Matt Labash

Last updated
Matt Labash
Born
United States
Occupation(s)Writer, journalist

Matthew John "Matt" Labash (born 1970 or 1971) [1] is an American author and journalist who writes the Slack Tide newsletter. He was a senior writer, and later a national correspondent at The Weekly Standard , where his articles frequently appeared. Labash has contributed to Esquire, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Salon, Slate, Washingtonian, The New Republic, The Drake (A fly fishing magazine), and Nerve Magazine.

Contents

Labash specializes in long-form, humorous reportage. Many of his pieces are profiles, often of crooked and disgraced politicians; others are accounts of offbeat conferences or portraits of cities on the skids, such as Detroit and New Orleans. In 2010, Simon & Schuster published a collection of his pieces entitled Fly Fishing with Darth Vader: and Other Adventures with Evangelical Wrestlers, Political Hitmen, and Jewish Cowboys.

Early life and education

His father was an officer in the U.S. Air Force, and Labash lived some of his childhood years in Germany. [1] He has described himself as a "military brat." [2]

He attended Mount Olive Lutheran School in San Antonio from 1974 to 1979; Hahn Elementary School on Hahn Air Force Base from 1979 to 1980; and Gateway Christian High School in San Antonio from 1982 to 1986. He studied journalism at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, New Mexico, graduating in 1993. [3]

Career

Slack Tide

In October, 2021, Labash launched a Substack newsletter called "Slack Tide." The newsletter, which comes out once to twice a week, requires a subscription, though some posts are free to the public. Labash describes the newsletter as being "about life and politics and culture and fly fishing and God and whatever else comes, not necessarily in that order." [4]

Early career

He has said that his first job was at "a pool snack bar at the Andrews AFB Officer's Club." [2] Before joining The Weekly Standard in 1995, Labash worked for the Albuquerque Monthly, Washingtonian magazine, and The American Spectator .

Weekly Standard

Labash wrote for the Weekly Standard since its founding in 1995. [2] His first article for the magazine appeared in its issue of September 18, 1995. [5]

He wrote two general types of pieces for the Weekly Standard – pieces for the magazine's website that "are a lot riff-ier, and pop-culture-y and you can polish it off in a day or two," and pieces for the print magazine that require him to "go see the world and find an interesting nook and cranny... I like to find little undiscovered pockets or subjects or interesting people and just ride them into the ground. Things I know other people aren't going to get at." [6] He has said that he profiles men "who are not quite in control of their own appetites, who live a little bit larger, so we don't have to." [7]

Labash has profiled scores of people for the Standard, including his friend and colleague Christopher Hitchens, [8] politician James Traficant (whom he called "the most colorful man who ever inhabited Congress"), [9] CNN reporter Anderson Cooper (of whom he has stated "now all journalistic history is divided into two periods: BAC and AAC. Before Anderson Cooper and After"), [10] filmmaker Michael Moore ("a Ritz-Carlton revolutionary...the entertainment world's Jesse Jackson, a migratory Mau-Mauist showing up at corporations to demand concessions that will ultimately benefit him, leaving companies a choice between throwing him a bone and risking public humiliation"), [11] and celebrity lawyer William Kunstler ("Defender of Stalinists, all-around press hound, and guest star on TV's Law and Order"). [5]

He reported that the 1995 National Conference on Political Assassinations was attended by "fine, friendly folk...from lonely burgs in the Rust and Cheese Belts" who "left behind practices and jobs and bughouses and militia recruiting offices to spend a long weekend in a whirlpool of scholarship, muckraking, and paranoia with the ambience of a 30-year chess club reunion gone deeply, seriously awry." [12] He recounted his "bourbon tour of Kentucky" [13] and reported on the Whiteness Project, "an 'interactive documentary short' brought to us by acclaimed documentary filmmaker Whitney Dow," [14]

