Category: 5. Entertainment

Combining comedy with sci-fi and a critique of for-profit healthcare systems, alumnus Michael Plewa’s short film “Freemium 911” is now circulating in film festival circuits.

The writer, director, editor and producer of the film, Plewa originally pitched and created this three-minute short film as an assignment for a UCLA Film and Television graduate class. The film stars screenwriter and Plewa’s wife Hayley Tyler, UCLA alumnus, actress and writer Rachel Stubington and UCLA alumnus and actor Kevin Hinton. Drawing inspiration from a personal health scare he experienced during his time at UCLA for the film, Plewa said there is something amusing about searching the web to find a medical diagnosis.

The film itself is a satirical, science fiction take on modern healthcare applications and the healthcare system’s for-profit model. Highlighting the comedy in a free app including “in-app purchases” that are actually fundamental to the app, “Freemium 911” shows the app 911 Home failing to assist a woman going into cardiac arrest.

“The trick with effective satire is to sort of tweak reality, but not too far, so that it feels like you’re actually making a statement about our current conditions,” Plewa said.

Plewa said his film has played twice in Los Angeles, and he is currently waiting to hear back from a few more festivals as well. Often dabbling in the combination of comedy with more serious issues, Plewa said there was something to be said about the commerce inherent in new technologies in creating augmented realities.

“I hope that people will see it when they laugh about this idea that this app could come and wreck our lives,” Plewa said.

Plewa’s idea for “Freemium 911” was solid from the get-go, lecturer Mark Rosman said, something that not all students have. Channeling a personal, scary experience, the script for “Freemium 911” came up quite developed, Plewa said. A driven student, Plewa was proactive in asking questions and seeking feedback throughout all stages of the film’s life, Rosman said.

As this film was created during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, Plewa had to overcome a number of restrictions, Rosman said, as he was unable to cast and film in the same in-person manner and with the same equipment as before the pandemic. The limitations Plewa faced ultimately led to a very creative movie, Rosman added.

“I think restrictions have a tendency to really push creative artists to, sometimes, do their best work. … And I certainly think Mike got a lot of benefits,” Rosman said. “Those restrictions really focused him, and every student, on how to get an interesting film under those very rigid and restrictive circumstances.”

Plewa said the film’s limitations of remote filming ultimately contributed to the film’s success. Public health was very much on everyone’s mind at the time, Plewa continued, making the themes topical in 2020. He added that he hopes the catharsis of laughing at this film inspires people to fight back against the sense of hopelessness they may feel in the status quo.

Stubington, who plays the mobile app operator, said that the underlying emotional depth of the film allows the comedy to shine. People are more inclined to laugh when they like, understand or connect with the characters, she added.

“Especially in this film, there’s a really serious situation, and it’s grounded by this woman who’s literally going into cardiac arrest,” Stubington said. “You’re able to have the comedy with some Gen-Z operator who clearly should not be in charge of someone’s life.”

The message of the film, Stubington said, is also very relatable. Plewa did a thoughtful job at conceptualizing the frustration that protagonist, who is played by Tyler, experiences as technology continues to advance, she added.

Regarding the value of the audience’s interaction with a film, Plewa said a film becomes a conversation between a creator and the audience – they work together. Plewa added that he is very delighted that his film found an audience in multiple countries, as it is difficult to anticipate how a film will do, especially given the restrictions his film faced in its initial stages.

The short film’s success in festivals is something Plewa is grateful for, he said. Because audiences view so many movies in succession at festivals, Plewa said it is more rewarding to receive positive feedback.

“If you’re not the first thing (the audience) sees, you become more grateful the longer the day goes before they get to see yours,” Plewa said. “When they do respond and tell you that they liked it, you are really gratified and a little bit amazed that they were able to keep their stamina going.”

His experience in combining both documentary and narrative filmmaking allows him to improvise when necessary, Plewa said. Similarly, Rosman said Plewa’s background brings a unique, hybrid approach where he focuses on representing a story from both documentary and narrative lenses.

“(The film) is just damn funny,” Rosman said. “It is a satire on medical commercials and the future of AI, which is very timely at this moment.”

Launched in June, the eight-week digital campaign draws on the enduring popularity of the beloved Smurfs to encourage young people – along with their parents and caregivers – to raise their voices on issues that matter to them.

