Documentary Details the Early Struggles of Famous Bands

 

When you hear the phrase “rock star,” it probably brings to mind impressive stage shows, private jets, and lavish backstage spreads.

And for legacy rock bands like U2, Aerosmith, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, that’s undoubtedly true. But a new documentary, directed by Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters, looks back at those bands’ humble beginnings.

It’s called What Drives Us, and at first glance, it’s a documentary about touring; about what it’s like for four-plus people to live out of a van that also has to fit all of your equipment. But it’s also about what drove these bands to push past those struggles, and what inspired them to pursue a career in music in the first place.

You hear, for example, about (Chili Peppers’ bassist) Flea taking up the trumpet as a kid because it kept him out of the house, and away from his abusive stepdad. And AC/DC’s Brian Johnson explains that there were just two ways out of the small English town he was born in: either you were good enough to play pro soccer, or you became a musician.

What Drives Us covers a lot of ground. There are interviews with Ringo Starr, with Lars Ulrigh of Metallica, with Slash and Duff McKagan of Guns ‘N Roses – plus about a dozen other bands ranging from No Doubt to post-hardcore band Fugazi. And the always-reflective Grohl does a nice job of tying all these stories together.

“There’s no guarantee that it will ever pay off,” he says about crossing the country and playing shows every night. “The reward has to be the experience.”

Finding the Lessons in Losing $75 million

 

You might not recognize the name Justin Kan, but you’d likely recognize his website. Kan was a co-founder of Twitch, which grew to become the number one gaming website in the world. Not only does Twitch have massive cultural reach – everyone from pro athletes to Snoop Dogg have hosted Twitch streams – it was also very profitable for Kan, selling to Amazon in 2015 for almost $1 billion.

Kan’s next project was Atrium, a startup that was part law firm and part software company. (The idea was to create software that would make life easier for Atrium’s in-house legal team, allowing them to work more efficiently and therefore offer their services at a lower rate.) And after Kan’s success with Twitch, investors were eager to get on board: Atrium secured $75.5 million in funding.

Thirty-six months later, Atrium was shutting its doors, and returning what was left of that money to investors. More than a year after making that decision, Kan posted a sort of video confessional that explains what went wrong. “People love talking about success,” he wrote on Twitter, “but today I’m going to talk about failure.”

Kan walks us through why Atrium failed, and it is a laundry list of reasons: the company hired too fast, they never really figured out who Atrium was for, and there were problems with the culture inside the company. Above all, says Kan, “My co-founders did not feel particularly supported. And I think in a lot of ways, I didn’t set them up for success.”

He goes on to detail the cost of what happened: not in terms of dollars but in terms of his relationships with the people around him. He talks about the lost friendships; about having to lay off his 100-or-so employees; and about “doing wrong” by his investors and customers.

Kan’s confessional offers so many reminders about the right way to do things. And although he made the video with other startup founders in mind, he says that the lessons he learned are universal. “No matter what it is — no matter how difficult — you can get through it if you just take it one step at a time, and really let yourself be present in the experience.”

Judge Gives Teen Drug Dealer Second Chance, Swears Him In As a Lawyer 16 Years Later

 

In 2005, Michigan judge Bruce Morrow gave a 17-year-old a second chance. Edward Martell had been arrested for making and selling crack cocaine and faced a 20-year prison sentence. But instead of making Martell serve time, Judge Morrow decided to be lenient. He gave Martell three years of probation, and — partly in jest — challenged him to become a CEO.

Martell took that second chance to heart. After serving his probation and earning his GED, he decided to pursue a career in law. And — despite starting as a high school dropout, and staring down 20 years behind bars — Martell was recently sworn into the Michigan Bar.

At no point was it easy. Martell enrolled in Wayne County Community College and was laughed at when he told them that he wanted to study law. “They said with your background, you should go into heating and cooling,” Martell told Deadline Detroit.

He ignored that advice, and three years later he’d earned a full scholarship at the University of Detroit Mercy to study pre-law. Four years after that, he gained entrance into Detroit Mercy’s law school.