He also reported from Kuwait during the Iraq War. "I was embedded at the resort Hilton in Kuwait," he wrote. "I donned a chemical suit about nine or ten times a day. The alarm kept going off in our hotel. This was back when we thought Saddam had chemical weapons and was willing to use them." [6] Also, he wrote about the death of his friend and colleague Andrew Breitbart, whom he memorialized as "a partisan warrior and a guerrilla theater aficionado – half right wing Yippie, half Andy Kaufman.... Breitbart had the brains, the talent, and the animal charisma to get people to set cars on fire for him, or to run off with him to the desert where he might start his own anti-Obama doomsday cult. But while he believed in what he espoused, perhaps a little too much, he was also in it for other reasons – for action, and for amusement. He didn't just hit scandal head-on. He enjoyed coming at it slyly. He gloried in the art of presentation." [15]

Labash deliberately does not use Facebook or Twitter, and has written lengthy essays attacking both of these popular social media sites. In his May 2013 article about Twitter, he stated, "I outright despise the inescapable microblogging service, which nudges its users to leave no thought unexpressed, except for the fully formed ones....I hate the way Twitter transforms the written word into abbreviations and hieroglyphics, the staccato bursts of emptiness that occur when Twidiots who have no business writing for public consumption squeeze themselves into 140-character cement shoes. People used to write more intelligently than they speak. Now, a scary majority tend to speak more intelligently than they tweet.....I hate that formerly respectable adults now think it's okay to go at each other like spray-tanned girls on Jersey Shore, who start windmill-slapping each other after they've each had double-digit cherry vodkas and one calls the other "fat." [16]

Labash has occasionally departed from the Weekly Standard's perceived political positions. He once stated, "I was sour on the war (in Iraq) when many, many of our neoliberal friends were still something close to cheerleaders....I just never understood what was in it for America to get bogged down there for the better part of a decade. Still don't. I thought it was a bad play." [17] Bush, he said in 2004, "has spent the better part of a year and a half painting smiley faces on Iraq, when it is still a festering sore, to put it charitably." [18]

Labash mocked Sarah Palin in a 2010 piece about her reality TV show, noting that despite her assertion that she loves Alaska "like I love my family," except that Palin "didn't give her family up after governing it for two-and-a-half years, so that she could get a Fox News contract, and make 100 grand per speech, and write two books in a year, and drag her entire family onto a tacky reality show." He added: "one could see how Karl Rove... has a point when suggesting that the American people might expect 'a certain level of gravitas' in someone who's considering running for president, and that starring in your own reality show might not be the ticket." [19]

By way of explaining the Standard's tolerance for his ideological deviation, he said in an interview with Esquire: "it's called diversity of opinion. There is such a thing at the same magazine, believe it or not." Apropos of Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, Labash added: "My opinions often aren't his, and his often aren't mine. That's why my byline runs over my work, and his byline runs over his." [17] He expanded on these observations in another interview: "I work in the right-wing world, but we have a good understanding at the magazine that everyone gets to follow their interests and eccentricities. Our editors... give us a lot of writerly freedom. I'm less interested in scoring ideological points than in finding good stories. Good stories shouldn't have to conform to some predetermined formula." [6]

Other journalism

Labash has written for the Wall Street Journal, [20] Salon, [21] and Slate. [22]

He contributed to the 2014 anthology The Seven Deadly Virtues: 18 Conservative Writers on Why the Virtuous Life is Funny as Hell, edited by Jonathan V. Last, which was described by the publisher as "a hilarious, insightful, sanctimony-free remix of William Bennett's The Book of Virtues—without parental controls." Other contributors include Christopher Buckley, Christopher Caldwell, Andrew Ferguson, Rob Long, P. J. O'Rourke, and Joe Queenan. [23]

Labash writes occasionally for Nerve.com and Nerve magazine, which, he said, "prides itself as a literary smut magazine. They're good people. I like them and they like me and we both like sex. I'm sort of the house prude and the pet reactionary. It strikes me when I'm doing it. They actually hire a guy like me to react against sex because it's impossible to shock people with sex these days." [6]

Fly Fishing with Darth Vader

In 2010, a collection of Labash essays from the Standard, Fly Fishing with Darth Vader: and Other Adventures with Evangelical Wrestlers, Political Hitmen, and Jewish Cowboys, was published by Simon & Schuster. The articles ranged from profiles of politicians, ranging from then-Vice Pres. Richard B. Cheney to former Ohio Rep. James Traficant, and American cities such as Detroit, Michigan and New Orleans, Louisiana, to personal opinion-related pieces on such issues as US-Canada relations, physical education, and Facebook.