The initiative is part of the UN’s ActNow effort for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and aims to empower individuals, especially children, to speak out and take action in their communities.

Voices for change

Featuring Rihanna, Hannah Waddingham, Billie Lourd and Amy Sedaris – who voice various characters in an upcoming Smurfs film – the campaign includes vibrant public service announcements (PSAs) and colourful social media cards.

“The Smurfs know the importance of speaking up and speaking out because everyone, every child, has the right to be heard,” said Hannah Waddingham, who voices Jezebeth in the movie.

“The power to create change is already inside you. You just have to act,” added Billie Lourd (Worry Smurf).

Amy Sedaris (Jaunty) summed it up simply: “It’s easy if you follow the Smurfs’ blueprint. Small actions can add up to make a big difference.”

The videos, produced in multiple formats, direct viewers to a dedicated “Speak Up with the Smurfs” section on the ActNow platform, which offers child-friendly tools and resources.

Smurfing it up

To smurf things up a bit – campaign invites everyone to “smurf their voice” and help smurf a brighter future, one action at a time. Whether you’re five or fifty-five, there’s always a way to smurf positive change.

In Smurf-speak, “smurf” can mean just about anything – noun, verb, or adjective – but the message here is clear: smurf your voice, smurf your rights, smurf the future.

UNICEF’s involvement centres on ensuring the message reaches children everywhere – and that they are equipped to participate meaningfully in decisions affecting their lives.

Global rollout

The campaign is being promoted across Paramount Global’s platforms – including CBS, MTV, Nickelodeon, BET, Comedy Central, streaming services like Paramount+ and Pluto TV, and the free-to-air network Net 10 in Australia.

Smurf-themed content will also light up Times Square in New York City and appear in markets across Europe, Latin America and Asia.

Content is available in over a dozen languages, including Arabic, French, Spanish, Hindi, Kiswahili, and Japanese, to ensure broad accessibility.

About the Smurfs

First introduced in 1958, the Smurfs are small blue fictional characters known for their teamwork, mischief, and unique way of speaking.

Generations of children (like this author and his little ones) have followed their adventures, and their continued appeal has made them ideal messengers for values like cooperation, kindness and now, global citizenship.

By rallying a new generation to speak up – or smurf up – the campaign hopes to inspire meaningful, lasting change for children (and adults) everywhere.

It’s up, up and away for Warner Bros. and DC Studios‘ “Superman,” which got off the ground with $56.5 million across Friday and preview screenings in 4,135 theaters. That’s the second-biggest such figure for the calendar year, floating just behind “A Minecraft Movie” ($57.11 million) and ahead of “Lilo & Stitch” ($55.94 million).

Of note, “Superman” earned some extra cash with early-access screenings on Tuesday for Amazon Prime members, playing before the traditional Thursday evening opening.

The superhero reboot, written and directed by the “Guardians of the Galaxy” trilogy’s James Gunn, drew conservative mid-week projections for a debut of $100 million, while some more bullish outlets were forecasting north of $140 million less than 24 hours ago. Things are looking to settle closer to $120 million. “Superman” gets a revenue boost from luxury ticket prices for Imax and other premium large format auditoriums.

It’s a successful lift-off for the Man of Steel, plus an additional notch for the box office hot streak at Warner Bros., which has strung together a run of hits that started with the opening of “A Minecraft Movie” back in April. But “Superman” is a much more consequential film for Warner Bros. than its average theatrical release. Along with its big $225 million production budget, the film has the responsibility of launching a new on-screen universe for DC Comics characters, laying the groundwork for what could potentially be many more lucrative years of superhero blockbusters.

To fully solidify that this franchise is here to stay, “Superman” will have to hold strong after the fan-driven opening and stay relevant among other summer competitors. It’s got good reviews on its side, plus strong approval among ticketbuyers, as indicated by the “A-” grade polled by survey firm CinemaScore.

David Corenswet becomes the Man of Steel in this reboot, facing off against billionaire Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) and, under his day-player name Clark Kent, working with journalist Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan). There are also a bunch of other superheroes, including Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion), Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced), Metamorpho (Anthony Carrigan) and Mister Terrific (Edi Gathegi) — plus Daily Planet reporter Jimmy Olsen (Skyler Gisondo) too.

