Mega Popular Stand Up Comic Retiring to "Take on Disney," Zach Bryan Honors Kerouac, Naval Academy Bans Popular Stoic Author (The Five for 05/09/25)
Plus, punk singer mixes his dad's ashes into vinyl release. Erich Church takes on the devil. "Prey" sequel looks brilliant.
Hey, welcome to The Five, a publication about the stories that matter, but don’t always make the front page.
It’s Friday, so let’s dive into Culture & Commentary.
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[one]
Are we reaching the end of stadium concerts?
From The Daily Mail (UK)
Beyonce has been ridiculed by music fans after tickets for her struggling Cowboy Carter tour hit a new low this week.
One user on X (formerly Twitter) claimed to have found resale tickets in the nosebleed section of the star's SoFi Stadium show in Los Angeles for as low as $20.
They then compared it to the cost of one of the limited edition Minecraft Movie Big Mac Meals from McDonald's, which was around the same price.
'Due to its low demand, Beyonce's Cowboy Carter Tour tickets ($20) are now cheaper than a McDonald's Minecraft meal ($21.39),' they wrote.
Another fan pointed out that some seats for the SoFi Stadium show were going for $27 at one point, although they have since increased to $37 for the cheapest seats.
'The Cowboy Carter tour starts in less than a week and there are still thousands of tickets left for opening night...' a third added.
However, loyal Beyonce fans have pushed back against the narrative that the Single Ladies hitmaker, 43, is struggling to sell tickets.
Many have pointed out that her 2023 Renaissance tour didn't initially sell out at first either.
But in the end, the show ended up selling out completely and became the highest-grossing tour from a Black artist in history.
'Wait till the tour starts, once those clips start dropping people will be flocking to get tickets I know it,' argued one fan.
'Where the f**k are you guys getting a McDonald’s minecraft meal for $21?? At mine it’s like $14,' added another.
Others pointed out that the cheap tickets are 'resale' tickets, and that Beyonce would've already made her money from full priced tickets.
Beyonce’s nearly flawless album run (according to her fans, I’m personally apathetic) was interrupted by the low streaming numbers and charting positions for Cowboy Carter, but she’s not the only one having this issue. Katy Perry, Linkin Park and Kesha are struggling to attract fans to stadium sized shows, slashing ticket prices.
Although this isn’t a data-backed study, here’s my gut instinct…and these can be true at the same time:
A). The economy is topsy-turvy. It might land OK, but consumer confidence appears to be wavering at the moment.
and…
B). Taylor Swift is kind of her own thing selling out stadium shows, and may represent the exception to the rule. But it’s entirely possible that people are listening to a greater number of artists, and distributing the same number of dollars across a wider variety of smaller artists’ tours and merch.
Personally, I’ve only seen one “stadium show” in my life—U2 at Chicago’s Soldier Field. I wound up watching the whole thing on massive screens. It was kinda cool…but also, not much different than seeing a DVD, in my opinion. As a veteran of a heck of a lot of concerts of less than 5,000 attendees, the stadium experience felt cold and impersonal.
As consumers’ music tastes continue to expand…it’s not surprising people are interested in concerts that give more experience for a lower ticket price.
[two]
This one takes some unpacking…but it’s pretty clear the political right is splitting apart right now over the Israel/Hamas war (somewhat) and antisemitism in general.
Jordan Peterson hasn’t said much about the former topic, but took veiled shots at Candace Owens on Fox News.
Well, I think the most important thing to do first is to draw a distinction between the political and the psychological and not to collapse them together. So imagine this, imagine that there's a group of individuals out 4% of the population who have a, who have a set of personality characteristics that have been described as dark tetrad.
So they're Machiavellian. They use their language to manipulate. They're narcissistic. They want unearned social status and reputation. They're psychopathic, which makes them free of empathy and parasitic and predatory, and they're sadistic, so they take positive delight in the unnecessary suffering of others.