The book received wide acclaim. "Labash takes readers to the fringes in his portraits of people and places outside the mainstream and, very often, beyond our ken," wrote Publishers Weekly. "His subjects are outlandish and unforgettable....His profiles of disgraced former Washington, D.C., mayor Marion Barry, corrupt former Louisiana governor Edwin Edwards, Rev. Al Sharpton, and Vice President Dick Cheney stand out for their affecting portrayals of the humanity behind the larger-than-life personas." [24] The review in Booklist stated: "Whatever their politics, readers will appreciate Labash's energetic style and biting insights." [25]

Describing Labash as "one of the most consistently entertaining magazine writers today," Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic praised his "innate sympathy for scoundrels," saying that "he brings them to life like no other journalist today." Goldberg called Fly Fishing with Darth Vader "the funniest book of the year." [26] David Carr of the New York Times called Labash "the king of hang time, insinuating himself into a subject's world — remember immersion journalism? — and then writing those encounters up in all their rococo glory." Describing Labash as "one of the absolute greatest magazine writers in America" and calling Fly Fishing with Darth Vader "exceptionally good," The reviewer for Esquire wrote that "Every now and then, a collection of remarkable stories from a magazine writer has the effect of unleashing a significant new voice on an unsuspecting public. Tom Wolfe's Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby comes to mind. And so it is with Matt Labash's wonderful Fly Fishing with Darth Vader." [17]

Emily Bazelon of Slate described the book as "a collection of inflated egos, delicately punctured. You can hear the hiss as the air goes out of Dick Cheney, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Al Sharpton, Marion Barry, and Roger Stone. At the same time, you'll also come away with some sympathy for these men, or at least their foibles." [27]

"In a just world," wrote Mark Lasswell in a review of the book for The Wall Street Journal, "Matt Labash would be celebrated as the heir to Tom Wolfe, Hunter Thompson and other writers in the 1960s and 1970s who were corralled under the rubric of 'new journalism'.....Like the best of the new-journalism practitioners, Mr. Labash inhabits a story so thoroughly that readers feel as if they're at his side, seeing events with his sharp eye, privy to his wisecracks, savoring moments when he reels in what feels like the truth." Lasswell noted that "Labash specializes in going after catfish of the human variety: the unpopular, the no-hopers, the has-beens and the rogues." While Labash "doesn't pull his punches" in such pieces as his profile of former Washington mayor Marion Barry, "he succeeds in producing an affecting portrait of a rapscallion in twilight.... the deep satisfaction of finishing a story and feeling that it couldn't have been told better." [28]

The magazine First Things, in its review of Fly Fishing with Darth Vader, stated that comparisons to Hunter S. Thompson and P.J. O'Rourke don't "do justice to the deeply sympathetic twist" in Labash's voice. "The Weekly Standard senior writer intercuts biting analysis of America's declining fortunes with juicy, hilarious portraits of its damaged politicians, and somehow manages to humanize even the most inhuman among us....Unlike his first-person-possessed New Journalism forebears, Labash subordinates his own tough-guy persona in favor of the absurdities in his notes. At heart, he's a highly skilled reporter who prefers a powerful quotation to a self-absorbed reference – realizing, correctly, that a writer can convey a point of view without turning the spotlight on the process but, rather, on its rewards. By targeting his sensibilities on the fringe figures of American politics, Labash performs a valuable public service even as he establishes himself as one of the top writers of his generation." [29]