Sliding to second, Universal’s “Jurassic World Rebirth” added another $11.3 million on Friday. The seventh entry in the dino franchise is eyeing $38.7 million across the three-day frame, which would be down 58% from its Friday-to-Sunday total a week ago. (Notably, “Rebirth” had a five-day opening, starting on a Wednesday ahead of the Fourth of July holiday.)

That’d be a hair stronger than the 59.2% sophomore slide by its franchise predecessor, 2022’s “Jurassic World Dominion.” “Rebirth” crossed a $200 million domestic gross on Friday and looks to hit $230 million through the end of the weekend. After 10 days of release, it already ranks as the fifth-highest-grossing North American release of the year. But “Dominion” earned $250 million through the same time frame. “Rebirth” is putting up an inarguable blockbuster performance, but there is some noteworthy franchise decay in the numbers.

Third goes to Warner Bros.’ release of Apple Studios’ racing thriller “F1,” which added another $3.7 million on Friday, down 47% from its daily total a week ago. The Brad Pitt-led production has now earned $126.9 million in North America and climbed into the top 10 domestic earners of the year so far. Whether Apple can turn much of a theatrical profit on “F1,” with its massive $250 million production budget and many more millions in marketing costs, is a questionable prospect. But the tech giant has made its biggest splash yet in theaters, and international grosses have been strong.

Universal gets fourth with “How to Train Your Dragon,” still spreading its wings in the top five in its fifth weekend of release. The live-action remake added another $2.3 million on Friday and is projecting a $7.7 million three-day haul (a 31% drop). Total domestic gross looks to hit $239 million through the weekend. Of note, “Train Your Dragon” has now outgrossed its source material, DreamWorks Animation’s 2010 original, making it the biggest entry ever for the property.

Disney and Pixar’s “Elio” rounds out the top five, adding another $1.2 million on Friday to push its domestic total to $60.9 million. Now in its fourth weekend of release, the original animated feature has actually been putting up decent week-to-week holds, but not strong enough to overcome its disappointing $20 million opening weekend — the lowest-ever for a Pixar feature.

Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) frontman Jeff Lynne has cancelled what had been billed as his final ever performance owing to ill health.

Lynne was due to appear at the BST Hyde Park festival series on Sunday night, closing what had been the band’s farewell “Over and Out” tour, 55 years since the band formed.

A spokesperson for the concerts said he had a “systemic infection”. They added Lynne would not be able to reschedule.

The decision comes days after the 77-year-old axed a concert in Manchester shortly before he was scheduled to come out on stage.

He had appeared on stage in Birmingham in a home town send-off a week ago, but was unable to play his trademark guitar owing to a broken wrist, suffered during a taxi crash in London.

A statement from BST Hyde Park said: “Jeff Lynne is heartbroken to report that he will not be able to perform at tomorrow’s BST Hyde Park show.

“Jeff has been battling a systemic infection and is currently in the care of a team of doctors who have advised him that performing is simply not possible at this time nor will he be able to reschedule.

“The legacy of the band and his longtime fans are foremost in Jeff’s mind today – and while he is so sorry that he cannot perform, he knows that he must focus on his health and rehabilitation at this time.”

Lynne had previously described the Hyde Park gig, where he would be performing alongside fellow Brummie Steve Winwood and US rock group the Doobie Brothers, as a fitting way to end his career.

He had begun his return to touring with a concert at the park in central London in 2014.

Lynne had said: “It seems like the perfect place to do our final show. We couldn’t be more excited to share this special night in London with our UK fans.”

If he does not play in front of live audiences again, it would bring an end to a career that took in No 1 albums with ELO, which he founded with the drummer Bev Bevan and the vocalist Roy Wood in 1970.

The band split in 1986, with Lynne saying he had lost interest. Bevan forming his own band, ELO Part II.

Apart from a brief comeback in 2001, Lynne did not play with ELO until 2014, with the band rebranded as Jeff Lynne’s Electric Light Orchestra along with longtime band member, the pianist Richard Tandy.

Tandy died in 2024 and Lynne carried on as the final original member of the band still a part of the group.

Maureen Waters

Andrew Mears

BBC

This spring, something strange started happening at the Fillmore Bakery in San Francisco, which specializes in old-school European desserts.

Excited customers kept asking the bakery’s co-owner, Elena Basegio, “Did you see about the princess cake online?”

