
Aladdin, Brightburn

North American Box Office

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Where available, the latest international numbers for Friday through Sunday are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Tuesday.

1. “Aladdin,” $86.1 million ($121 million international).

2. “John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum,” $24.4 million ($24.8 million international).

3. “Avengers: Endgame,” $16.8 million ($15.3 million international).

4. “Pokémon Detective Pikachu,” $13.3 million ($24.3 million international).

5. “Brightburn,” $7.5 million ($4.5 million international).

6. “Booksmart,” $6.5 million.

7. “A Dog’s Journey,” $4.1 million ($6.5 million international).

8. “The Hustle,” $3.8 million ($4.6 million international).

9. “The Intruder,” $2.3 million.

10. “Long Shot,” $1.6 million ($788,000 international).

Worldwide Box Office

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at international theaters (excluding the U.S. and Canada), according to Comscore:

1. “Aladdin,” $121 million.

2. “John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum,” $24.8 million.

3. “Pokémon Detective Pikachu,” $24.3 million.

4. “Avengers: Endgame,” $15.3 million.

5. “A Dog’s Journey,” $6.5 million.

6. “The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil,” $6.4 million.

7. “Rocketman,” $6.4 million.

8. “Mayday Life 3D,” $5.5 million.

9. “The Hustle,” $4.6 million.

10. “Brightburn,” $4.5 million.

Roger Federer talks French Open, 20 years of tennis, but don’t mention retirement

Luka Alario
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Roger Federer talks French Open, 20 years of tennis, but don’t mention retirement

Talk about feeling like one of the elders; Roger Federer just realized that of the 128 players who took part in the 1999 French Open men’s singles tournament, he is the only one playing still on tour. Not only that, but when Roger Federer played his first match at Roland Garros the domestic currency was francs rather than euros, Steffi Graf was about to claim a sixth French Open title and few, if any, had heard of the young Swiss player who would go on to become a tennis great. Nor would they have thought he would become nicknamed the ‘Swiss maestro.’

20 years ago was when the teenage Federer made his Paris debut and lost in four sets to the experienced Australian Pat Rafter. That French Open was Federer’s first Grand Slam event. He was 17 years old, wore a ball cap backward on court and still had difficulty keeping his temper in check. Even though he was Swiss, not French, and had lost in the first round of the junior event the year before, the French tournament officials had decided, after considerable debate, to give him a precious wild card into the main draw based on his clear potential.

Patrick Rafter was his opponent on May 25, 1999; the net-rushing Australian then ranked No. 3 in the world. Though Federer did come out swinging and win the first set, he struggled to win games after that, losing, 5-7, 6-3, 6-0, 6-2, in the sunshine on Court Suzanne Lenglen.

roger federer first french open at 17 with backward ball cap
French Open 1999. Roger Federer before he became the Swiss maestro.

“I was really happy to play against Rafter, who was one of the most popular players on the tour,” Federer recalled on Friday. “It was great being able to play him on the Suzanne Lenglen Court rather than on Court 23. After the first set, he got the hang of how I play and he, like, sliced and diced me.

“My memories go way back. I remember vividly the Martina Hingis-Steffi Graf (final that year) because Martina was basically my age and was doing things and I didn’t know how she did it. But at a young age while I was still in diapers,” he joked. “My memories go to that and to Jim Courier winning the French Open (1991-92).”

So much has happened since 1999 for the always suave Federer, who has amassed 20 Grand Slam crowns and collected his 101st career title earlier this season.

After a three-year hiatus, he is back in Paris, 10 years after completing a career Grand Slam with his only title at Roland Garros, a victory he said was “one of the greatest moments in (his) life.” He’s now ranked No. 3, 37 years old and anxious to get back on the French Open courts since his hiatus from 2015.

“A lot of things have changed,” Federer said, gazing at the new interview room set up in the temporary press center. Organizers have launched a major overhaul of the facilities and transformed the site with more space and new courts.

“This is the first time I’m in this room. Center court looks very different. Still, I feel it is the old Roland Garros. It’s kept its flair and everything. I’m very happy to be back. Maybe a tiny bit more because I have missed the last three editions, and when you miss something in life, you’re happy to be back there again.”

Hampered by injuries and focused on Wimbledon, Federer skipped the clay-court circuit in 2017 and 2018. He came back on the slow surface this season and reached the quarterfinals in Madrid and Rome.

In Madrid, he held two match points against Dominic Thiem before losing, and saved two match points in Rome against Borna Coric to reach the quarterfinals. He then withdrew because of a small problem with his right leg but gave reassuring news about his fitness on Friday.

“Being healthy is really key at this stage of my career and the last time I was really badly injured was Montreal two years ago,” he said. “I’m very happy how my body has been.”

Federer’s favorite Grand Slam tournament has always been Wimbledon, where the quick grass surface perfectly suits his attacking style. But after a few days of practice in the French capital, he feels ready for the Parisian clay.

“I have been able to train hard enough, and I’ve also had the necessary tough matches in Madrid and Rome,” he said. “I really feel like playing under pressure and playing with nerves was important for me, so I feel totally ready.”

The 37-year-old starts his campaign against Lorenzo Sonego of Italy, a quarterfinalist in Monte Carlo last month. Asked whether he thought he could win the title again, Federer gave a cautious answer.

“Don’t know. A bit of a question mark for me,” he said. “I feel like I’m playing good tennis, but is it enough against the absolute top guys when it really comes to the crunch? I’m not sure if it’s in my racket, you know. But I hope I can get myself in that position deep down in the tournament against the top guys.”

Of course, many of speculating that this could be his farewell tour with the Roland Garros crowds who have treated him like royalty for most of his career. He has actually gotten the best treatment of all players during his Swiss maestro reign. He is quick to put a stop to that line of questioning.

“I usually go one year at a time, and the other day I just spoke with my team about the clay-court season next year,” he said. “I was asking, ‘Anybody have any ideas yet?’”

Knowing Federer’s orderly ways, it is difficult to imagine that he has not planned his retirement down to the very last volley and title. But he insisted that he was handling the process as he would an extended rally: trusting his instincts.

“I heard rumors that people said I definitely wanted to play the Tokyo Olympics next year, and that’s when I’m going to retire, but I never said anything like that,” he said. “I really don’t know. I always said, ‘The more I think about retirement, the more I am already retired.’ People ask me, what are you going to do next? And I say, ‘Well, in a way I’m not quite sure, because I feel if I plan everything for my post-career, I feel like I’m halfway there.’ I think it would not affect my performance per se, but maybe my overall desire to want to do well.”

Performance has not been a problem for Federer in 2019; he has won titles in Dubai and Miami and reached the final in Indian Wells, Calif. His return to clay-court tennis has been encouraging if not yet triumphant. He lost in three sets to the clay-court terror Dominic Thiem in the quarterfinals of the Madrid Open and then withdrew from the Italian Open with a sore leg after saving two match points in his round-of-16 victory over Borna Coric.

Federer’s goal was to protect his chances of playing in Paris, and after several days of practice at Roland Garros, he appears ready to slide in earnest on the red clay that he finds closer to “powder” than the grittier clay used elsewhere on tour.

His last match in Paris was a straight-set quarterfinal defeat to his Swiss compatriot Stan Wawrinka in 2015. He actually came back to Roland Garros in 2016, but withdrew before the tournament with knee and back problems. He skipped the 2017 and 2018 events to focus on other priorities.

But he is now back where his Grand Slam journey began. Other players his age are still on tour, including his fellow 37-year-old Feliciano López, who will play in his 69th straight Grand Slam singles tournament in Paris. But Federer’s wild card put him ahead of the curve in 1999, and to rewatch his match with Rafter — when human net-cord judges were still deployed instead of electronic sensors — is to remember how far he has come.

“Maybe where my talent has helped me a little bit is to shape and get the technique I have today that puts maybe less wear and tear on me,” he said. “But I think I’ve earned it with my schedule and my buildup and maybe my mental side of the game as well.

“As much as I take things very serious, I am very laid back, so I can really let go very quickly. I truly believe this is a secret for a lot of the players and for the young guys is to be able, when you leave the site, to say: ‘O.K., I’m going to leave it behind. I still know I’m a professional tennis player, but I’m relaxing. I’m doing it my way, whatever helps me decompress.’”

Federer stopped for a moment and clenched his left fist tightly across the table.

“Because if you are constantly like this,” he said, showing the fist. “That’s when you burn out.”

The French Open starts on Sunday.

French Open 2019: Why you need to watch and who with Federer, Serena return

Luka Alario
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French Open 2019: Why you need to watch and who with Federer, Serena return

Tennis fans have plenty to be excited about with the 2019 French Open not only because we’ll see the return of Roger Federer and Serena Williams. Roland Garros has a new look, we’ll see if Rafael Nadal will get his dozen titles, can Naomi Osaka stay on her streak, plus so many other unanswered questions.

On the day Naomi Osaka won the Australian Open for her second consecutive major championship, she was asked whether it was too soon to start thinking about grabbing four in a row.

“You know the French Open’s next, right?” she said, smiling and fiddling with her fingers. “We love that clay court!”

The sarcasm was obvious. Osaka was well aware of her 4-3 career record at Roland Garros, where play begins Sunday, and her 5-4 mark on clay last season. Still, she also quickly acknowledged being intrigued by the idea of adding to the run that began at the 2018 U.S. Open in pursuit of a non-calendar Grand Slam: “I’m not going to lie and say that thought hasn’t crossed my mind.”