Deepak Chopra lawsuit

Labash was sued by New Age author Deepak Chopra, after Labash wrote an article in the July 1, 1996 issue of the Standard exposing alleged inconsistencies between the healthy, moral lifestyle advocated by Chopra and his real-life conduct. Included in the exposé were accounts from call girls, substantiated by credit card receipts, purportedly indicating that Chopra had paid for their services. The article also delved into allegations that a Chopra book plagiarized the writing of others and that Chopra sold mail-order herbal remedies containing high amounts of rodent hairs. According to an article in The Columbia Journalism Review (CJR), the Standard went to "unusual lengths" to document the accusations against Chopra, but it nonetheless eventually settled with Chopra for an undisclosed sum and issued a complete retraction. [30]

Some court records brought out the fact that Labash had tape recorded some interviewees without telling them, sometimes from his home in Maryland, where surreptitious taping is a felony. In a court brief, one of Chopra's lawyers, William Bradford Reynolds, a Reagan administration Justice Department official, described Labash as a "brash young 25-year-old cub reporter." Libel experts said the information revealed in court records indicated that it would be difficult to prove the Standard had acted with "actual malice" but that juries were unpredictable. [30] The Standard was at the time owned by billionaire Rupert Murdoch through News Corp.

Political views

In late 2007, Labash described his politics and astrology sign: "Politically, I'm not terribly complicated. I regard myself as a fiscal and social conservative with strong libertarian overtones. Turn-ons include low taxes, balanced budgets, and a robust military. Turn-offs include waging unwinnable wars, government intervention, and mean people." [31]

He has stated "At the polls, I vote my conscience—no easy feat, as I haven't had one since around 1997." [32]

Views on journalism

Labash has summed up his philosophy of reporting as follows: "The best details always come when you think you already know everything." [2] "I subscribe to Thoreau's philosophy: 'Simplify, simplify.' Or as we true minimalists say: 'Simplify.'" [33]

He has facetiously stated: "I don't talk to Real People often if I can help it, as they tend to confuse the emerging media narrative with their common sense, consistency, and almost touching naïveté." [34]

"Being the prescriptive village pronouncer isn't my bag," he told Esquire. "In fact, I design my entire life so that I don't do that kind of writing. Everybody wants to pronounce, not everybody wants to weave tales, which takes a lot more work, on average. So I'd much prefer to go hang out with Kinky Friedman and write a character study, as my book bears out." [17]

"Journalism," Labash has said, "is definitely like psychotherapy. When you successfully get into a subject's head, you're their priest, their best friend, their spouse, their bartender, their shrink. They end up telling you, a stranger, things they often don't tell the people they know best. And you know why? Because you asked." [35]

"I get surprised by something almost every story," he has said. "In fact, I live for those surprises. That's the best part." [35]

"If I were teaching a journalism class, I'd tell students to be a human being first, and a journalist second," he has said. "Because even if you're a cold bastard, you get better stuff. Respond to people as you would respond to them naturally, not just as a "journalist" would respond. That's important, since most people think journalists are assholes, which is not without some justification. Most subjects though, at least the ones I often write about, tend to be kind of lonely. Even and especially the famous and quasi-famous. So when you become their friend – in the artificial way journalists and subjects become friends – you're halfway there. And sometimes you even stay friends after. Most people just want to be understood. And all people like talking about themselves." [35]

On New York Times fabulist Jayson Blair: "It's a pretty ballsy thing to be filing stories from places you've never been. I felt like I was there when Jayson Blair was writing. Unfortunately he wasn't." [6]

On his writing process: "I don't do drafts. I edit as I go along. So I'm always throwing stuff out. And then when I finish, I read and read and re-read. I do so at the computer about 10 or 15 times, all the way through, hammering things out here and there. Then when I have it pretty close, I print it out, and I read and read and read some more, while I pace. Because walking helps, for some reason. We live in our own heads too much. It's good to make writing as physical as possible. Sometimes I read out loud, not because I need to sound out big thesaurus words, but because it's easier to tell if you're missing a beat or have an extra beat too many. Writing and music – same difference. It's all about rhythm. And I look like an idiot doing this, quite frankly." [35]