The dome-shaped Swedish layer cake, topped with a smooth layer of green marizipan, had suddenly gone viral, increasing sales of the bakery’s already-bestselling cake.

After nearly a century of demure European popularity, “prinsesstårta” suddenly seemed to be everywhere: on menus at hip restaurants in Los Angeles and New York, trending on TikTok, even inspiring candle scents at boutique lifestyle brands.

The Swedish consulate in San Francisco confirmed the phenomenon, telling the Guardian that the trend appears to be driven by innovative American pastry chefs such as Hannah Ziskin, whose Echo Park pizza parlor has offered up a sleek redesign of the palatial pastry, as well as by online food influencers, some of whom have offered American bakers more “accessible” versions of the elaborate dessert.

The reinvention of one of Sweden’s most cherished desserts as a trendy indulgence might seem like just another retro fad, like the renewed popularity of martinis or caviar. But as a product of the European country with the highest rating for gender equality between men and women, princess cake is more subversive than its smooth marzipan surface might suggest.

This is, after all, a cake so difficult to construct that it served as an early technical challenge on the Great British Bake-Off: its wrinkle-free marzipan dome is a fiendish feat of kitchen engineering. Americans are also leaning into the dessert’s more seductive qualities: to state the obvious, this is a breast-shaped cake topped with a rosy marzipan nipple. Its green coating might conjure up a buxom extraterrestrial, but that doesn’t really change the fundamental impression: this cake is very, very sexy.

Training the princesses

When Ziskin, the Los Angeles pastry chef, started serving slices of princess cake at her restaurant Quarter Sheets, many of her patrons were so unfamiliar with the dessert that they asked if she had created and named it herself.

In fact, the invention of the cake is credited to a prominent Swedish home economics teacher named Jenny Åkerström, whose students at her “renowned school of cookery” in the early 1900s included the princesses of Sweden. Åkerström turned this experience into the 1929 Prinsessornas Kokbook, a popular collection of recipes dedicated to her three royal pupils. “These Swedish recipes of good taste are recommended by their majesties Margaret, Matha and Astrid to her majesty the American housewife,” a 1936 English translation of the cookbook promised.

Åkerström’s recipe for a marzipan-covered “gröntårta”, or green tart, is included in one of the later editions of her cookbook.

Princess cake went on to become the iconic Swedish dessert, one served at birthdays, graduations and office parties. It’s traditional to fight over who gets to eat the marzipan rose perched on top of the dome. Sweden’s tourism bureau estimates that half a million “Prinsesstårtor” are sold in the country each year. Since 2004, there’s even been a “princess cake week” held each September, during which some of the proceeds from cake sales are donated to a royal charity.

For Emelie Kihlstrom, a restaurant owner raised in Sweden and now living in New York, princess cake was so ubiquitous it felt a bit stodgy. “I wasn’t a huge fan, personally,” she said. “We have been eating it the same way always – there was never any variation.”

For her new French-Scandinavian restaurant Hildur, in Brooklyn, Kihlstrom decided to reinvent the classic dessert. Together with Simon Richtman, a chef who once worked for the Swedish consulate in New York, she developed a single-serving pink version of the cake, with queen’s jam – a mixture of blueberries and raspberries – instead of the raspberry jam, and a lighter diplomat cream in place of the traditional pastry cream filling.

At her restaurant, “It’s on every table,” Kihlstrom said. “It’s funny how it’s just become this phenomenon.”

Nearby in Brooklyn, the owners of BonBon, the TikTok-famous Swedish “candy salad” shop, have now opened Ferrane, a Swedish bakery which offers their own twist on princess cake. Their cocktail-glass mini cakes were inspired by the Swedish restaurant Sturehof, which now serves a tiny princess cake in a rounded coupe glass, Kihlstrom said.

Sturehof’s Yohanna Blomgren debuted their reinvented princess cake in Stockholm last September, and a spokesperson for the restaurant said that the classic dessert was having a “resurgence” in Sweden, as well as in the US.

The cocktail glass version has taken off far beyond the Swedish restaurant’s expectations. “Many guests visit us specifically to try it – some even mentioning they’ve travelled across the country just for the cake,” the Sturehof spokesperson wrote.