Osaka is seeded No. 1 at a major for the first time and her play on clay has been much better lately, with a semifinal and a pair of quarterfinals in the run-up to Paris. She also says the thumb and abdominal issues of recent weeks are now resolved.

“I mean, definitely for me, I feel like I Presshould be an all-court player. Honestly, it’s been a bit of a ride trying to figure out how to play better on clay throughout these years, but I think this year I have been playing well,” said Osaka, who is to play Anna Karolina Schmiedlova in the first round Tuesday. “So I’m really excited to see what happens here.”

Other things to watch at the French Open, the year’s second Grand Slam tournament:

Roland Garros Rebuilt

There’s change all around the grounds of the French Open. The main stadium, Court Philippe Chatrier, was rebuilt over the past year in preparation for installing a retractable roof ahead of the 2020 tournament, while a new, 5,000-seat show court surrounded by greenhouses will be inaugurated Sunday. Court Simonne Mathieu is named after the Frenchwoman who won Roland Garros in 1938 and 1939, then volunteered for the nation’s army during World War II. That arena’s debut match features 2016 champion Garbine Muguruza against 96th-ranked Taylor Townsend of the United States.

roger-federer-heads-to-italian-open-2019-after-madrid-open-loss-to-dominic-thiem

Roger Back On Clay

Roger Federer returns to play at the French Open for the first time since 2015, scheduled to face Lorenzo Sonego at Court Philippe Chatrier on Sunday. He missed the tournament in 2016 because of lingering back issues, then sat out the entire clay circuit each of the next two years to focus on preparing for the grass and hard courts. His 20 Grand Slam singles titles include one from France, exactly a decade ago. “In some ways, I’m happy to be here and I just want to get through that first round to get the campaign going. That’s my focus right now,” he said. “Not thinking too far ahead.”

Keeping Serena Healthy

Serena Williams has completed only three matches since her Australian Open ended four months ago, and she cited a bothersome left knee when pulling out of her past two tournaments. So just how healthy the 23-time major champion is will be a key storyline during Week 1. Williams is to face Vitalia Diatchenko in the first round Monday.

rafael nadal every time he has won french open title poses
Ready to slip that 12th picture win in.

Can Rafael Nadal Hit That Dozen?

No one has ever won a Grand Slam singles title 12 times. Rafael Nadal will try to be the first to go past 11 and, thanks to his Italian Open title this month, suddenly seems to be ready to defend his King of Clay crown in Paris. “It wouldn’t be fair to pick anybody else but him as the main favorite, because he has won this tournament so many times,” said No. 1 seed Novak Djokovic, who lost to Nadal in the Rome final. “He has lost, what, two times in his career on Parisian clay?” Yep, Novak, that’s right. Nadal is 86-2 at the French Open.

Continuing The Run

Djokovic is putting together quite a streak himself, with a chance to win four straight majors for the second time, something he called “extra motivation and incentive.” He’s also gaining on Federer’s 20 majors and Nadal’s 17; a title in France would bring Djokovic’s tally to 16. “This is the tournament that I was preparing for, so to say, for last couple of months. I wanted to peak in this tournament.”

Canada Brings It

With three seeded players under age 20 — No. 20 Denis Shapovalov, No. 25 Felix Auger-Aliassime and No. 22 Bianca Andreescu — Canada is expected to be a major player on the tennis scene for years.

nick kyrgios tennis rages spart debate plus andy murray sword time 2019 images

Who Won’t Be Showing Up

Nick Kyrgios was the latest big name to withdraw from the field — and it comes after he was kicked out of the Italian Open for a temper tantrum, then bashed the French Open on social media.

The ATP said the Australian player cited illness as the reason.

Kyrgios was defaulted at the Italian Open after a raging outburst. Trailing against Norwegian qualifier Casper Ruud in round two, he slammed his racket into the clay and kicked a water bottle. Then he picked up a chair and flung it onto the court.

He was fined and lost ATP points but escaped a suspension.

The controversial Kyrgios’s withdrawal came only days after he posted a video online in which he said the French Open “sucks” when compared to Wimbledon, where he trained recently.

In 2015, he insulted Stan Wawrinka with crude remarks during a match in Montreal. He was fined $12,500 and given a suspended 28-day ban. He also attracted criticism for deciding not to play at the 2016 Rio Olympics because of a spat with an Australian team official, and for firing back at retired players who have offered advice.

Kyrgios was due to start his Roland Garros campaign against Cameron Norrie of Britain.

Other players who are missing, and with well-documented injuries, include Andy Murray, Maria Sharapova, Kevin Anderson and John Isner.

2019 French Open begins Sunday.

Ultimate Hottest Men’s, Women’s Fitness Trend Products 2019 for all ages

Jackie Warner
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Ultimate Hottest Men’s, Women’s Fitness Trend Products 2019 for all ages

Technology today is advancing so fast, it brings on the advent of high-tech equipment which has truly revolutionized the fitness industry today. And because of all the fantastic gadgets and products available for 2019, people have been able to track their time, as well as their health; able to monitor a lot of what is happening in their bodies and to better it.

These gadgets and products are able to check your blood pressure, they can help you in your desire to lose pounds and they can monitor your heart rate when you are running along the beach or skydiving from the highest heights! And the best part about a lot of them is that many can just be worn, able to be carried around with you wherever you go.

So it means all your fitness goals needn’t stop once you have checked out of your local gym or even your own home gym. OK, none of all these latest gadgets can beat what a really healthy diet that builds muscle and burns fat can do., but they sure help to make things easier in a lot of ways. Every year there is a Consumer Electronics Show – high tech stuff goes on display, like for instance the artificial intelligence-driven headphones which lately took center stage. There was also a lap tracking swimsuit which also stole the show.

You can find everything here in one spot too.

Here are some of the latest amazing products to hit the fitness scene for 2019:

Suunto 3 Fitness Watch hottest 2019 products

Suunto 3 Fitness Watch

This watch is no ordinary smartwatch – this is something unique, a high tech smartwatch with many advanced features that makes it much smarter than other fitness watches around. It’s got heart rate monitoring, keeps track of your sleep and counts your steps as you walk. What is really special about this watch is that it stands out with its training plan feature. This gadget will come up with a 7-day training plan for you, giving you choices for your workout length and your level of challenge to choose each week.

peloton treadmill hot fitness products 2019

Peloton Treadmill

Most people will tell you that the treadmill is a top piece of gym equipment. The Peloton one is very well known for their range of stationary bikes. But if you want a low impact treadmill, then keep your eye on the Peloton one. It’s very high tech, making it so easy for anyone to finish cardio workouts. It’s so easy too to control the incline and speed – it has knobs on each side of the treadmill, and it’s got a 32-inch screen that you can use to select which workout class you want. The rubber treadmill also reduces the pressure on your knees, giving you a real smooth and comfortable run. This ultimate workout came out in January 2019, and is considered a must have for all Peloton fans. As it is pricey, here are some great alternatives for a fraction of the price.

sould electronics pro bio headphones hottest fitness products 2019

Soul Electronics Pro Bio Headphones

These are really hi-tech headphones, designed for modern runners, to improve your running form. They will let you know you’re your running has taken a dip, providing you with tips on how to correct yourself. The Soul Electronics Pro Bio headphones also support Bluetooth 4.0, with 8-hour rechargeable battery, and are sweat proof.

Under Armor HOVR Smart Shoes hottest fitness products 2019

Under Armor HOVR Smart Shoes

The Under Armor shoes just had to be on the latest and greatness as far as the latest fitness technology goes. These shoes are designed to reduce the gravity feel and boost the return on energy, with comfortable cushioning inside the shoes. This eliminates and absorbs the impact. And they come with an embedded chip feature to provide you with data on how your shoes are performing. As you run you will be able to know the distances you cover and your strides will also be measured. The brand comes in two sneakers types to choose from – the HOVR Sonics and the HOVR Phantom.

Neo Smart Turbo Trainer Bike by Tacx 2019 hottest fitness products

Neo Smart Turbo Trainer Bike by Tacx

This turbo trainer bike is so ‘intelligent’, you will even be allowed to turn it into a home gym; its usage is for indoor training or prepping before a race and after a race.

It allows you to choose your specific chart and level with the training software and so quiet when using it at home or wherever you travel. It also has a killer app which has the ability to choose a surface that you want to ride on, cobbled streets or country roads.

Yoga Mats

Such durable yoga mats; ideal for practicing yoga anywhere. These new creations come in various colors and designs, and they are ideal for taking to the office or anywhere in fact.  These ones are extra-thick, meant to use on any type of floor. They are healthy mats, too, free of any phthalates, and they usually come with a free yoga DVD.

Adjustable Height Desk

These adjustable desks will allow the user to decide whether they want to sand or sit as the day wears on. They are great because they improve your health, keeping your body posture correct whilst you work. You just adjust it to your preferred height to suit your comfort levels. They reduce sitting time, and that means better circulation.

Aria 2 Scale by Fitbit smart scale 2019 hottest fitness products

Aria 2 Scale by Fitbit

Many scales controlled by Wi-Fi come up with some problems and badly designed apps and screens that you can’t read, etc. But this one has none of those things; this one will recognize up to around 8 users. You monitor your weight and it will check on your BMI and body fat percentages. And you can transfer all the data to your laptop or computer so that you can check your progress – sync it to your smartphone, receiving notifications when you achieve your workout goal.

internal age monitor by iheart 2019 hottest fitness products

Internal Age Monitor by iHeart

Want to know how old your internal organs are? This iHeart gadget is the answer for you. All you do is put your finger inside the iHeart and it will measure your aortic pulse wave velocity, giving you it’s conclusions about your health. If you are older than you really should be, then it means you need to make some lifestyle changes so that you can bring the numbers down.