On not being a TV talking head he has said "I have friends who go on TV a lot and say, 'You ought to be on TV.' I don't do it partly because of performance anxiety. I'm pretty sure I'm going to screw it up. Second, it just makes me feel like a fraud. Popping off about issues of the day that I'm considered an expert on simply because I read the paper that morning doesn't feel right to me, which is surprising because I pop off a lot in real life. You take me out to lunch and put a few beers in me and I'll pop off all you want. Going on TV sort of formalizes it. It makes me feel like a dork and that's my rule of thumb public behavior-wise: try not to be a dork." [6]

Honors and awards

"Matt Labash of The Weekly Standard is consistently one of the best magazine writers in the country," David Brooks, editorial columnist for The New York Times wrote in his December 25, 2007 column. Brooks named Labash as one of the winners of the "Sidney Awards" — the columnist's annual naming of the articles he considers the best of the year. [36] [37] Brooks gave Labash another "Sidney Award" two years later for his essay on Marion Barry, "A Rake's Progress." [38]

Personal life

Labash is married to Alana Peruzzi Labash. [39] They live in Owings, Maryland, and have two sons, Luke and Dean. Luke is an avid fly fisher. [18]

His favorite writers include Richard Ford, P.G. Wodehouse, Peter De Vries, Tom Wolfe, Thomas Lynch, and Tom McGuane. [35]

Notes

  1. 1 2 "Interview with Matt Labash, The Weekly Standard". May 2003. Archived from the original on June 3, 2003. Retrieved December 4, 2006. Matt Labash, 32, is a senior writer with The Weekly Standard...
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Labash's Theories on Life". Fishbowl DC.
  3. "Matt Labash". Classmates.
  4. "About Slack Tide". Slack Tide, Substack Publication.
  5. 1 2 "KILLERS LOVED HIM". 17 September 1995.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Interview with Matt Labash, The Weekly Standard -- May 2003" (PDF). ZFacts.
  7. "Marion Barry, Human Being". 23 November 2014.
  8. "A Hitchless World", 16 December 2011
  9. "James Traficant, 1941-2014". 27 September 2014.
  10. "Cooper Duper Newsman". 5 June 2006.
  11. "Michael Moore, One-Trick Phony". 8 June 1998.
  12. "Oswald's Ghosts". 27 October 1995.
  13. "Straight Up". 17 June 2002.
  14. "Among the Palefaces". 23 October 2014.
  15. "Breitbart's Last Laugh". 1 March 2012.
  16. "The Twidiocracy". 6 May 2013.
  17. 1 2 3 4 Warren, Mark (Feb 9, 2010). "Off the Record On the Record with Matt Labash, a Conservative We Love". Esquire Magazine.
  18. 1 2 Montopoli, Brian (Aug 20, 2004). "Matt Labash on Dan Rather's Jammies, Chipotle vs. Burrito Brothers, and Liberal Love for Distilled Spirits". Columbia Journalism Review.
  19. "R U Lovin' Sarah's Alaska?". 29 November 2010.
  20. Labash, Matt (15 October 2011). "Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride". Wall Street Journal via www.wsj.com.
  21. "Matt Labash".
  22. "Matt Labash". Slate Magazine.
  23. "The Seven Deadly Virtues - Templeton Press". Templeton Press.
  24. Nonfiction Book Review: Fly Fishing with Darth Vader: And Other Adventures with Evangelical Wrestlers, Political Hitmen, and Jewish Cowboys by Matt Labash. Simon & Schuster. 9 February 2010. p. 317. ISBN   978-1-4391-5997-2.
  25. Labash, Matt (15 February 2011). "Fly Fishing with Darth Vader: And Other Adventures with Evangelical Wrestlers, Political Hitmen, and Jewish Cowboys". Simon & Schuster via Amazon.
  26. Goldberg, Jeffrey (5 February 2010). "The Funniest Book of the Year". The Atlantic .
  27. Bazelon, Emily (5 February 2010). "Book of the Week: "Fly Fishing With Darth Vader"". Slate.
  28. Lasswell, Mark (Feb 8, 2010). "Casting Widely, Lots of Keepers". Wall Street Journal.
  29. "Review of Fly Fishing with Darth Vader - David Blum".
  30. 1 2 Schmidt, Rob (September 1, 1997). "How sorry is the Standard". Columbia Journalism Review . Retrieved June 24, 2007 via www.allbusiness.com.
  31. Labash, Matt (December 31, 2007). "Pick Me a Candidate: Matt Labash, indecisive". The Weekly Standard . Retrieved December 31, 2007.
  32. "They Like Mike". 17 November 2014.
  33. "Less Is Less". 22 September 2014.
  34. "The Conscience of a Conservative". 6 February 2012.
  35. 1 2 3 4 5 Rothstein, Betsy (Feb 9, 2010). "Matt Labash Unplugged: On Deer Turds, Journalism, Trump's Hair and Dick Cheney". Fishbowl DC.
  36. Labash, Matt (November 5, 2007). "Roger Stone, Political Animal: 'Above all, attack, attack, attack — never defend". The Weekly Standard . Retrieved December 26, 2007.
  37. Brooks, David (December 25, 2007). "The Sidney Awards (column)". The New York Times . Retrieved December 26, 2007.
  38. "Sidney Awards: David Brooks' Best Essays Of 2009 Includes No Women". www.mediaite.com. 26 December 2009.
  39. "Matt Labash Hates Facebook Even More Than You". Archived from the original on 2015-02-25. Retrieved 2015-02-24.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Darth Vader</span> Fictional character in the Star Wars franchise