Still, a career in law was no guarantee. Martell worried that his criminal record might disqualify him from the State Bar of Michigan, which requires applicants to pass a character and fitness review. “I was chasing a dream with no guarantees,” Martell admits.

But — in part because of testimony from Judge Morrow — Martell did pass the character review. And in May, he was sworn into the Michigan Bar by Morrow himself.

“I think my testimony may provide some of these young men and women with some motivation,” Martell said, referring to his potential future clients. “You plant a seed, and hope it will grow.”

Cleopatra Borel on The Death (And Revival) of her Olympic Dream

 

Most athletes know, at a young age, that competing at the highest level is their ultimate goal. And when we hear stories about how an athlete made it, those stories are often about unwavering determination; about never backing down from that dream, no matter the obstacles.

This is not one of those stories. Because at one point, Cleopatra Borel did give up on her dream.

 

 

Borel’s dream was to represent her country, Trinidad and Tobago, at the Olympics. She told a TedX audience about being captivated by the Games as a kid but having to root for her Caribbean neighbours like Cuba and Jamaica. “I was always disappointed that we didn’t have athletes from Trinidad and Tobago on my television.”

Borel decided that if she wanted her country represented at the Olympics, she would need to become an Olympic athlete herself. It was a noble pursuit. But she quickly realized that her small town of Mayaro didn’t have the resources to support that dream, and as high school ended she waved the white flag. She decided to head to the U.S., and go to school for physical therapy.

That might have been where her story ended, were it not for a stroke of terrible luck. She found out that her housing agent in Trinidad had been stealing her money, and that she was weeks away from being evicted. “The possibility of losing everything gave me the courage to reach for the one thing I really wanted: to be a track and field athlete.”

To hear Borel tell it, she marched straight into the track coach’s office and secured a spot on the university’s track team. And less than five years later, her dream of representing her country came true: she went to the 2004 Olympics in Greece, and to the next three Games as well.

Borel says that, of the changes she made to achieve her dream, one stands out above the rest: being true to her authentic self. She talks about her role models: the 6-foot-tall, built-like-a-bank-truck European women who were shot put champions before her. And she admits that she used to try to mimic them at competitions, right down to the perma-scowl that many of them wore.

“That took so much energy, I was so stressed. I was trying to be like the best in the world, but I could only be the best Cleo that I could be,” she explained.

“The day I gave up that charade, and I learned to be myself, is the day I truly became a champion.”

How Damian Lillard Became Basketball’s Best Clutch Shooter

 

There are few plays in sports as exciting as a buzzer-beater in basketball. And there are few players in basketball who have hit as many buzzer-beaters as Damian Lillard.

Lillard’s late-game heroics are already the stuff of legend. There’s even a phrase for it: Dame Time. Time and again, Lillard is able to bend the last minutes of the fourth quarter to his will.

 

 

This season alone, Lillard has seven (seven!) shots that either tied the game or gave his team the lead in the final minute. And when it comes to clutch scoring (points scored in the last 5 minutes of a five-point game), he leads the league with 162 points.

Any discussion about clutch players tends to sound almost mystical: like scoring with the game on the line is possible because of some innate, unknowable energy. So credit to Paolo Uggetti at The Ringer, who dissected exactly how Lillard is able to hit those game-changing daggers.

In short: he puts in the work. Not only does Dame shoot up to 300 3-pointers at every practice, he also shoots them in every way imaginable — including with his feet planted on the floor, to improve his core strength. He also works every offseason to expand his range. “The best way to prepare for [those clutch moments] is to know that you’re giving yourself the best chance to be successful,” Lillard told The Ringer. “When it comes to the end of the game, I feel like I can lean on my training more than most people.”

Maybe putting up 300 3s — and doing so multiple times a week — isn’t doable for everybody. But what you can replicate is Lillard’s mentality on the practice court. His coach at Oakland High, Orlando Watkins, summarizes it like this: “There’s no need to be in here for three hours and only do 20 minutes of real work. Just go hard for an hour, go hard for 30 minutes, and then get up out of here, because there’s no need to fake it.”