Regular exercise is really good for our health. But sometimes even hitting the treadmill for 40 straight minutes makes we feel we don’t want to face it. It becomes even worse when we can’t measure our progress, kind of leaving us feeling a bit uninspired to keep the momentum going. But that’s where all these latest wonderful gadgets come into the picture that can be such benefit to us. Really, whether you are looking for some more motivation to take your workouts to new levels or you just love all the techy things out there and still like to keep fit, you will love all the wearables, the accessories, the products that will reinforce your workout routine. Want to look at more?

nokio body cardio 2019 hottest fitness products

Nokia Body Cardio

Maybe you just thought of your cellphones and television as being really smart, but it’s time you met the Nokia Body Cardio scale. It does more than just check your weight. This one will look at your whole body composition and that will include your weight, your BMI, your water retention, your muscle mass, and your heart rate when you are standing. It then takes all that info and uses it to set up your targeted goals and program when you add the Health Mate app.

Tangram Factory Smart Rope PURE Jump Rope 2019 hottest fitness products

Tangram Factory Smart Rope PURE Jump Rope

You wouldn’t believe that even the old skipping rope would be upgraded, would you? It’s the Tangram Factory Smart Rope PURE Jump Rope, looking pretty much like the standard skipping rope, but now it features magnetic sensors that count your jumps. When you pair this with the Smart Gym app on your iPhone, or your iPad or Apple Watch, it will help you to monitor your calories too as you burn them as well as your workout times. Then the app will offer you recommendations for interval training options to make things interesting.

fitbit versa watch 2019 hottest fitness products

The Fitbit Versa Smart-Watch

We have all been hearing how you need to walk at least 10 000 steps a day, right? Well, the Versa can help you do just that, monitoring each step of your way in your day. It features personalized on-screen workouts to train you through your next session, and it also features 15 exercise modes so you can compare a variety of exercises. This stylish watch and its accompanying app will keep you highly motivated.

hyperice vyper 2 vibrations 2019 hottest fitness products

Hyperice Vyper 2.0

What does the Hyperice Vyper 2.0 do, but to increase the circulation in your body and to relax your muscles so that you are able to work harder? That’s the magic of this gadget, featuring 3-speed settings and high-intensity vibrations to make sure that your muscles are stretched out sufficiently. Let this clever tool do all the hard work for you.

skulpt scanner measures body fat 2019 hottest fitness products

Skulpt Scanner

If your interest is to build muscle mass, then this gadget is for you; a real investment in fitness health. Basically, how you use it is you scan different areas of your body so that you can assess your fat percentages and also to identify the strength of your muscles, also giving you targeted advice as well as programs about how to burn fat and build muscle.

Sensoria Fitness Socks and Anklet blue tooth 2019 hottest fitness

Sensoria Fitness Socks and Anklet

These won’t be like any other socks you have in your wardrobe. The Sensoria fitness socks and anklet are really smart with the anklet that is magnetically attached to them. You simply pair the socks to your smartphone by running the Sensoria Fitness mobile app. There is a Sensoria Virtual Coach within the app that monitors your running, offering your feedback through the audio and video cues during your run. You get a really accurate reading of your step count, your speed, your altitude, distance, and calories.

Aerial Yoga 2019 hottest fitness trends products

Having More Fun at the Same Time

  • Are you looking for some real fun and different ways to do your workout upside down? That’s aerial yoga; a new type of yoga that makes us of a fabric hammock as a tool to help its students achieve the traditional yoga poses. It Increases overall health and physical agility, but at the same time, offers plenty of fun too and create beautiful movements. And you don’t need any experience either, although not recommended while you are pregnant.  A real gravity-defying workout which involves you performing a whole range of stretches and traditional yoga poses. Try it!
  • And have you ever heard of Tough Mudder obstacle courses? These types of courses are becoming very popular – it’s about racing through the mud and crawling under barbed wired and climbing ropes, all intended to challenge your strength. Sheer fun! The obstacle courses include the Tough Mudder, Ninja Warrior, and Spartan races – just great for training. Not only are the activities physically challenging, but they also require huge surges of patience, mental strength, endurance, and patience. People who have tried them get kind of hooked. If you want to complete a course or see how far you can go, it is recommended that you train with a team leading up to the real even and to increase your chances of reaching the end line. Just bear in mind that this one is not for the faint-hearted.
  • Great innovations today are also the desk exercise equipment “deskercises”. And if you sit at a desk all day sometimes you wonder if all your hard work will be undone. But no, all you need to do is grab some your office chair and get ready to ‘deskercise’. When choosing your desk exercise equipment, you need to decide on a couple of things:
  • Whether you are trying to increase your blood circulation or trying to lose weight – maybe burn more calories or get your muscles toned. Do you want to concentrate on upper or lower body?
  • Think too, about your office environment. Is it a nice quiet place or is it loud? Would your boss be fine with you exercising at your place of work?
  • What about storing your equipment?
  • What are your health and fitness goals as well? Is it about getting more cardio or maybe you just want to activate your core and then just a ball chair might help.
Exercise stretch Bands 2019 hottest fitness trend products

Stretch Bands

These exercise bands are really great for resistance exercises. They are also heavy duty and you can use them for several activities including strength training. They are made from 100% real eco-friendly latex. They also come with a how-to-guide for your exercises.

Grip-Training Tool

You will love these, as they are great to work on the strength and muscles of your arms. This gadget is so easy to travel with, you can get exercise while on the go all the time. A great way to work on the strength of your grip and arm muscles – small easy to take with you anywhere, and available in 11 strengths so you change the intensity of your workout as you go along.

Posture-Improvement Stool

Everyone wants one of these because the stools help you to sit in proper ergonomic positions while you activate your core muscles. The stools are so easy to use and are very comfortable; helping you to passively get in a workout through the day. Easily adjustable and easily assembled.

Stability Cushion

This is an important strengthening tool for adults and children. When you sit on this disc, you activate your core muscles, flexor and extensor muscles which give you balance through the workday. With the small, continuous movements you make all day to stay stable on this chair, your deep core muscles get stimulated and enhanced all the time. Great for neck and back pain too.

Ankle Weights

These special weights are both affordable and a dependable way of keeping your body ‘active’ through the day. They add resistance to your walking, contributing strength to your leg and core muscles. If you want, you can also wear them on your wrists if you are keen on activating the muscles in your arms. They are also comfortable with extra padding and you don’t have to adjust them as you go through your day.

Hand Exercise Balls

Exercise balls, so full of color, you just enjoy having them in your hands. They kind of motivate you to increase the strength in your arms, hands, and wrists – they are like stress relief balls, but add strength as well, coming in different levels of firmness which means you can work your way in strength as it improves.

Fitness Tracker

The fitness tracker enables you to track your sleep and your activity levels. It’s got a nice sleek band that makes use of several sensors so that you can monitor how many steps you take when walking, counting the calories you burn too. It also gives you the motivation through the day to move as much as you can. It’s got a five-day battery life too!

NSD Essential Spinner Gyroscopic Wrist and Forearm Exerciser 2019 hottest fitness trend products

Hand Exercise Gyroscope

Looks so exciting doesn’t it, this spinner gyroscope helping you to exercise your forearms and your wrists. You will use this tool for just a few minutes each day as you increase the strength in your hands while you work. It’s easy just to take home again if you want to continue using it whilst at home. Comes in different colors.

Under-Desk Elliptical

This gadget will allow you to exercise right through the day, without even thinking about it much. It allows you to sit properly with the correct posture and you can easily slide this little machine under your desk. It’s got eight levels of resistance – you connect it to Bluetooth to track your progress. It’s quiet and does not disturb anyone around.

Under-Desk Bike Pedal Exerciser

This is ideal for any workspace because it allows a person to get cardio activity whilst working, saving you time because it allows you to cut down on your working out time away from the office. It builds your muscle endurance and helps you to lose weight, whilst at work.

lifespan treadmill desk 2019 hottest fitness products

Treadmill Desk

With the treadmill desk, you get your steps in through your day, even while working. This means you get the opportunity to move away from a sedentary type lifestyle because it offers such an effective way of getting in some quality exercises while you are multi-tasking. It gives you extra energy and also reduces joint pain, enabling you to keep in shape.

woman relaxing after workout 2019 hottest fitness trends products

The term fitness gadgets are really synonymous with “activity tracker” – that’s what they are, but aside from that, there is much more to fitness technology than tracking. The lineup for 2019 is all about smart watches, smart this and smart that, which means that before you invest in a device, assess what your fitness goals are and how best to support them. Then set your budget, research what you want and then ‘just do it’! You can find all of these amazing fitness products all in one place right here.

‘Ant-Man and The Wasp’: Awesome Film About Second Chances With A Second Look

MTTG Staff
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‘Ant-Man and The Wasp’: Awesome Film About Second Chances With A Second Look

With holiday weekends, it’s always fun for me to go back and check out films that I loved the first time just to see if it’s just as good with a second or third watch. Paul Rudd’s “Ant-Man and The Wasp” is just as good after multiple viewings. Even after watching (and absolutely loving!) “Avengers: Endgame.”