Darth Vader is a fictional character in the Star Wars franchise. The character is the central antagonist of the original trilogy and, as Anakin Skywalker, is one of the main protagonists in the prequel trilogy. Star Wars creator George Lucas has collectively referred to the first six episodic films of the franchise as "the tragedy of Darth Vader". Darth Vader has become one of the most iconic villains in popular culture, and has been listed among the greatest villains and fictional characters ever. His masked face and helmet, in particular, is one of the most iconic character designs of all time.

<i>The Weekly Standard</i> Former American conservative opinion magazine

The Weekly Standard was an American neoconservative political magazine of news, analysis and commentary, published 48 times per year. Originally edited by founders Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes, the Standard had been described as a "redoubt of neoconservatism" and as "the neocon bible." Its founding publisher, News Corporation, debuted the title on September 18, 1995. In 2009, News Corporation sold the magazine to a subsidiary of the Anschutz Corporation. On December 14, 2018, its owners announced that the magazine was ceasing publication, with the last issue published on December 17. Sources attribute its demise to an increasing divergence between Kristol and other editors' shift towards anti-Trump positions, and the magazine's audience's shift towards Trumpism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Prowse</span> English actor, bodybuilder and weightlifter (1935–2020)

David Charles Prowse was an English actor, bodybuilder, strongman and weightlifter. He portrayed Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy and a manservant in Stanley Kubrick's 1971 film A Clockwork Orange. In 2015, he starred in two documentaries concerning his Darth Vader role, one entitled The Force's Mouth which included Prowse voicing Darth Vader's lines with studio effects applied for the first time, and the other titled I Am Your Father covering the subject of fallout between Prowse and Lucasfilm.

Chef (<i>South Park</i>) Fictional character from South Park

Jerome McElroy, often referred to as "The Chef" or simply "Chef", is a recurring fictional character on the Comedy Central series South Park who was voiced by Isaac Hayes. A cafeteria worker at the local elementary school in the town of South Park, Colorado, Chef is generally portrayed as more intelligent than the other adult residents of the town, and understanding to the children. His advice is often sought by the show's core group of child protagonists—Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman, and Kenny McCormick—as he is the only adult they completely trust. He frequently gives completely honest advice without considering whether it is appropriate for children, usually in the non sequitur form of a lascivious soul song.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arnold Gingrich</span> US editor and publisher

Arnold W. Gingrich was the editor of, and, along with publisher David A. Smart and Henry L. Jackson, co-founder of Esquire magazine. Among his other projects was the political/newsmagazine Ken.