Mickelson Becomes Oldest Golfer to Win a Major

 

At 50, most professional athletes are retired. In fact at 50, most athletes have been retired for more than a decade.

Golf, of course, is different. Golfers routinely play into their 40s, and then at 50, they become eligible for the Champions Tour. A golf career never really dies.

So maybe it doesn’t sound all that impressive that 50-year-old Phil Mickelson won the PGA Championship on May 23. But consider that, of the top 160 earners on the PGA Tour this year, just two — Mickelson and Steve Stricker — are older than 50. Also, consider that Mickelson hasn’t won a Major Championship since 2013. Golfers on the tour might compete into their 40s and 50s, but it’s rare that they’re competitive.

And Mickelson didn’t just stumble into a victory. As he approached 50, he decided to commit to a healthier diet; something he had never really done before. “I wasn’t educated,” Phil told GOLF in 2020. “I either wasn’t aware or didn’t want to know the things I was putting in my body.”

 

 

The change in diet led to significant weight loss, and to a stronger, healthier Phil. And while the physical improvement is important — he’s hitting the ball as hard and as far as the younger players he’s competing against — Mickelson has also made some mental adjustments. In fact, he credited his win to the meditation he’s been doing, and to playing 36+ hole practice sessions that he says lengthen his attention span.

Mickelson could have chosen the relative anonymity of the Champions Tour, but it’s clear that he wanted something more. What’s also now clear is that he still has the drive and the work ethic — at 50 years old, no less — to keep pace with the best in the world.

Software CEO is Helping Americans Manage Their Debt

 

Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins knows what it’s like to worry about money. She comes from a family that struggled financially and remembers the stigma of growing up in poverty.

And she tells Forbes columnist Pauleanna Reid that she could never understand why technology wasn’t helping to level the playing field for the working class: “I thought, ‘How could something that is so clearly taking over—something so forceful—have such a negative impact on so many people?’ ”

Ellis-Lamkins is now working to change that. She isn’t some billionaire philanthropist who can wipe out people’s debts. But her software company, Promise, is working with utilities and government agencies to provide more flexible payment options for people who are behind on their bills.

“For me, it was taking shame out of poverty, giving people dignity, making sure people had grace,” she told Reid. Her software helps people avoid utility shut-offs, license revocations, and even jail time. And in a year when so many lost their jobs to the pandemic, Promise has been more important than ever.

“We believe that people want to pay their rent. They want to have water. The job is to create systems that work for them.”

J.Cole Makes Pro Basketball Debut in Africa

 

Imagine making your pro basketball debut at 36. Now imagine making that debut after not having played a meaningful basketball game in more than a decade.

Rapper J.Cole did exactly that when he stepped onto the court with Basketball Africa League’s Rwanda Patriots earlier this month. Cole, who is playing under his real name Jermaine Cole, did play in high school, and nearly made his college team as a walk-on. But he hasn’t played competitively since, and he made his debut at an age when most players are winding down their careers — or already retired.

Cole’s debut wasn’t jaw-dropping, but by most accounts, he held his own: three points, three rebounds, and two assists in 17 minutes. And the Basketball Africa League might not be the G League — in fact, this is BAL’s inaugural season — but it was co-founded by the NBA and FIBA. The competition is legitimate.

It’s easy to view all this as a promotional stunt. Not only does the BAL get media attention during its first-ever season, but Cole just dropped a record — the cover of which has him standing in front of a flaming basketball net, no less.

But the reality is that all of this could backfire. Already, people are taking delight in watching Cole fail: he put up 0 points in his second game with the Patriots, and it prompted some sports blogs to highlight his misses. And as a guy who consistently name-drops NBA players, you can bet that Cole doesn’t want to be known as the guy who couldn’t make a 3.

So why do this, then, beyond a momentary bump in publicity? It might be about righting past wrongs. In a recent documentary, Cole talked about the early days of his music career, and how a couple of friends held a mini-intervention to tell him that he wasn’t working hard enough. “It made me think about basketball, why I didn’t make it at basketball,” Cole says. “Because I wasn’t f****** working.”