With the title I just gave this non-spoiler review, you’d think the film is very serious. But no, this film is funny as hell. You might even think it’s funnier than “Deadpool” and the cast doesn’t have to break the fourth wall nor do they have to violently kill anyone. While first film is considered a heist movie, this is like a hot potato film where everyone is interested in one special thing. Even though it’s been out for nearly a year, I don’t want to spoil it for those who still haven’t checked it out. This is also a film about second chances, technically for everyone which I just realized. Plus, this is a film about family. Yes, the superhero stuff is there of course. Man is it tough to tell you how awesome and enjoyable this film is compared to the first one without spoiling it. I’m just going to hive hints and not spoil it too much. Customary spoiler alert just the same.

Second Chances

As mentioned in the title, this film is mostly about second chances. A second chance for the hero, Scott Lang to be Ant-Man, and a second chance for him to be a father despite the big mistake in Berlin. You saw in the trailers that thing on his ankle. This film is also a second chance for Hank Pym to be with his wife again. The same with Hope to be with her mom. It’s even a second chance film for Scott’s and his three friends (who were quite hilarious) in getting honest work. Hilarious is key if you want to describe this film in one word. It’s even a second chance for the villain Ghost.

Villain Problem

The Marvel villain problem once again rears its ugly head despite the MCU finally having an awesome villain in the form of Thanos in “Avengers: Infinity War.” In this film, “Ant-Man and the Wasp” go against the villain Ghost. In the comics, Ghost is primarily an Iron-Man villain. Ghost was once a brilliant computer hacker/tech genius manipulated by a company to work hard on a breakthrough phasing computer chip, only to be betrayed by the company he worked for. He, because in the comics he’s male. Ghost acquires the power to phase because of an industrial ‘accident’ and now he uses his powers and talents to bring down evil corporations for a fee or for free. He’s technically an anti-hero of sorts nowadays. Ghost is gender-swapped in this film which isn’t new in the MCU and is played by Hannah John-Kamen (“Game of Thrones,” “Ready Player One”). So as not to spoil the film, let’s just say that she’s nothing like Ghost in the comics which sometimes rubs comics fans the wrong way though she does have phasing powers. Ghost is interested in Pym’s tech for her own purposes.

There are actually two villains in this film. The other being Sonny Burch, played by Walton Goggins (“Django Unchained,” “The Accountant”) another Iron Man villain, though minor.  He and his gang is also interested in what Hank Pym’s tech to sell to the black market. Though the villains are weak, this tends to actually be a minor nitpick as they played well into the story.

The Action

There’s a lot going on in this movie to keep the audience on its toes. It’s full of action sequences and Evangeline Lily as The Wasp was amazing. I can’t help but reminisce about her role in The Hobbit trilogy. Paul Rudd also handled himself quite well during those action sequences. As mentioned, this is a hot potato film wherein four parties (the Pyms, Ghost, Sonny Burch and the FBI) are interested in either the Pyms or their tech.

The Performances, The Comedy

The actors’ performances were amazing. Michael Douglas was being Michael Douglas. Michelle Pfeiffer was also amazing as Janet Van Dyne. Paul Rudd was great and quite hilarious. He’d be great in case “Deadpool” gets recast, but let’s let Ryan Reynolds keep his due. Cassie Lang played by Abby Ryder Fortson wasn’t annoying at all. She’s very much part of the story without that annoying Disney kid effect. Now the X-Cons, led by Michael Peña were marvelous. It wouldn’t be an “Ant-Man” film without those amazing Luis rants, to which the Marvel cast involved acted and lip-synched so well. Did I mention how funny the film is? You’ll laugh, you’ll chuckle or laugh out loud every few minutes, maybe except for those serious Ghost parts. Lawrence Fishburne did well as Bill Foster aka Marvel’s Goliath. His character has a strained relationship with Hank Pym much like the Braz/Zimsky rivalry in The Core.

This film is also about family, about how important it is for Scott to be with his daughter and the actual affection that Scott’s ex-wife has for him after proving to be a hero. Even Bobby Carnavale’s character Jim Paxton has grown quite close to Scott. The same somehow goes to the other side though I can’t detail that as of yet.

Overall, this film was fun and enjoyable. The effects were amazing, the cast did great, the comedy was top notch. Can’t really tell which whether or not “Ant-Man and The Wasp” is better than the original. How does this film tie to “Infinity War?” It’s there. You just need to be patient. So how do we rank this? I’d say four out of five stars.

Ellen DeGeneres gives Adam Levine an NBC ‘Voice’ warning

Jackie Warner
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Ellen DeGeneres gives Adam Levine an NBC ‘Voice’ warning

Ellen DeGeneres knows all too well what happens when a tv network turns on you, so she quickly gave longtime friend and Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine some words of warning about his slightly messy “The Voice” exit. Her words obviously left a mark as Levine was heard discussing this over the weekend.

DeGeneres who just renewed her popular talk show for 3 more years reminded Levine that “The Voice” literally salvaged his career as the singer admitted that his band Maroon 5 were close to calling it quits before he landed in the big red chair. This career move revived both him and his band. The singer was frustrated that he was pushed to the sidelines this season after the new format changes decimated his team. He mentioned that during one episode letting fans know he wasn’t happy.

DeGeneres wished him luck on his heavily marketed NBC “Songland” show (he’s Executive Producer) but reminded the singer that he still needs to stay on friendly terms with NBC as “The Voice” will be a useful marketing tool for whatever else he wants to do with his career. Also, the show might not land with fans so don’t count on it becoming a hit like “The Voice” did.

Friends of DeGeneres commented that Ellen thinks it would be smart for Levine to take a break now as last season found him turning fans off when he plugged singer Reagan Strange over DeAndre Nico. Strange didn’t perform that night but sat on the sidelines while Nico performed. This resulted in his going home and fans getting angry over his torpedoing Nico.

“There is an unbelievably talented little girl right now who is not able to fight for her position on this show,” Levine said about Strange, mentioning that he had two daughters himself. “The thought of breaking her heart by not urging everyone to give this girl a shot to go and redeem herself next week would be too far beneath me.”

Many fans hadn’t gotten over that slight which resulted in his team not getting near as much support after the Live Cross Battles. He wound up having no one on his team and just sitting alone not wanting to comment nearly as much.

Workers on the show were used to his up and down moods, but “it was obvious he had checked out,” one PA said. “Most of this season, he didn’t seem like he wanted to be here, but when it was obvious his team suffered because of him, his ego really got bruised. Fans were still pissed off after what he did for Reagan [Strange] in Season 16.”

While many would kill to make $26 million a year to coach singers, Levine was obviously not happy getting pushed to the side. Even Blake Shelton, who would normally tease him about losing his entire team, remained very quiet about this happening. While some media sites are saying that NBC wanted to immediately fire Levine after his boorish behavior at the annual Upfront showcase, this actually wasn’t the case. Everyone working on the show and executives had grown accustomed to his constant mood swings, especially if he felt he wasn’t getting enough attention.

It was Levine’s comments that if the show didn’t “get rid of the new format he would walk” that was the final straw for NBC executives. That led to Carson Daly having to announce Levine’s leaving on the “Today” show which was soon followed by the singer saying his goodbye on Instagram.

“Levine’s exit was only mutual in that he gave the executives an easy excuse to get rid of him after being the cause of enough controversies, including performing during the Super Bowl halftime show. You know how it is with networks, when they want to get rid of someone, they’ll look as far back and point out every problem they were part of. If Adam’s smart, he’ll lay low for a while and play nice when he needs to promote something on the show,” the source said. “He can rub people the wrong way very quickly, and Adam’s been rubbing a bit too much lately.”

Season 17 of “The Voice” will see the return of Gwen Stefani, John Legend, Kelly Clarkson and Blake Shelton.

Marvel returns ‘Agents of Atlas,’ mainstream news notices

George Cando
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Suddenly mainstream news orgs are crying out “Asian superheroes — assemble.” As any comic geek knows, Marvel’s Agents of Atlas first hit in 2006, but the company is bringing everyone back again with a new number one limited series. Yes, I’m being a comic snob right now.

Back in 2006,  Agents of Atlas brought former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Jimmy Woo out of retirement and restored his youth. Alongside his friends Namora, Venus, Marvel Boy, Gorilla-Man, and M-11, Jimmy took over the Atlas organization that was previously led by his father, Yellow Claw. Under Jimmy’s guidance, the Agents of Atlas became valued heroes in the Marvel Universe.

Now, most of the first Agents of Atlas have gone their own way. Gorilla-Man recently resurfaced in Avengers as an Agent of Wakanda and the team’s new head of security. As for Jimmy, he’s got an eye for talented young Super Heroes and he’s recruiting. And this week, WAR OF THE REALMS: NEW AGENTS OF ATLAS #1 reintroduced Jimmy and brought together a makeshift team to protect Asia from the Queen of Cinders and the forces of Muspelheim.

Yes, and of course, Marvel is already talking big screen feature if the series takes off. They’ve overpopulated the small screen with a ton of superheroes so we’re hearing they are ready to get on to the next franchise with “Avengers: Endgame” ending the decade long one.

Greg Pak and Jeff Parker (writers) and artists Gang Hyuk Lim, Carlo Pagualyan will be launching this five-issue limited line in August. Fans of the old gang will be happy to see their return along with the new team.

agents of atlas 2006 comic

Marvel Comics is giving ink to an unprecedented team-up of its mightiest Asian and Asian American heroes, also known as the new Agents of Atlas. Established icons like martial arts master Shang-Chi and newbies like Wave, the newest Filipino superhero, will team up in a stand-alone, five-part comic book series starting this summer, the publishing giant said Thursday.