Now, those people also use false cries of victimization, let's say, to manipulate, and they're entitled. They seek vengeance when it's unwarranted and they protest loudly and, and make very public cries for reparations that would be self-serving. Okay? Now, the way those people operate is they look for what patterns of belief form groups that they can infiltrate and then capitalize on.
And that happens on the right. We did a report, the same group, on the use of Christ as king as a manipulative strategy by bad actors, hypothetically on the right. And this report identified the same sort of people on the left, but it's not primarily political. There wolves in sheep's clothing who look for where there's power and value, and then adopt those beliefs, uh, as a surface camouflage so that they can elevate their moral status.
Owens responded, indirectly…if you’re not familiar with declared White Supremacist Nick Fuentes, we’ll unpack that below the quote.
Then they get to hide behind their shell and say, oh, no, no, no. Look. But also Nick Fuentes disagrees with it. So everyone disagrees with me is a is a a Hitler Nazi Fuentes person. It's a nonsense. It's an absolute nonsense because they don't have the courage. They're actually cowards. They do not have the courage to debate their ideas legitimately.
That is why it's a fallacies. 'cause they're basically trying to establish a boogeyman that says, Ooh, you can't think that too. Fuentes also thinks this, I'm not playing that game. So you can keep cutting clips of Nick Fuentes like Don Lemon did, like Pierce Morgan did. Do you disavow? Nope, buddy. I am not going to sit here and disavow someone that I've never been avowed to.
It's a nonsense. It's a game. It's a leftist tactic. If there is something that Nick Fuentes has said and you say, Candace, do you agree with this? I will happily disagree if I don't disagree, if I don't agree with it. Because that's what I always do. That's literally what I've made a career doing. I have, I have the courage to say, I don't agree with this person on that or this person on that.
I am I, but I also have the courage to say, yes, I agree with this person, that we should not be transing children, that we should not be doing this. And so I, I am just really tired of what I believe to be NeoCon cowardice when it comes to rationally debating their ideas. And I think it's because they don't think they can win on the basis of their ideas.
A few notes here…
Candace defended Fuentes declaring that “Jews” run Trump’s White House on The Grift Report podcast.
Fuentes, who is a Holocaust Denier (see here, here, here, but there are dozens of stories online with direct quotes) has praised Owens’ “full fledged war against the Jews.” Despite Fuentes being a pretty large presence online,
As a refresher into her intellect, Candace Owens claims she is “not a flat earther or a round earther.” So…what shape, Candace?
Candace Owens has consistently defended Kanye West through all of his insanity, and hasn’t distanced herself from the controversial rapper, despite Owens' pro traditional marriage/relationships views…and Ye’s gay incest with his cousin, or his latest song, “Heil Hitler” (released this week).
So, apparently in the woke right, you can be absolved your gay incest if you just praise the mustache man of WWII.
To hell with all of it. As a person on the political right, I’d rather lose every election than share any space with some of the dumbest people to ever find their way onto Twitter.
Peterson is correct to pick this fight.
P.S. Despite the title of the song, in context, it's possible that Kanye's latest song is not about loving Hitler, but about the public’s reaction to Kanye as a misunderstood artist.
Or maybe Kanye just really loves Hitler…
[three]
One of my favorite authors, Ryan Holiday, was uninvited from a speaking opportunity at the Naval Academy.
From The New York Times:
For the past four years, I have been delivering a series of lectures on the virtues of Stoicism to midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., and I was supposed to continue this on April 14 to the entire sophomore class on the theme of wisdom.
Roughly an hour before my talk was to begin, I received a call: Would I refrain from any mention in my remarks of the recent removal of 381 supposedly controversial books from the Nimitz library on campus? My slides had been sent up the chain of command at the school, which was now, as it was explained to me, extremely worried about reprisals if my talk appeared to flout Executive Order 14151 (“Ending Radical and Wasteful Government D.E.I. Programs and Preferencing”).
