Latest news with #Elons
Perth Now
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
Mike Myers went into depression when SNL sketches were cut
Mike Myers used to "go into a depression" if his sketches were cut from Saturday Night Live. The 62-year-old star was a writer on the comedy series from 1989 to 1995 and has made occasional appearances over the years since, and he hated the dress rehearsal before the live show because it left him feeling "nervous" and deeply unhappy if his skits didn't make it through to the final programme. He told Variety: "Dress rehearsal bums me out and I get nervous. Then if the sketch gets in, I'm like, 'OK!' I'm way more psyched that it got in, that I'm going to be in the show this week.' 'I used to go into a depression when my sketch got cut." However, the Austin Powers star learned a new perspective from Conan O'Brien, who was one of Saturday Night Live's writers from 1988 to 1991. He said: "Then one week, Conan had worked with a very, very hard host who had put him through the wringer. "Conan was just a mess and saw that a sketch was cut and he goes, 'Perfect. It's all going perfectly to plan.' It got a big laugh, and I was like, 'You can be that way? You don't have to be depressed?' "He taught me how to say, 'OK. It's not the end of the world.'' And Mike insisted he wouldn't have tried to fight for an axed sketch to be included. He said: 'Never. I have witnessed people try it. That's when I go invisible. Too much tension! The captain has spoken, move on.' But he has fought for certain jokes, though these days he'd go with the judgement of showrunner Lorne Michaels. He said: 'When I was younger as a writer, if Lorne Michaels asked, 'Do you think you can make that work?' I'd say, 'Yes, I think I can.' Whereas now I think I'd be more likely to say, 'If you're not sure, let's not!'' Mike returned to SNL for the 50th anniversary special earlier this year, and less than two weeks later, he made his first appearance on a regular episode in 10 years when he played Elon Musk in the cold opener. And the Wayne's World star is having "so much fun" playing the billionaire businessman. He said: 'It's so much fun. Colin [Jost] and the crew write the Elons, and all I do is I add a little this and a little that, and mostly, I cut. A lot of people don't like to cut. I love to cut. "If you've got eight jokes, three of them are OK and the five of them are strong, let's just go with the five! 'I've had so much fun doing it. When I did the 50th anniversary, I had a moment going, 'Do I know how to do this?' And I was like, 'Oh, of course, I know how to do this. I did this for six years.' "
New York Times
08-02-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Playing DOGE-ball With the Government
Tom Stoppard wrote in 'The Real Thing,' his enticing play about infidelity: 'To marry one actress is unfortunate. To marry two is simply asking for it.' Here's a political corollary: To elect one Emperor of Chaos is unfortunate. To let two run the government is simply asking for it. Presidents Trump and Musk have merged their cult followings, attention addictions, conspiratorial mind-sets, disinformation artistry, disdain for the Constitution, talent for apocalyptic marketing and jumping-from-thing-to-thing styles. With a pitiless and mindless velocity, they are running roughshod over the government — and the globe. Queasy D.C. denizens are waiting anxiously to see if judges can save the country from the scofflaws running it. The two unchecked and unbalanced billionaires are entwined in a heady and earth-shattering relationship. 'I love @realDonaldTrump as much as a straight man can love another man,' Musk posted on X on Friday. He may simply be offering affection to ward off any jealousy Trump felt when he saw Time's new cover illustration: Musk in the Oval behind the Resolute Desk. Elon Musk is brainy but he's not your usual presidential brain trust. Although everyone in Washington, including some in Trump's inner circle, expect the two pathological narcissists to barrel into each other, they both seem to be getting what they want from the relationship. Trump loves to be admired by the elites, and he adores money. Musk has gotten the keys to the American kingdom so he can attack 'the woke mind virus,' which Musk says 'killed' his 'son,' who transitioned as a teenager. Both men are driven by revenge to smash up the government. The president and the tech lord even have progeny, little Elons: the lost boys of DOGE, a gang of Gen-Zers in jeans with backpacks and bags of Doritos bursting into federal agencies to gut them and force bureaucrats to justify their existence. Their backgrounds and work are shrouded in secrecy, even as they access the government's most sensitive information. 'Muskrats,' as the bureaucrats they call 'dinosaurs' named them, are rifling the government's computers. A 19-year-old with the internet pseudonym 'Big Balls' lost an earlier internship for leaking company secrets; a 25-year-old was ousted over racist posts. He wrote on X, 'I was racist before it was cool,' and 'You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity,' and 'Normalize Indian hate.' Even though he is married to an Indian American, Vice President JD Vance rescued the 'kid,' as he called him, and helped him get his job back. It's not that we don't need to rein in spending, including what is spent on risibly P.C. programs. But the disdain for Congress and the rule of law, and the glee at erasing so many jobs and programs, as if there is no human cost, is reprehensible. We are, after all, only carbon-based beings. The lost boys of DOGE fit in well with the 'Mean Girls' attitude of Trump's Washington. On Friday, the DOGE X account posted before-and-after pictures of the U.S. Agency for International Development entrance; they had stripped it of all identification. Their post even trolled Kamala Harris, using her viral phrase: 'Unburdened by what has been.' The Silicon Valley digerati don't care about the old world in Washington, D.C., churning out meddlesome regulations, laws and taxes. They are cocky about creating a new world, shaped by a new species, A.I. Donald and Elon are emotional time bombs, lashing out in the crudest and cruelest ways. Trump's amoral, puerile, wrecking-ball style is now squared by Musk's. It's rich that the world's richest man is rooting around trying to wipe out vast numbers of government workers, saying, 'Sorry, you can't have your $85,000 a year job and your health insurance.' 'They don't care if the government delivers food or comes in and rescues your town from a flood or teaches poor kids in the inner city because they don't have to live through any of those things themselves,' said the Trump biographer Tim O'Brien. 'They're rich and powerful, so they're insulated from consequences of their actions.' Trump cares about being popular and Musk doesn't. So their relationship will probably remain strong until Elon cuts so many benefits from the Trump faithful that they tell Trump they no longer love him. And the bromance may not end with a bang. It could very well end with a bot. When Trump turns 80, as a birthday present, Elon and the lost boys could create an A.I.-fueled Trump bot, a real-time video head trained on his news conferences and everything he has ever tweeted. Jaron Lanier, the father of virtual reality, slyly says that Trump would be 'an unusually easy person to plausibly fake.' 'Gradually it'll be normalized,' Lanier told me. 'People will get used to it more and more, and then it'll actually start to be treated as the president. If you look at it on your phone or your computer, it would look just like him. The underlying software could be presented as a hologram onstage. It might even run in the next election. And they'll go to the Supreme Court and say, 'We know that the president can only have two terms, but this isn't really the president. This is the Trump bot and A.I.s are people, too.' Essentially allowing a continuation of the same administration into a third term.' All Hail President Trump Bot, engineered by Elon Musk.