The roster of 10 super-powered pan-Asian champions made their debut as a team earlier this month in “The War of the Realms: New Agents of Atlas.” That comic book is one piece of an ongoing saga involving several different groups across the Marvel universe, including the Avengers, doing battle with a fire goddess. But the exclusively Asian limited series is set to roll out in August.

The man leading the heroic charge is veteran comic book writer Greg Pak. Pak is credited with ushering in a new era of Asian characters in co-creating Amadeus Cho, a Korean-American genius teen. The character first appeared in 2005. A decade later, he absorbed the Hulk’s powers and started going by Brawn.

“It’s always been my dream to do a team book using a bunch of Asian and Asian American heroes,” said Pak, who thinks there’s more appetite for representation with the success of the movie “Crazy Rich Asians.” ″There’s literally never been a better time in my memory with more opportunities for doing work that specifically includes Asian and Asian American characters.”

The decades-old character of Agent Jimmy Woo (portrayed by Randall Park in last year’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp” movie) leads the pack as head of the revived secret protection society Atlas. Others getting in on the action include Brawn and Cindy Moon, who is the Korean American web-shooter Silk.

Other recruits have only previously been seen in Marvel video games or web comics only available in Asian countries. Among them is Korea-born Luna Snow a.k.a. Seol Hee, a K-pop star who can manipulate frozen elements. There’s also Aero and Sword Master, the products of creatives in China. Besides crime-fighting, the group will spend time doing things like eating dim sum or singing karaoke.

“That kind of diversity within diversity is amazing,” said Pak, who is half-Korean and half-white. “No one character here has to represent all Asian-ness or Asian American-ness. That’s a ridiculous demand for any character.”

The rest of the “Atlas” creative team includes writer Jeff Parker and artists Nico Leon and Carlo Pagulayan. In the series, the do-gooders find that someone has flipped a switch and created a “cross-Asian portal city” called Pan. In Pan, Asian neighborhoods get geographically scrambled and then stitched together into one city. So, the streets of Tokyo could be next to neighborhoods from Honolulu, Manila and some of Marvel’s fictitious Asian countries.

Filipino American Loren Javier, 50, discusses Marvel comics on his “Castles, Capes & Clones” blog and podcast. There were few Asian characters in the lexicon he could look up to as a child, and many were often stereotypical mystics or man-servants.

“I love Marvel but I didn’t necessarily see myself in the comics,” said Javier, who recalls being teased by a classmate who called him “the enemy.”

“Now, finally, I think about kids who are reading this new generation of comics and heroes and getting to see themselves a little bit more,” Javier said. “It’s very powerful.”

marvel agents of atlas first comic 2019

Charlie Kirihara, who is half Japanese and half white, was thrilled by “New Agents of Atlas” and tweeted at Pak and Marvel pleading for more content.

Kirihara, 26, said it was a welcome change to see characters that represented Asian and American cultures in “The War of the Realms.”

“I read through the book and realized that was the first time I’ve read a comic book that was all these Asian characters and that wasn’t manga written in Japan,” Kirihara said, referring to a genre of comics or graphic novels. “I want to see it have legs beyond this storyline.”

That’s Pak’s wish as well. But it depends on how Marvel finds the fan response.

“If people buy the heck out of it, I’m happy to keep writing them,” Pak said.

In the first feature, the “War of the Realms” iteration of the team will follow their mission after the Asgardian conflict with Silk, Amadeus Cho, Wave and others. The second feature has Jeff Parker and Carlo Pagualyan sending Namore, M-33, Marvel Boy and Gorilla Man on a mission to reunited the original Agents of Atlas.

Facebook continues fake account fight removing 3 billion accounts

Jeffrey Lang
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Facebook continues fake account fight removing 3 billion accounts

Social media giants like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have to constantly fight fake accounts which crop up faster than a new Kardashian child. The fact that Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook has to delete accounts in the billions now says a lot, especially with the upcoming 2020 presidential election in America.

As part of their pledge of transparency, Facebook stated they had removed more than 3 billion fake accounts from October to March, twice as many as the previous six months, the company said Thursday.

Nearly all of them were caught before they had a chance to become “active” users of the social network.

In a new report, Facebook said it saw a “steep increase” in the creation of abusive, fake accounts. While most of these fake accounts were blocked “within minutes” of their creation, the use of computers to generate millions of accounts at a time meant not only that Facebook caught more of the fake accounts, but that more of them slipped through.

As a result, the company estimates that 5% of its 2.4 billion monthly active users are fake accounts, or about 119 million. This is up from an estimated 3% to 4% in the previous six-month report.

The new numbers were released Thursday in the company’s third Community Standards Enforcement report. Facebook will begin releasing this report quarterly starting next year, rather than twice a year, and start including Instagram.

“The health of the discourse is just as important as any financial reporting we do, so we should do it just as frequently,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on a call with reporters on Thursday about the report. “Understanding the prevalence of harmful content will help companies and governments design better systems for dealing with it. I believe every major internet service should do this.”

The increase shows the challenges Facebook faces in removing accounts created by computers to spread spam, fake news and other objectionable material. Even as Facebook’s detection tools get better, so do the efforts by the creators of these fake accounts.

In another blog post shared Thursday, Facebook VP of Analytics Alex Schultz explained some of the reasons behind the sharp increase in fake accounts. He said one factor is “simplistic attacks,” which he claims don’t represent real harm or even a real risk of harm. This often occurs when someone makes a hundred million fake accounts that are then taken down right away. Schultz said they are removed so fast that nobody is exposed to them and they aren’t included in active user counts.

The new numbers come as the company grapples with challenge after challenge, ranging from fake news to Facebook’s role in elections interference, hate speech and incitement to violence in the U.S., Myanmar, India and elsewhere.

Facebook also said Thursday that it removed 7.3 million posts, photos and other material because it violated its rules against hate speech. That’s up from 5.4 million in the prior six months.

The company said it found more than 65 percent of hate speech on its own, before people reported it, during the first three months of 2019. That’s an improvement from 52 percent in the third quarter of 2018.

Facebook is under growing pressure to combat hate on its platform, as material continues to slip through even with recent bans of popular extremist figures such as Alex Jones and Louis Farrakhan.

Facebook employs thousands of people to review posts, photos, comments and videos for violations. Some things are also detected without humans, using artificial intelligence. Both humans and AI make mistakes and Facebook has been accused of political bias as well as ham-fisted removals of posts discussing — rather than promoting — racism.

A thorny issue for Facebook is its lack of procedures for authenticating the identities of those setting up accounts. Only in instances where a user has been booted off the service and won an appeal to be reinstated does it ask to see ID documents.

While some have argued for stricter authentication on social media services, the issue is thorny. People including U.N. free expression rapporteur David Kaye say it’s important to allow pseudonymous speech online for human rights activists and others whose lives could otherwise be endangered.

Dipayan Ghosh, a former Facebook employee and White House tech policy adviser who is currently a Harvard fellow, said absent greater transparency from Facebook there is no way of knowing whether its improved automated detection is doing a better job of containing the disinformation problem.

“We lack public transparency into the scale of disinformation operations on Facebook in the first place,” he said.

And even if just 5 million accounts escaped through the cracks, Ghosh added, how much hate speech and disinformation are they spreading through bots “that subvert the democratic process by injecting chaos into our political discourse?”

“The only way to address this problem in the long term is for government to intervene and compel transparency into these platform operations and privacy for the end consumer,” he said.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has called for government regulation to decide what should be considered harmful content and on other issues. But at least in the U.S., government regulation of speech could run into First Amendment hurdles.

And what regulation might look like — and whether the companies, lawmakers, privacy and free speech advocates and others will agree on what it should look like — is not clear.

Of the 3.4 billion accounts removed in the six-month period, 1.2 billion came during the fourth quarter of 2018 and 2.2 billion during the first quarter of this year. More than 99 percent of these were disabled before someone reported them to the company. In the April-September period last year, Facebook blocked 1.5 billion accounts.

Facebook attributed the spike in the removed accounts to “automated attacks by bad actors who attempt to create large volumes of accounts at one time.” The company declined to say where these attacks originated, only that they were from different parts of the world.

Starting with this report, Facebook is disclosing how it deals with the sale of “regulated goods” — that is, drugs and firearms. Facebook prohibits the purchase, sale or gifting of firearms, as well as drugs including marijuana, which is legal in some states and countries. The company said it “took action” on 1.5 million cases involving drugs and 1.4 million involving firearms. This generally means removing the material from Facebook but can also involve suspending users or adding warning screens to videos showing objectionable content.

The social media giant shared for the first time its efforts to crack down on illegal sales of firearms and drugs on its platform.

It said it increased its proactive detection of both drugs and firearms. During the first quarter, its systems found and flagged 83.3% of violating drug content and 69.9% of violating firearm content, according to the report. Facebook said this occurred before users reported it.

Facebook’s policies say users, manufacturers or retailers cannot buy or sell non-medial drugs or marijuana on the platform. The rules also don’t allow users to buy, sell, trade or gift firearms on Facebook, including parts or ammunition.

In the report, the company also shared how many content removals users appealed, and how much of it the social network restored. People have the option to appeal Facebook’s decisions, with the exception of content that is flagged for extreme safety concerns.