In Los Angeles, Ziskin has also tweaked the traditional recipe, making her chiffon cake with olive oil, to give it a flavor that’s “a little more savory, a little more grassy”, adding mascarpone to the whipped cream, for a “savory note”, and making both her “super tart” raspberry jam and her marzipan from scratch.

“It’s really light – the layers are light,” Ziskin said. “It’s something you can finish.”

Instead of forming the cakes into tricky-to-construct domes, Ziskin makes her princess cakes in long rounded logs. Slices of the cake are so popular that they sell out almost every night: “People will email in advance and ask us to hold slices for their dinner,” she said.

A Bon Appetit video of Ziskin making her “homage” to the Swedish national cake went viral last fall, garnering more than 1m views and sparking heated pushback in the comments over the use of mascarpone, the correct shade of green for the marzipan – and the missing marzipan rose. (Ziskin garnishes logs of her cake, which sell for $85 each, with real flowers.) “Why do Americans have to ruin everything,” one TikTok commenter asked. “If you’re doing something, do it properly.”

Then, in April, British baker Nicola Lamb published a “simplified” princess cake recipe in the New York Times – one made upside down in a bowl, to help with the difficulty of creating the dome shape. The Food Network’s Molly Yeh produced an even-easier square pan version.

By early May, the food site Eater had declared: “The Princess Cake Gets Its Princess Moment.”

For longtime American fans of princess cake, this fanfare of discovery has been a little befuddling. MacKenzie Chung Fegan, the food critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, credited the “great mainstreaming of princess cake” to New Yorkers belatedly encountering a dessert that was already popular elsewhere.

“I lived in New York, a city of 8 million people and nearly as many bakeries, for 20 years and never spotted a princess cake in the wild,” she wrote. Growing up in California’s Bay Area, by contrast, princess cake had been a familiar treat available at many local European bakeries.

Ikea, the Swedish home furnishings superstore, has long offered its own princess cake, the “KAFFEREP Cream Cake,” in its frozen food aisle, and has also sold the cake in Ikea restaurants in the US since 2019. The Ikea cake comes in a tiny, single-size version, with pink marzipan instead of green, and has some very enthusiastic American fans on Reddit.

Ziskin, the Los Angeles pastry chef, said she grew up eating supermarket princess cake from the Viktor Benes bakery at Gelson’s, a southern California grocery.

“I’ve literally had princess cake for my birthday since I was five years old,” Ziskin said. “It was always part of my life.”

‘Real men eat princess cake’

For some Americans, the sheer femininity of princess cake can cause some anxiety.

“People come in and say, ‘I’d really like to give this cake to my husband, but is there a way to make it more masculine?” said Basegio, the owner of the Fillmore Bakery in San Francisco. “They’ll ask us to take the rose off the top, so it’s just green… We’ve been asked to make it blue, which we don’t do. It’s just cake.”

These concerns are “frequent” and they always come from women buying the cake for men, Basegio said, even though, “men, specifically, would be the demographic that love princess cake cake most”.

One of Basegio’s ex-boyfriends once made her a shirt that read, “Real men eat princess cake,” illustrated with a tattooed arm holding up the cake.

While princess cake might seem like a recipe that would be popular with trad wife influencers, that does not appear to be the case. I asked Ziskin about this. While not wanting to sound “snooty”, Ziskin said, she thought it might be a skills issue.

“It’s a difficult thing to make well and present well, without your marzipan cracking,” Ziskin said. “It’s kind of more in the world of professional baking … there’s something that’s a little inaccessible about it.”

If you make a mistake while frosting a cake with buttercream, “you can wipe it and do it again,” Ziskin said. “You can’t take back the final placement of the marzipan.”

There are online debates over where to find the best princess cake in the United States. Quarter Sheets is among the contenders: Ziskin said that Lost Larson in Chicago, Sant Ambroeus in New York, and Copenhagen Pastry in Los Angeles are also frequently mentioned.

As princess cake grows in popularity, Ziskin said, she’s excited to see people continue to experiment with the flavors of the traditional cake. And, she added, “I’m interested to see how certain countries react to that.”

“People say I need a viral moment,” Tannery Usrey says. “But you know what? That moment happens every time I write a new song, and every time I step onstage. If you chase that viral moment, it’ll eat you to death.”