He says the intervention sobered him up, and completely changed his work ethic. It’s led to a dream career in music, and — now — a chance to rewrite his basketball past.

Kobe Bryant on Playing the Long Game

Kobe dunking at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing

 

Kobe Bryant was one of the great ones. And what’s telling about Kobe is that his legacy is more than just basketball. When people talk about him, it’s not just: Hey, remember that 80-point game? It’s also: He was such a great father.

In January, one year after his death, we saw players and broadcasters honour Bryant’s memory. We saw highlight reels, saw clips of Kobe with the Larry O’Brien trophy, and saw footage of him with his daughter Gianna. Those parts of Kobe will always be front and center. But let’s not forget how he got there; how he became the player – and the man – that the basketball world so admired.

Some of that is contained within the pages of The Mamba Mentality, Bryant’s account of how he played – and prepared for – the game of basketball. But in a 2019 interview with Patrick Bet-David, he talks candidly about his journey to the NBA, and about how his approach to the game was present even at 13 years old.

“When I’d play, I’d play to my weaknesses,” Kobe says about playing summer ball as a teenager. “When you’re playing in competition situations, you’re only playing to your strengths. Why? Because you want to win … I would work on the things during those [summer] games that I was weak at.”

 

 

He also talks about failure: about throwing up four airballs, as a rookie, in Game 6 of a series against the Utah Jazz. He says that he turned his attention almost immediately to why he missed those shots, namely that he was one year removed from high school, and from playing just 35 games in a season. He didn’t have the legs – and didn’t have the stamina – to compete at a high level over 82 games and two playoff series.

“I gotta get stronger, I gotta train differently,” Bryant recognized. “I look at it with rationale. Okay, well, the reason why I shot airballs is ’cause my legs aren’t there. Well, next year they’ll be there.”

That commitment to self-evaluation, and to fixing the holes in his game, led him to five NBA titles. But in 2013, Kobe faced a challenge he wasn’t sure he wanted to overcome. In a game against Golden State, he tore his achilles. He was 34. He had those five titles under his belt, and it looked unlikely that he’d get a shot at another one. Maybe it was time to hang ’em up.

Of course, just eight months later (and four months ahead of schedule) Kobe was back on a basketball court. And he says the decision to fight his way back was a decision he made for his kids.

 

 

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“As a parent, you gotta set the example,” he explains to Bet-David. “This is another obstacle. This obstacle cannot define me. It’s not going to cripple me. It’s not going to be responsible for me stepping away from the game that I love. I’m going to step away on my own terms.”

Bryant did step away on his own terms. And as much as he inspired his daughters, his story – and his Mamba Mentality – have helped inspire the great young players in the game today.

 

Cambridge Veterinarian Saves a Tiger’s Eye

 

A veterinarian in England performed a ‘world-first’ surgery to heal an ulcerated cornea on the eye of a tiger.

The 17-year-old Sumatran tiger Ratna is now fully recovered at her home in Shepreth Wildlife Park, after an operation on her left eye that successfully restored her eyesight. The surgery was performed by Dr. David Williams, from Queen’s Veterinary School Hospital at the University of Cambridge.

Back in 2017, Ratna had a cataract removed from her left eye, but then developed a corneal ulcer. Williams suggested that the ulcer could have been caused by something as innocent as Ratna poking her eye against a stick of bamboo. But whatever the cause, Ratna’s eye “was a horrendous mess,” and her trainers observed that it had affected her coordination.

The operation performed on Ratna is commonly performed on domestic cats and dogs, and Williams completed it the same way he would have on smaller animals. But being a bigger cat, Ratna needed “a lot more anaesthetic.”

 


It is believed to be the world’s first hood graft procedure on a big cat. The operation involves covering the cornea with a flap of the conjunctiva — the pink part of the eye. Covering the cornea allows it to heal.

Two months after the surgery, Ratna is doing well. Williams says that between the earlier cataract surgery and the more recent corneal ulcer, the tiger will never fully regain the vision in her left eye. But her coordination has returned, the pain of the ulcer is gone, and Williams told the BBC that Ratna is “absolutely fine; you’d never know anything had been wrong.”