Between January and March, Facebook said it “took action” on 19.4 million pieces of content. The company said 2.1 million pieces of content were appealed. After the appeals, 453,000 pieces of content were restored.

Hate speech has been particularly challenging for Facebook. The company’s automated systems have a hard time identifying and removing hate speech, but that the technology is improving. The percentage of hate speech Facebook said it found proactively — meaning before users reported it — rose to 65.4% in the first quarter, up from 51.5% in the third quarter of 2018.

“What [AI] still can’t do well is understand context,” Justin Osofsky, Facebook VP of global operations, said on the call. “Context is key when evaluating things like hate speech.”

Osofsky also said Facebook will begin a pilot program where some of its content reviewers will focus on hate speech. The goal is for those reviewers to have a “deeper understanding” of how hate speech manifests and make “more accurate calls.”

French Open 2019: Rafael Nadal could cross Roger Federer with Roland Garros draw

Luka Alario
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French Open 2019: Rafael Nadal could cross Roger Federer with Roland Garros draw

Roger Federer missed out going up against his old foe Rafael Nadal in Rome, but the Roland Garros draw is making it possible for them to match up in the semifinals at Roland Garros. Nadal defeated Novak Djokovic in Madrid, but he’s in the mix so we’ll see where the winds take us fans.

Rafael Nadal will start his campaign for a record-extending 12th title at the French Open against a qualifier. And if he makes it to the second round of the clay-court Grand Slam, another qualifier will be waiting.

The defending champion was handed what looked like quite an easy draw Thursday at Roland Garros stadium, where the Spanish player attended the ceremony and said he was happy with his form.

Nadal won his first title of the season last week at the Italian Open, where he looked close to his best after some uncharacteristic struggles on clay.

“It was an important title for me,” Nadal said. “I played very well throughout the tournament, I’m very happy to find myself in this situation.”

In the women’s draw, Simona Halep will open the defense of her title against Ajla Tomljanovic. Top-ranked Naomi Osaka, who seeks a third consecutive major championship, will be up against Anna Karolína Schmiedlová.

Coming to Paris with only one clay-court match since last year’s French Open, 23-time Grand Slam champion Serena Williams was drawn into the top half of the draw with Osaka and Halep. She will take on Vitalia Diatchenko in the first round.

Osaka will be up against a tough opponent if she gets past Schmiedlova, facing the winner of a first-round match pitting 2017 champion Jelena Ostapenko and former top-ranked player Victoria Azarenka.

Nadal, who last year became the first male player to win 11 titles at the same Grand Slam tournament, could meet his old foe Roger Federer in the semifinals. Federer, in his first French Open match since 2015, will face Lorenzo Sonego of Italy and could face Stefanos Tsitsipas in a potential quarterfinal matchup.

Federer is back on clay after skipping that part o the season for the past two years. He reached the quarterfinals in Madrid and Rome, where he withdrew because of a right leg injury.

Top-ranked Novak Djokovic will begin his run against Hubert Hurkacz. The Serb has been enjoying a good run of form during the clay season, winning the title in Madrid before losing to Nadal in Rome.

Organizers announced before the draw that Tomas Berdych and Milos Raonic had withdrawn from the tournament, which starts on Sunday.

rafael nadal ready to grab french open cup 2019

Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, Dominic Thiem Draws – Roland Garros 2019

Rafael Nadal eyes a record-extending 12th French Open crown, while Novak Djokovic looks to hold all four Grand Slam titles at Roland Garros.

Nadal and Djokovic are in opposite halves of the men’s singles draw. No. 2 Nadal could face No. 3 Roger Federer in one semifinal, while No. 1 Djokovic would play No. 4 Dominic Thiem in the other if there aren’t any upsets in the first five rounds.

Nadal consolidated favorite status by winning his last tune-up event, the Italian Open, with a three-set victory over Djokovic in the final.

Djokovic won the previous week in Madrid, his first title since he smoked Nadal 6-3, 6-2, 6-3 in the Australian Open final.

2019 french open mens singles draw roland garros
2019 french open mens singles draw 2
2019 french open mens singles draw 3
2019 french open mens singles draw 4

Federer is playing clay for the first time in three years and Roland Garros for the first time since 2015. It’s the 10th anniversary of Federer’s lone French Open title, but he is not among the top favorites after quarterfinal losses in both of his tune-up events.

Felix Auger-Aliassime beats steve johnson lyon open 2019

Felix Auger-Aliassime Hits Lyon Open Semifinals

Fourth-seeded Felix Auger-Aliassime hit 11 aces in a 6-2, 4-6, 6-4 win over Steve Johnson on Thursday to reach the semifinals of the Lyon Open.

The Canadian teenager will face top-seeded Nikoloz Basilashvili — who defeated Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 6-4, 6-4 at the clay-court tournament, which serves as a warmup for the French Open.

In the other semifinal, Taylor Fritz will be up against Benoit Paire.

Fritz earned 6-7 (6), 6-3, 6-4 win over second-seeded Spaniard Roberto Bautista Agut and Paire upset third-seeded Denis Shapovalov 6-3, 4-6, 7-6 (4).

Aryna Sabalenka beats monica puig strasbourg

Aryna Sabalenka Reaches Semifinals

Second-seeded Aryna Sabalenka defeated former champion Monica Puig 6-1, 3-6, 6-2 to reach the semifinals of the Internationaux de Strasbourg clay-court tournament on Thursday.

The 11-th-ranked Sabalenka hit 30 winners to earn her first semifinal spot since February in St. Petersburg.

She will next face teenager Dayana Yastremska, who eased past Fiona Ferro 6-1, 6-3.

The other semifinal will be an all-French matchup between fourth-seeded Caroline Garcia and Chloe Paquet.

Yulia Putintseva beatws friedsam nuremberg cup 2019

Yulia Putintseva Hits Semifinals – Nuremberg Cup

Top-seeded Yulia Putintseva of Kazakhstan won the longest match of the WTA Tour season so far, overcoming Germany’s Anna-Lena Friedsam 7-5, 6-7 (5), 7-6 (2) on Thursday to reach the Nuremberg Cup semifinals.

Putintseva converted her first match point in a match that lasted 3 hours, 21 minutes against Friedsam, who is ranked No. 523 after recovering from a shoulder injury.

Putintseva, who is bidding for her first WTA singles title, will face Sorana Cirstea in the semifinals after the Romanian player defeated Serbian qualifier Nina Stojanovic 4-6, 6-4, 6-2. It will be Cirstea’s second semifinal in three years at the clay-court tournament.

The second-seeded Katerina Siniakova will play Slovenia’s Tamara Zidansek in the other semifinal.

Siniakova rallied to beat American Madison Brengle 1-6, 6-4, 6-0, while Zidansek defeated Veronika Kudermetova of Russia 6-4, 2-6, 6-3.

WikiLeaks Julian Assange charged with 17 new Espionage Act violations

Jeffrey Lang
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WikiLeaks Julian Assange charged with 17 new Espionage Act violations

Donald Trump has been looking for ways to put more restrictions on journalists, and his Justice Department will be testing First Amendment boundaries with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for his role in publishing classified military and diplomatic documents in 2010. The government has never charged a journalist under the Espionage Act, so the fight will be over whether Assange is a ‘true’ journalist or not.

In a case with significant First Amendment implications, the U.S. filed new charges Thursday against Assange that accuses him of violating the Espionage Act by publishing thousands of secret and classified documents, including the identities of confidential sources for American armed forces and diplomats.

The Justice Department’s 18-count superseding indictment alleges that Assange directed former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning in one of the largest compromises of classified information in U.S. history. It says the WikiLeaks founder damaged national security by publishing documents that harmed the U.S. and its allies and aided its adversaries.

The case comes amid a Justice Department crackdown on national security leaks and raises immediate media freedom questions, including whether Assange’s actions — such as soliciting and publishing classified information — are distinguishable from what traditional journalists do as a matter of course. Those same concerns led the Obama administration Justice Department to balk at bringing charges for similar conduct.

Assange’s lawyer, Barry Pollack, said Thursday that the “unprecedented charges” against his client imperil “all journalists in their endeavor to inform the public about actions that have been taken by the U.S. government.” The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press said the case was a “dire threat” to media freedom.

The Justice Department’s decision to pursue Espionage Act charges signals a dramatic escalation under President Trump to crack down on leaks of classified information and aims squarely at First Amendment protections for journalists. Most recently, law enforcement officials charged a former intelligence analyst with giving classified documents to The Intercept, a national security news website.

Legal scholars believe that prosecuting reporters over their work would violate the First Amendment, but the prospect has not yet been tested in court because the government had never charged a journalist under the Espionage Act.

But Justice Department officials sought to make clear that they did not view Assange’s actions as protected by the First Amendment.

“Julian Assange is no journalist,” said Assistant Attorney General John Demers, the Justice Department’s top national security official. “No responsible actor, journalist or otherwise, would purposely publish the names of individuals he or she knew to be confidential sources, exposing them to the gravest of dangers.”

Prosecutors sought throughout the document to make a distinction between what Assange did as the founder and “public face” of WikiLeaks and the work of journalists.  

They noted, for example, that he promoted his site to a convention of European hackers and published a list of the classified information he sought as “The Most Wanted Leaks of 2009.” They described how Assange worked with Manning to improperly access Department of Defense computers to gain access to thousands of pages of material and encouraged her as she delved through databases for information. 

Prosecutors also say the danger wasn’t just to the U.S. government, but to people who worked with it.