Cultural impact of <i>Star Wars</i> Impact of the Star Wars franchise on popular culture

George Lucas's science fiction multi-film Star Wars saga has had a significant impact on modern popular culture. Star Wars references are deeply embedded in popular culture; references to the main characters and themes of Star Wars are casually made in many English-speaking countries with the assumption that others will understand the reference. Darth Vader has become an iconic villain, while characters such as Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, Chewbacca, C-3PO and R2-D2 have all become widely recognized characters around the world. Phrases such as "evil empire", "May the Force be with you", Jedi mind trick and "I am your father" have become part of the popular lexicon. The first Star Wars film in 1977 was a cultural unifier, enjoyed by a wide spectrum of people.

David "Mudcat" Saunders is a Democratic political strategist and author. Saunders was a senior advisor in the 2008 Presidential campaign of John Edwards. He is widely credited with playing important roles in the election of Mark Warner to the office of Governor of Virginia in 2001 and the election of Jim Webb to the U.S. Senate in 2006.

<i>Chad Vader: Day Shift Manager</i> American web series

Chad Vader: Day Shift Manager is an American fan web sitcom created by Aaron Yonda and Matt Sloan, who wrote, directed, and appeared in the series, which parodies Star Wars. The show's central character is Chad Vader, the day-shift manager at the fictional supermarket Empire Market, who clashes with his customers and employees.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frank Sinatra Has a Cold</span> 1966 biographical article in Esquire magazine

"Frank Sinatra Has a Cold" is a profile of Frank Sinatra written by Gay Talese for the April 1966 issue of Esquire. The article is one of the most famous pieces of magazine journalism ever written and is often considered not only the greatest profile of Frank Sinatra but one of the greatest celebrity profiles ever written. The profile is one of the seminal works of New Journalism and is still widely read, discussed and studied. In the 70th anniversary issue of Esquire in October 2003, the editors declared the piece the "Best Story Esquire Ever Published". Vanity Fair called it "the greatest literary-nonfiction story of the 20th century".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robot Chicken: Star Wars</span> American TV series or program

"Robot Chicken: Star Wars" is a 2007 episode of the television comedy series Robot Chicken, airing as a one-off special during Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block on June 17, 2007. It was released on DVD on July 22, 2008.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matt Sloan (voice actor)</span> American director, voice actor, comedian and YouTuber

Matthew Sloan is an American voice actor, director, writer, and YouTuber from Madison, Wisconsin. He and his friend Aaron Yonda are notable as the co-creators of the web series Chad Vader: Day Shift Manager, in which he voices the title character. Additionally, he appears in season one as the main antagonist, Clint. He later appeared in the first few episodes of the second series as Champion J. Pepper, Clint’s father. Since Chad Vader, he has gone on to voice Darth Vader in various Star Wars media as the sound double for James Earl Jones.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Starkiller</span> Fictional character in Star Wars video games

Starkiller, born Galen Marek and also known as The Apprentice, is the fictional protagonist of the Star Wars: The Force Unleashed video games and literature, part of the now non-canonical Star Wars Legends expanded universe; however, his first appearance was as a guest character, alongside Darth Vader and Yoda, in the fighting video game Soulcalibur IV. He is voiced by and modeled after actor Sam Witwer, who would go on to voice other characters in Star Wars expanded media, most notably Darth Maul and Emperor Palpatine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Palpatine</span> Fictional character and Star Wars antagonist

Sheev Palpatine, also known by his Sith name Darth Sidious, is a fictional character in the Star Wars franchise created by George Lucas. Initially credited as the Emperor in the original trilogy films, he serves as the main antagonist of the nine-film Skywalker saga, in which he is portrayed by Ian McDiarmid. In creating Palpatine, Lucas was inspired by real-world examples of democratic backsliding during the rise and rule of dictators such as Julius Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Adolf Hitler.