For a decade, Usrey has toured relentlessly, with the music and hard-partying appeal to sustain a career playing clubs and dance halls in his native Texas. Then, one of his songs, “The Light,” appeared on Yellowstone in 2022, and Usrey landed a deal with Atlantic, releasing his 2023 debut album, Crossing Lines, in the wake. Suddenly, Usrey felt as though he was on the cusp of a breakthrough and became hellbent on making the most of the opportunity.

He does that on These Days, his second album, released on Friday. It’s a record that finds him assessing not just his songs, but his entire approach to music and touring — on These Days, Usrey grows up, fast.

“It’s about heartbreak, as usual, but the overall theme is more mature than what I’ve been writing about,” Usrey tells Rolling Stone. “It’s about counting the little wins, and that’s why I named it These Days. I want to appreciate every little moment, and every day that I make it through, and everybody else makes it through. It’s not all self-destruction anymore, it’s about real stuff.”

Usrey’s voice was what first endeared him to Texas crowds in the early 2010s, when he played acoustic shows with his older brother, Tim. He can sing with a country twang or hold a long blues note, and do both with his extensive vocal range. For These Days, Usrey wanted to showcase all that, which led him to tap Dave Cobb to produce.

“I think my voice shows on the record,” Usrey says. “[Cobb is] amazing at capturing voices, and I don’t think I’ve had anything like this yet. I needed to remind everybody else, and myself, ‘Hey, you can sing.’”

Usrey was raised on country music but eventually found himself drawn to the songwriting of the Texas and Red Dirt scenes, particularly the raw honesty in the lyrics of Cross Canadian Ragweed, Wade Bowen, and the Randy Rogers Band. He internalized that honestly, writing a string of songs that reflects his life experiences or state of mind. These Days is the distillation of years of Usrey refining that approach.

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On the track “Better Weather,” Usrey laments a relationship undone by toxicity, repeating the refrain, “I’m prayin’ for better weather” as though trying to convince himself he’s put the relationship behind him. 

“I was thinking about the person that got away,” he recalls. “You self-destruct out of a relationship but you still hope that they’re happy. You lie to them, and you tell them, ‘I’m good!’ but you still hope that they get the dream that they wanted.”

Meanwhile, “Do It to Myself” finds Usrey reckoning with the maturity he was searching for on this album. The song was written while he and Cobb were recording and Usrey caught himself partying just a little too hard.

“I got the idea while we were in the studio in Savannah,” he says. “Me and [drummer] Chris Powell, the night before, we’d drank about two bottles of tequila, just talking with each other. The next day, Dave says, ‘Let’s go out on a boat!’ I was seeing double. It felt like I was looking through 3-D glasses. And I was like, ‘Man, I guess I fucking do it to myself.’”

To lean further into personal introspection, Usrey collaborated with songwriters like Aaron Raitiere, Raina Wallace (formerly of the Lowdown Drifters), and Cobb himself — all writers who have embraced a personal worldview in their writing.

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“I’ve been reading the Rick Rubin book The Creative Act,” Usrey says. “I read that you have to take in everything around you. I’ll be sitting at a restaurant, and I’ll overhear somebody talking, and I’ll take that story in. And I’ll take in myself, and what I’m going through, and what my friends and my family are going through.”

In the end, however, Usrey still sees writing and recording new songs as an opportunity to expand his high-energy live show. He is currently in the midst of a short run with Cody Jinks, winning over some of the “Hippies and Cowboys” singer’s fans in the process. He also has fall dates on the books opening for Ella Langley, his duet partner on 2023’s “Beautiful Lies.”

But the latter half of 2025 will feature Usrey on his own headlining Bad Love Tour, named after a song on These Days. He’ll hit venues like Bowery Ballroom in New York and the 40 Watt Club in Athens, Georgia, and is also on the bill of ACL Fest in Austin.

Usrey describes himself as a “road dog” who’d still be playing 200 dates a year if his team would let him, but he says for all the excitement of releasing a new record, the payoff — for him — happens when he’s onstage.

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“I just want people to think it’s the best show they’ve been to,” Usrey says. “It sounds cocky, but that’s what I want: ‘Damn, that band’s fucking tight. He can sing.’”

Josh Crutchmer is a journalist and author whose latest books, Never Say Never and Red Dirt Unplugged are available via Back Lounge Publishing.