Reports from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq published by Assange included the names of Afghans and Iraqis who provided information to American and coalition forces, while the diplomatic cables he released exposed journalists, religious leaders, human rights advocates and dissidents in repressive countries. “Assange created a grave and imminent risk that the innocent people he named would suffer serious physical harm and/or arbitrary detention.”

Assange in an August 2010 interview called it “regrettable” that sources disclosed by WikiLeaks could be harmed, but said WikiLeaks was “not obligated to protect other people’s sources,” according to the indictment.

The new Espionage Act charges go far beyond an initial indictment against Assange made public last month that accused him of conspiring with Manning to crack a defense computer password. 

First Amendment aside, the indictment poses a secondary ethical question for journalists. News organizations around the world widely used the Manning material, which provided previously unavailable information about the Guantanamo Bay detention center, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and international diplomacy.

Assange is now being prosecuted for releasing documents that many reporters found inherently newsworthy.

Mr. Assange was secretly indicted in March 2018 in federal court in Alexandria, Va., on a charge of conspiring to commit unlawful computer intrusion. Prosecutors accused Mr. Assange of agreeing to help Ms. Manning crack an encoded portion of a passcode that would have enabled her to log on to a classified military network.

Assange, 47, is in custody in London after being evicted from the Ecuadorian Embassy in April. The U.S. is seeking his extradition.

The Obama administration considered charging Mr. Assange under the Espionage Act but never did out of concerns that such a case could chill traditional journalism.

Manning, who was convicted in military court for providing a trove of classified documents to WikiLeaks, is currently in a northern Virginia jail on a civil contempt charge.

Manning spent two months in the Alexandria Detention Center beginning in March after she refused to testify to a grand jury investigating WikiLeaks. That grand jury is sitting in Alexandria, where Assange is charged. She could remain in jail for up to 18 months, the length of the current grand jury’s term.

Manning has said she believes prosecutors want to question her about the same conduct for which she was convicted at her court-martial. She served seven years of a 35-year military sentence before receiving a commutation from then-President Barack Obama.

Nancy Pelosi: The one woman Donald Trump can’t control

Shanka Cheryl
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Nancy Pelosi: The one woman Donald Trump can’t control

Donald Trump has gotten used to the women around him coddling him, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is the one that can really get under his skin with just a simple sentence. Like Senator Chuck Schumer, she’s known Trump for decades and knows how to get under his skin. She also knows what makes him tick which he hates.

She’s fighting off the growing Democrat consensus of impeachment while also trying to get things like infrastructure through. Having a temperamental drama queen in the Oval Office isn’t easy, but as a grandmother of nine, she knows how to handle a temper tantrum.

Pelosi openly questioned President Trump’s fitness to remain in office Thursday, suggesting a staff or family “intervention” for the good of the nation after his dramatic blow-up at a White House meeting with Democrats. Trump responded by calling her “crazy.”

“She’s a mess,” Trump told reporters at an afternoon news conference in which he lined up White House staff to testify to his calmness at a meeting with Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer. “Cryin’ Chuck, Crazy Nancy … I watched Nancy and she was all crazy yesterday,” he claimed.

donald trump misspelled notes during rose garden tantrum
Donald Trump’s note during Rose Garden impromptu talk.

As for himself, he declared, “I’m an extremely stable genius.”

Both the Republican president and Democratic leaders dug in a day after Trump stalked out of the Cabinet Room demanding an end to all congressional probes before he would work with Congress on crumbling U.S. infrastructure and other matters. By Thursday as Congress prepared to recess for the Memorial Day break, both sides were questioning each other’s stability, with the president insisting on Twitter that he was calm when he left the White House meeting that was to focus on infrastructure spending after just three minutes.

Pelosi said Trump has established a pattern of unpredictability, and at one point she even joked about the 25th Amendment, the Constitution’s provision laying out the procedure for replacing a president.

“I wish that his family or his administration or his staff would have an intervention for the good of the country,” Pelosi said at her weekly news conference, adding that she prays for him and the nation.

“Maybe he wants to take a leave of absence,” she said. Asked whether she’s concerned about Trump’s well-being, she replied, “I am.”

Pelosi also said the White House is “crying out” for the Democrats to launch impeachment hearings — the idea being that such a move would help him politically. White House aides believe that if Democrats move to impeach — and even if they win approval of articles of impeachment in the House — Trump would be acquitted in the GOP-controlled Senate, supporting his assertion that he’s a victim of Democratic harassment and helping him toward re-election. But the president denied that he’s urging the Democrats on.

“I don’t think anybody wants to be impeached,” Trump said.

However genuine, accusations of infirmity dominated the exchanges on Thursday and raised questions about whether Pelosi and Trump could work together on must-do tasks this year, such as raising the debt limit and funding the government. White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said staff-level work on critical policy and spending continues.

Yet Sanders also said on CNN that it was “lunacy” and “insane” for Democrats to think everyone could just proceed after Pelosi accused Trump of a “cover-up” just before the meeting Wednesday.

“It’s very hard to have a meeting where you accuse the president of the United States of a crime and an hour later show up and act as if nothing has happened,” Sanders told reporters outside the White House.

Hanging over the increasingly personal exchanges is a drumbeat among about two dozen Democrats and one Republican to launch impeachment hearings against Trump based on details in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report that Trump repeatedly tried to block the investigation. Pelosi has resisted, preferring a methodical process by which Congress investigates and lays out the facts on the question of obstruction of justice. But she’s been clear this week that any such finding could be worthy of a formal indictment by the House — that is, impeachment.

Pelosi also is balancing the calls for impeachment with the concerns of members from divided districts who helped flip the House to Democratic control and now face tough re-elections 2020.

Pelosi, the second in line to the presidency, said she thinks Trump’s actions Wednesday were part of his skill at distraction. But she also suggested that he’s unpredictable.

“Sometimes when we’re talking to him he agrees,” she said, only to change his mind. “He says he’s in charge and he may be.”

During questions, Pelosi also joked with a reporter about the 25th Amendment. “That’s a good idea. I am going to take it up with my caucus. Not that they haven’t been thinking about it.”

She has been insulting Trump since the meeting on Wednesday.

“For some reason, maybe it was lack of confidence on his part … he took a pass, and it just makes me wonder why he did that,” she told reporters back on Capitol Hill. “In any event I pray for the president of the United States.”

“Nancy, thank you so much for your prayers, I know you truly mean it!” Trump tweeted from the White House.

Yet the White House is returning the Democrats’ insults.

Repeatedly pressed on why the president seemed unwilling to multitask and work on legislation as other presidents under investigation have, Sanders maintained, “I think the Democrats have shown that they’re not capable of doing anything else.”

In fact, the Democratic-controlled House has passed several bills on issues including firearms background checks, prescription drugs and campaign finance reforms — though they were dead on arrival in the GOP-controlled Senate.

Sanders insisted that Trump’s walk-out Wednesday wasn’t planned before Pelosi’s comments and that the White House placard that appeared on Trump’s lectern as he denounced Democrats moments later had been printed “weeks ago.” Asked why Trump couldn’t work with Democrats after Pelosi’s comments because he felt insulted, Sanders said, “The president’s feelings weren’t hurt. She accused him of a crime. Let that sink in.”

Steven Van Zandt talks ‘Summer of Sorcery,’ Bruce Springsteen and some politics

Curt Johnson
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Steven Van Zandt talks ‘Summer of Sorcery,’ Bruce Springsteen and some politics

Steven Van Zandt has lived every wannabe rockers dream life being part of Bruce Springsteen’s “E Street Band” (not to mention his good friend) to playing a big role in a huge HBO hit “The Sopranos.” That would surpass most people’s wildest dreams, but Van Zandt has more to do.

Fans of his will know about his 80’s band Little Steven & The Disciples of Soul, so they’ll be excited about his new album that dropped earlier in May, “Summer of Sorcery.” He’s still politically active, and it doesn’t take much to get him talking. He’s not that celebrity that just does the PC talking points. He goes there, and if you love a great debate, this is your man.

There’s plenty of rock on Steven Van Zandt’s first album of original material in 20 years. There’s also soul and funk and some mean horn solos. What there isn’t plenty of is politics.

The bandana-wearing guitarist for Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, who in the past has never been shy about calling out politicians, has put aside partisanship in these divisive times.

“I’m trying to stay as nonpartisan as I can and provide some common ground,” he said. “When you’re as political as I was — and I was as political as it gets — for the hardcore fans of mine it’s going to take a bit of adjustment.”

Van Zandt, who in the past has raised his voice against apartheid and nuclear weapons, refuses to add kindling to what he considers a country “heading towards a civil war.” He wants his concerts to be a safe zone.

“Democrats, Republicans and independents are welcome to come to the show and enjoy themselves because it’s a strictly musical trip,” he said. “We need a break every now and then, in other words, and right now we’re providing that break.”

steven van zandt playing onstage

Van Zandt’s relief comes in the form of a new album, “Summer of Sorcery.” The 12-track collection sees him reteam with his 15-piece band, the Disciples of Soul, and mine what he calls a “rock-meets-soul thing.”

“It’s the first time in my life I’ve ever done two records in a row that were with the same band, first of all, and with the same sound — in the same genre, even. I’m going to stick with that now,” he said.

The album is a stew of Van Zandt’s influences, ranging from mambo to classic rock to doo-wop. There’s a flute solo in one song, and another name-checks Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys.