When I declined, my lecture — as well as a planned speech before the Navy football team, with which my books on Stoicism are popular — was canceled. (The academy “made a schedule change that aligns with its mission of preparing midshipmen for careers of service,” a Navy spokesperson told Times Opinion. “The Naval Academy is an apolitical institution.”)
Had I been allowed to go ahead, this is the story I was going to tell the class:
In the fall of 1961, a young naval officer named James Stockdale, a graduate of the Naval Academy and future Medal of Honor recipient who went on to be a vice admiral, began a course at Stanford he had eagerly anticipated on Marxist theory. “We read no criticisms of Marxism,” he recounted later, “only primary sources. All year we read the works of Marx and Lenin.”
It might seem unusual that the Navy would send Stockdale, then a 36-year-old fighter pilot, to get a master’s degree in the social sciences, but he knew why he was there. Writing home to his parents that year, he reminded them of a lesson they had instilled in him, “You really can’t do well competing against something you don’t understand as well as something you can.”
At the time, Marxism was not just an abstract academic subject, but the ideological foundation of America’s greatest geopolitical enemy. The stakes were high. The Soviets were pushing a vision of global Communism and the conflict in Vietnam was flashing hot, the North Vietnamese fueled by a ruthless mix of dogma and revolutionary zeal. “Marxism” was, like today, also a culture war boogeyman used by politicians and demagogues.
Just a few short years after completing his studies, in September 1965, Stockdale was shot down over Thanh Hoa in North Vietnam, and as he parachuted into what he knew would be imprisonment and possibly death, his mind turned to the philosophy of Epictetus, which he had been introduced to by a professor at Stanford.
He would spend the next seven years in various states of solitary confinement and enduring brutal torture. His captors, sensing perhaps his knowledge as a pilot of the “Gulf of Tonkin incident,” a manufactured confrontation with North Vietnamese forces that led to greater U.S. involvement in Vietnam, sought desperately to break him. Stockdale drew on the Stoicism of Epictetus, but he also leveraged his knowledge of the practices and the mind-set of his oppressors.
“In Hanoi, I understood more about Marxist theory than my interrogator did,” Stockdale explained. “I was able to say to that interrogator, ‘That’s not what Lenin said; you’re a deviationist.’”
There are, of course, two possibilities here:
A). The Navy staff really did fear repercussions from the Trump administration
or,
B). The Navy staff figured this would be a good way to make a point, and cancelled Ryan needlessly, to drive their own agenda.
Either way, it’s a shame the Navy football team missed out. I can’t recommend Ryan’s books highly enough (any and all of them). His podcast is also great.
[four]
One of the biggest comics in the world is stepping down from standup…to take on Disney.
Nate Bargatze graces the latest digital cover of Esquire magazine, where he speaks openly about his aspiration to become a new kind of Walt Disney figure for the everyman. The magazine asked the comedian for his inspirations. He listed comics like Jerry Seinfeld, Judd Apatow and Adam Sandler alongside Disney. Why the latter? Because Disney cared about his customers, Bargatze said. The comedian seems to think the company has not held onto that mission.
“Now Disney is run by a guy that’s just a businessman,” Bargatze said. “Well, that guy doesn’t care about the audience.”
Bargatze stressed that he cares about his audience because “none of this happens without them.” As his stand-up comedy career winds down (he’s planning to do only one or two more specials), Bargatze is laying the foundation to build a Disney-like empire with movies and TV shows, merchandising, books, podcasts and even a theme park in Nashville called Nateland that would be built on the site of the former Opryland theme park.
“I’ll be honest with you, I bet we’re closer than people think,” Bargatze told Esquire about his proposed theme park. “But it’s still a little bit of a ways off.”
Bargatze is gearing up to host the Emmy Awards later this year. He’s already a well-liked TV fixture thanks to his comedy specials and his acclaimed turns hosting “Saturday Night Live.” So what kind of TV will he start making himself? Don’t expect prestige.