<i>Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode III</i> American TV series or program

"Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode III" is a 2010 episode special of the television comedy series Robot Chicken, and the third and final installment in the Annie Award-winning and Emmy-nominated Robot Chicken: Star Wars trilogy. It premiered on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming block on December 19, 2010. The special is 45 minutes long, as opposed to the usual 11-minute Robot Chicken runtime and the 21-minute runtime of the two previous Star Wars specials. It was the final Robot Chicken: Star Wars special.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Soulja Slim</span> American rapper

James Adarryl Tapp Jr., better known by his stage name Soulja Slim, was an American rapper and songwriter. He is perhaps best known for featuring on the U.S. number one hit "Slow Motion".

<i>Star Wars</i> (2015 comic book) Comic book series

Star Wars is an ongoing Star Wars comic series published by Marvel Comics since January 14, 2015. Originally written by Jason Aaron with art by John Cassaday, it is set between the 1977 film Star Wars and its 1980 sequel, The Empire Strikes Back. The series features classic Star Wars characters Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Solo, Chewbacca, C-3PO, and R2-D2. It was one of three new Star Wars comics by Marvel announced in July 2014, along with Darth Vader and the limited series Princess Leia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Doctor Aphra</span> Star Wars character

Doctor Chelli Lona Aphra, or simply Doctor Aphra, is a fictional character in the Star Wars franchise. Created by writer Kieron Gillen, artist Salvador Larroca, and editors Jordan D. White and Heather Antos, she first appeared in Marvel Comics' 2015 Darth Vader comic book series. Aphra became a breakout character, and began appearing in her own ongoing spin-off comic series, Star Wars: Doctor Aphra, from 2016 to 2019, before relaunching in 2020. She is a morally questionable, criminal archaeologist initially employed by Darth Vader in his efforts to replace Palpatine as leader of the Galactic Empire, who later goes into hiding from the former after betraying him to the latter and faking her death, briefly establishing a love–hate relationship with Imperial officer Magna Tolvan. Supported by droids 0-0-0 and BT-1, and later by her former partner Sana Starros, she is considered a war criminal by the Rebel Alliance. Aphra is the first original Star Wars character not from the films to lead a Marvel comic series.

<i>Thrawn: Alliances</i> 2018 novel by Timothy Zahn

Thrawn: Alliances is a 2018 Star Wars novel by Timothy Zahn, published on July 24, 2018 by Del Rey Books. It continues the chronicles of Grand Admiral Thrawn, a character that Zahn originated in his Heir to the Empire trilogy published in 1991–1993. It is the sequel to Zahn's Star Wars: Thrawn novel, the second installment of the newer Thrawn trilogy, and the ninth Thrawn novel overall.

<i>Vader Episode I: Shards of the Past</i> 2018 Star Wars fan film

Vader Episode I: Shards of the Past is a 2018 Star Wars fan film created by Star Wars Theory. On December 20, 2018, a screening was held at the Landmark's Regent Theatre in Los Angeles, CA, and on December 21, 2018, it was released to YouTube. As of October 2022, a sequel, Vader Episode II: The Amethyst Blade is in pre-production. About six minutes of the episode have been released on YouTube via two cinematic teasers, and the full episode is expected to release within the next couple years with a planned third episode in early development.

<i>Obi-Wan Kenobi</i> (TV series) American television miniseries

Obi-Wan Kenobi is an American television miniseries created for the streaming service Disney+. It is part of the Star Wars franchise and stars Ewan McGregor as the title character, reprising his role from the Star Wars prequel trilogy. Set ten years after the events of Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005), the series follows Kenobi as he sets out to rescue the kidnapped Princess Leia from the Galactic Empire, leading to a confrontation with his former apprentice, Darth Vader.