“There’s not a whole lot that’s good about getting older but there is one thing, which is you really tend to integrate your influences,” he said. “I like to have my influences on my sleeve. I do that intentionally, leaving little breadcrumbs for people to follow backwards, hoping that they do listen to the original artists.”

In addition to avoiding politics, the album is also not autobiographical, a first for the musician. For each song, Van Zandt wrote from a different character’s perspective. In “Superfly Terraplane,” he’s a millennial; in “Love Again,” he’s a world-weary traveler searching for love.

“I like the idea of just making the 12 little movies and play a different role in each one,” he said. “I analyzed myself to death in the ’80s and I was sick of me. So I was ready for exploring my imagination for a change.”

The idea of writing an entire album of new material came during the tour of Van Zandt’s 2017 album “Soulfire,” which was composed of covers and songs he had written for other artists but never cut himself.

“The brain cells that work towards writing your own records started to wake up,” he said. “The tour just started feeding in those ideas and basically we took the tour and put it in a blender and out popped these songs — basically exactly how I was hoping it would work and it did.”

Bruce Resnikoff, president/CEO at Universal Music Enterprises, calls Van Zandt “maybe the smartest musicologist you’ll ever meet.” He said Van Zandt effectively took 20 years off from his solo work to work with Springsteen, and returned to his sound as soon as he re-engaged with his own work.

“It’s almost as if he picked off where he left off,” Resnikoff said. “When he goes onstage with his own band, you get everything you saw of him in the E Street Band plus you get everything you remember of him as a solo artist. He’s phenomenal.”

Van Zandt is juggling plenty of projects, including a tour to support the new album. He’s just released the box set “Soulfire Live!,” which includes guest appearances from the likes of Springsteen and Paul McCartney. A two-volume set of his music for the “Lilyhammer” Netflix series comes out in July. A catalog box — including his five solo albums from the 1980s, the protest album “Sun City,” and live songs and extras — is due in the fall. He also confirmed that Springsteen has written an album for the E Street Band.

Then there’s ensuring that there’s a pipeline of music fans for the future. Van Zandt believes his “Underground Garage” radio show on Sirius XM has introduced about 1,000 new bands to the public in the past 17 years. And he recently founded the TeachRock project, which helps young people connect the history of popular music to classroom work across disciplines.

It has 150 free lesson plans online and 25,000 teachers have registered. Jackson Browne, Martin Scorsese, Bono and Springsteen have helped develop it.

Van Zandt was inspired to launch the initiative to “keep the arts in the DNA of the education system.” It works by connecting music to history and social studies. If a student loves Beyonce, they’ll soon learn about people who paved the way for her, like Aretha Franklin, and lessons about the gospel church, Detroit and the civil rights movement.

“Art is an absolutely necessary part of the quality of life and it also helps kids learn. It gives them a comfortable place to learn from,” he said.

Some of the reason Van Zandt has been less outspoken with his politics is to avoid having the curriculum accused of being partisan. “I wanted it to be a purely educational enterprise.”

His music, though, remains welcome to all.

“You will leave stronger than you came and leave happier than you came,” he says, “and maybe even be able to deal with this madness of the real world a little bit better.”

steven van zandt with bruce springstein in asbury park riot redemption doc 2019 images

Your new documentary Asbury Park: Riot, Redemption, Rock n Roll hasyou going back to an underage venue called the Upstage Club where you spent a lot of your early summers. How important was it to have that space as a young musician?
Van Zandt: It was a miracle. Bruce discovered the Upstage Club and told me about it. He said: ‘You’ve got to come down, it’s crazy! It’s open ‘til 5AM.’ Everybody would go there to jam. Jamming was the thing. That’s why I don’t jam to this day. I jammed eight hours a night every night back then. Give me a two-and-a-half minute song, please.

So you already knew Bruce Springstein by that point?
Yeah, we’ve been friends since ‘65. I had a band, he had a band. If you had a band in those days, you were friends.

Was it already obvious when you were teenagers that he was going to become Bruce Springsteen as we know him today?
Umm, no. He was extremely quiet. Very grunge-like. He had long hair and he just looked down at his feet when he played. There was no entertainment value. We hung out a lot and then at a certain point I just felt he had something special about him. We were the only freaks, misfits and outcasts who were left standing, saying: ‘We don’t fit in anywhere. We better cling to this rock’n’roll thing, I don’t care how big a longshot it is.’ And it was a longshot. It was important to me to have at least one other person who felt like me.

He once said that your work on “Born to Run” was “arguablySteve’s greatest contribution to my music”. Is it true you wrote that guitar part?
No! I wish! It’s a long story, but basically… I fixed it. His career was in danger. He had to save it with this one song, so he put everything into it. They worked on it for months; the mix alone was weeks. So after all that he calls me and says: ‘You’ve got to come up and hear my new song.’ He plays it. I’m like: ‘That’s great! I really love that minor key riff! It’s so Roy Orbison, or like something the Beatles would have done.’ He looks at me like: ‘What minor riff?’ I go: ‘You know, the minor chord in the riff!’ He goes: ‘There’s no fucking minor chord in the riff, what are you talking about?’

What it was is that he was bending a note, like a Duane Eddy thing, with a lot of reverb. You could hear where he was bending from but you couldn’t hear where he was bending to. They’d probably added more reverb as they went, and by the time they did the final mix you couldn’t hear it. Finally, he hears it! He was like: ‘Oh my fucking God!’ He broke the news to the powers that be. Oh, did they hate me. They had to redo it. He credits me with saving his career, which I probably did – more than once, by the way! It was really just a matter of fixing something. It changed the emotion of it. It was still great before, but it wasn’t quite as uplifting.

Recently, I saw someone play your song “I Am a Patriot” [from 1984’s Voice of America] at an environmental campaign event, and it got a really mixed reaction. I think a lot of people the word ‘patriot’ meant it must be a song for Donald Trump supporters.
That’s the whole point. That same crowd thought “Born in the USA” was a Ronald Reagan campaign song. That song is about the difference between patriotism and nationalism. It was important to write it because I was being very critical of the government for many years, and I wanted to make it clear I was being critical from a patriotic point of view, in the true sense of the word, which is making sure the country sticks to its ideals. The country’s ideals come before the political party. We’ve forgotten that completely. It’s not about whose football team fucking wins. That system has been a mess here, and it’s a disaster with Brexit.

If you had your way, what would your solution be to Brexit?
I actually have a solution. First of all, they should bring in a third, objective party to arbitrate this, which no-one wants to do. If it was me, I’d spend two days with the Leave people and hear all their complaints. I’d spend two days with the EU and find out what’s going on there. Then I would have a solution within a week. I’m not kidding. Now, whether they would execute this solution is another matter. I was particularly pissed off that none of the Leave people gave a fuck about Ireland. ‘Fuck Ireland, fuck Scotland, fuck everybody.’ I’m looking at this going: ‘You really think you’re getting the British Empire back you fucking assholes?’ What’s next, are you going to annex India?

Did you really originally audition for the part of Tony Soprano?
Yeah, and I got it.

Did you land it? What led to James Gandolfini getting the part?
HBO said to David Chase: ‘Are you out of your fucking mind? We’re making the biggest investment of our lives.’ People don’t remember, HBO was a very small channel with a football show on. They were nothing. This was $30 million, which is probably half an episode of Game of Thrones now but at the time was a big seasonal commitment. He’s picking a guy who’s never acted before!

He came to me and said: ‘They won’t let me cast you. What else do you want to do?’ I said: ‘Now that I think about it, I’m feeling kind of guilty taking an actor’s job. They work their whole lives for this. I’m just a guitar player off the street.’ He said: ‘I tell you what, I’ll write a new part specifically for you so you’re not taking anyone else’s job.’ I had a treatment for a script that I’d been working on about an independent hitman named Silvio Dante who is semi-retired and has a club similar to the old Copacabana. It’s set in the present day but he kind of lives in the past. He’s a traditionalist, so it’s big bands, chorus girls, Jewish Catskills comics, the whole thing. Chase went away and thought about it and when he came back he said: ‘We can’t afford it. How about a strip club? You’ll run the strip club for the family.’ So that’s how the Bada Bing was born.

Do you think that Silvio and Tony’s relationship is similar to yours and Bruce’s?
Yeah, I used that. We decided that he’s gonna be the consigliere, chief advisor and best friend so I wrote a whole story about them growing up together. My character was the only one on the show who didn’t want to be the boss. He’s very happy being behind the scenes. I knew very well what that dynamic is like, being the only guy not afraid of the boss. You gotta be the one to bring the bad news occasionally, and get the ire or the anger directed at you. I was quite used to that position, so I used that. It worked out quite well actually. It’s amazing. I miss Jimmy [Gandolfini] every day, we were so close. He was such a life force. It’s still hard to believe.

This is one of those must-know questions. When you married your wife Maureen [who’d later play onscreen Sopranos wife Gabriella Dante] in 1982, you had Little Richard presiding over it. What’s a wedding like when the priest is Little Richard?
I can describe it in one word: chaos. Two words: blissful chaos. Of course, he lied and said he’d done it before. We picked a short sermon for him and he just went on and on. He’d become a preacher in ‘59, but it was one of those evangelical things… so I’m probably not legitimately married. Which, you know, [stage whisper:] I don’t want to say was part of the plan. But yeah, it was real rock’n’roll. Percy Sledge sang “When a Man Loves a Woman” when we walked down the aisle. We had Little Milton playing in one room, the band from The Godfather in another room. It was quite a scene.

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