“I did not watch ‘Succession,’” Bargatze said. “I know it’s the greatest show ever to exist. I’m not a moron. Everybody understands it’s the greatest show in the world. I want to watch it. This has nothing to do with the show. But no one watched it in the grand scheme of things.”
“Everybody has lives, everybody has kids, everybody has stuff to go do,” he continued. “They don’t want to sit and worship your art. There’s got to be a balance of appreciating ‘Succession’ and appreciating ‘King of Queens.’ Those worlds have to exist together. Now you have too many ‘Successions.’ There’s nothing that’s a palate cleanser.”
Slow. Clap. This is the same philosophy that I hold to when selecting media coverage for this publication. I might have enjoyed more “critically acclaimed” types of projects in the pre-parenthood stage of life, but now…I get maybe 2-3 hours of TV/movie screen time per week, and I’m not wasting it on some “acclaimed drama” that’s boring for 75% of its’ runtime.
As the Gen Z’ers say…let Bargatze cook. I want to see where this goes.
[five]
As always, let’s head into the weekend with a pop culture roundup:
[movies] Netflix is finally follow up one of their best original films. The Old Guard 2 drops 07/02. See the first trailer of Charleze Theron and her band of undying mercenaries. || Snoop Dogg will produce a series of movies about Death Row Records, with the first film being a biopic of his own life. || Anna Kendrick co-starred in The Accountant alongside Ben Affleck, but was notably absent from the sequel (in theaters now). However, the Pitch Perfect alum says she’s down to return for the trilogy film. || The next Yellowstone spinoff will follow Kayce.
[tv] Stranger Things is getting an animated spinoff Stranger Things: Tales From 85.
[music] Atlanta hip hop legends Outkast were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. || Three Doors Down canceled their summer tour after singer Brad Thomas was diagnosed with stage 4 kidney cancer. Thomas, a devout Christian, says he “has no fear.” || Zach Bryan signed a new deal worth $350 million, immediately purchased a building in Lowell, MA to build the “Jack Kerouac Center,” to honor the famed beat writer of the 1950’s.
The first teaser for Peacemaker season 2 notably features a crossover character from the upcoming Superman movie (Nathan Fillion’s Green Lantern Guy Gardner). John Cena & co return to HBO/Max in August.
And just like that…the Predator is the good guy. And the hunted. Out 11/07.
The star power is certainly here. Megann Fahy (The White Lotus, Drop), Millie Adcock (House of the Dragon), Kevin Bacon (Footloose, Mystic River), and Julianne Moore (Crazy. Stupid. Love., The Hunger Games) in some kind of rich people mystery. Could work.
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson looks unrecognizable as he reunites with his Jungle Cruise co-star Emily Blunt for a biopic about early MMA star Mark Kerr.
This is the first project from writer/director Benny Sadfie since Uncut Gems, enjoyed rave reviews from both critics and audiences (and turned Julia Fox into an influencer who just won’t go away…ugh).
The Smashing Machine is out October 3rd.
[new music]
Eric Church’s latest is already on my running list of best albums of 2025, after a week of listening. It’s pretty much a Christian project, which WhiskeyRiff reported on.
Start with “Johnny,” a sequel to “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.”
“There’s always this good versus evil element in everything we do. I think music has that. I think for me, being able to acknowledge that is kind of your job as a songwriter. You report where you are and where your emotions are, and you hope that lines up with where their emotions are.
Faith is a big part of my life, and it’s always been a big part of my life. And I think, for me, the most powerful thing about music is we can disagree on everything. We can disagree on politics. We can disagree on (whatever). But music is the one thing where it’s kind of a safe space.”
The Ataris had a pretty good run in the fertile pop punk years of the late 90’s and early aughts…but hadn’t done anything since 2007.
The Indiana quartet’s comeback single deals with singer singer Kristopher Roe losing his dad to alcoholism in 2014. The band made the…unconventional…move of mixing the ashes of William Charles Roe into the vinyl version of the 7” single, in memoriam and to raise money for alcohol treatment.
Until the next one,
-sth